The Untold Story of 50 Years of Adolescent Fertility in West Africa: A Cohort Perspective on the Quantum,Timing, and Spacing of Adolescent Childbearing

Although recent studies examine overall fertility trends in West Africa, few using advanced demographic techniques focus on adolescents. This study explores long‐term patterns of adolescent childbearing in 12 West African countries using 51 Demographic and Health Surveys covering birth cohorts that span 54 years (1940–1994). We employ classic demographic measures as well as disaggregation by early‐ (10–14 years old), middle‐ (15–17), and late adolescence (18–19). Cohort‐based estimates of total adolescent births, parity progression ratios, and rapid repeat birth probabilities reveal little change over time. Most women begin childbearing in adolescence, the progression to additional adolescent births remains common, and the incidence of rapid repeat births is high. In recent cohorts, women exit adolescence with an average of between 0.4 (Ghana) to 1.3 (Niger) births. Contrary to common assumptions, it is women commencing motherhood in early‐ and middle‐, not later adolescence, who account for most West African adolescent fertility.     

Interactive Effects of Major Response Facilitators

Practitioners and researchers have long been interested in achieving the highest response rate within resource constraints on their mailed surveys. Achieving this high response rate typically has required the selection of the right mix of response-facilitating techniques. The selection decisions were generally made under the assumption that the response-facilitating techniques act independently of one another. The authors have examined the validity of this independence assumption by identifying the major response facilitators in use and then analyzing the results of 531 independent mail survey studies. The authors conclude that major facilitators do not function independently. In fact, it was found that significant joint action interactive effects on response rates do exist. Practitioners and researchers who are faced with the survey design decisions of choosing response facilitators can receive assistance by reviewing the results of this diverse collection of reported experiences.     

The female aging body: A systematic review of female perspectives on aging,health, and body image

While most body image research has focused on young female populations, evidence has shown that as few as 12% of older women are satisfied with their body size. Recent studies have also highlighted how anti-aging discourses are promoting unrealistic body norms, which have shown to contribute to poor body image and altered health behaviors. A systematic review of empirical studies focused on older women’s perspectives of health, body image, and the aging body is presented. Findings support that body image is a persistent, lifelong issue for women and should be considered when implementing healthy aging policies and practices.     

Families,meals and synchronicity: eating together in British dual earner families

Based on a sample of British dual earner families with young children drawn from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, the paper examines their food practices, in particular the conditions under which families are able to eat together or not during the working week. The concept of synchronicity is drawn upon to shed light on whether meals and meal times are coordinated in family life and the facilitators and constraints upon coordination. The paper suggests that whether families eat together is not only influenced by parents' work time schedules but also children's timetables relating to their age and bodily tempos, their childcare regimes, their extra-curricular activities and the problem of coordinating different food preferences and tastes.     

Mothers' and Fathers' Well‐Being in Parenting Across the Arch of Child Development

Limited research on parental well‐being by child age suggests that parents are better off with very young children despite intense time demands of caring for them. This study uses the American Time Use Survey Well‐Being Module (N = 18,124) to assess how parents feel in activities with children of different ages. Results show that parents are worse off with adolescent children relative to young children. Parents report the lowest levels of happiness with adolescents relative to younger children, and mothers report more stress and less meaning with adolescents. Controlling for contextual features of parenting including activity type, solo parenting, and restorative time does not fully account for the adolescent disadvantage in fathers' happiness or mothers' stress. This study highlights adolescence as a particularly difficult stage for parental well‐being and shows that mothers shoulder stress that fathers do not, even after accounting for differences in the context of their parenting activities.     

Employees’ prosocial behavioral intentions through empowerment in CSR decision-making

This study theorizes and empirically tests a conceptual framework to understand how a company can better motivate its employees to carry out persistent prosocial behavior and develop positive organization-employee relationships through corporate social responsibility (CSR) involvement. A managerial approach, employee participative decision making in CSR, is examined for its impact on the prosocial behavioral outcome among employees and the relational outcome for the organization. Furthermore, a psychological mechanism that emphasizes employees’ perceived need satisfaction is examined as the underlying explanation that drives the effectiveness of the managerial approach. The study results support that empowering employees to co-construct CSR decisions with top management is effective in satisfying employees’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This in turn increases the employees’ intention to maintain long-lasting involvement in CSR and improves their relationships with the company. This study provides important implications for public relations professionals and organizational leaders on how to improve their internal CSR communication and involvement practice and cultivate desirable organization-employee relationships.     

Contrasting perspectives of parents and service providers on respite care in Queensland,Australia

Abstract

Parent-carers need support to continue to care for their child with significant disability in their home. There has, however, been little evidence that respite interventions have consistent or enduring beneficial effects on carer well-being. This article reports the findings of a qualitative study which adopted an Appreciative Inquiry philosophy to interview parent-carers of children with significant intellectual and/or developmental disabilities on how formal support services have helped them maintain their health and well-being, and disability support staff on how they help such parent-carers foster their health and well-being. We conclude that better communication and collaboration between service providers and users, more targeted training of workers, and embracing a person-centred and family-centred approach to respite services are needed. In addition, clearer definition and communication of the scope of respite services are required to best support families of children with significant disability in their home.     

Adolescents' perspectives on relationships with grandparents: The contribution of adolescent, grandparent, and parent–grandparent relationship variables

There is limited research on adolescent–grandparent relationships, especially from the adolescent perspective and on large-scale samples. The study examined the associations between the adolescent–grandparent relationship (i.e., importance of, emotional closeness to, and respect for grandparents' views) and the characteristics of the adolescent, grandparent, and parent–grandparent relationship, as well as the interactions between several of these factors. It was based on a representative sample of 1478 students aged 11–16 from England and Wales who completed a structured questionnaire. Results supported the position that grandparents are a significant factor in the lives of adolescents. Findings of hierarchical regression analyses showed that more frequent contact, greater grandparent involvement, and better parent–grandparent relationships predicted adolescents' reports on higher levels of emotional closeness to, importance of, and respect for their closest grandparent's views. The interactions consistently emphasized the role of parents as gatekeepers of intergenerational exchange.     

Children’s Strategies for Agency in Preschool

This article is based on an ethnographic study of children’s everyday life in Swedish preschools. The ethnography is used to explore children’s strategies for influencing, defending and constructing the social order of a preschool institution. The focus of our concern is on how the children, in their interactions with each other and with the preschool teachers, manage the collective regulation and how they negotiate their participation in collective activities. There is an inherent tension between free play and the high degree of routinised and collective activities within the preschool institution. The study shows that children are active in playing at the border, acting as if the institution is the children’s place. It also shows how they draw on different strategies as resources for managing the regulations, accounting for personal autonomy and negotiating the social order. In taking a child perspective and acknowledging children as active agents, it is possible to see how they influence and shape their everyday life in a preschool context. In addition, the article illustrates individual children’s strategic and pragmatic use of resources and in doing so contribute to their own childhood and thereby become part of a social and cultural construction process.