Stressful Situations at Work and in Private Life among Young Workers: An Event Sampling Approach

Most studies on occupational stress concentrateon chronic conditions, whereas research onstressful situations is rather sparse. Using anevent-sampling approach, 80 young workersreported stressful events over 7 days (409work-related and 127 private events). Contentanalysis showed the newcomers' work experiencesto be similar to what is typically found inolder samples (e.g., social stressors,quantitative overload, problems ofcooperation). At work and in private life,social stressors were dominant. Inmultilevel-analyses active coping predictedhigher success in calming down and problemsolving, particularly in controllablesituations. Palliation was positively relatedto successful calming down and negatively toevent-related well-being. With regard to therelationship between chronic conditions andsituational variables, (stable) job control wasassociated with successful calming down instressful situations, and it buffered theeffect of chronic job stressors on successfulsituational calming down, yielding a specificvariant of the demands-control model. Number ofwork-related stressful events, weighted bysignificance, was moderately associated withchronic job stressors. However, while chronicjob stressors predicted momentary well-beingover and above the weighted number of events,events did not predict momentary well-being,and its prediction of stable well-beingdisappeared once chronic stressors werecontrolled. These results show how chronicconditions represent background variables thatnot only have a stronger influence onwell-being but also influence the immediatereaction to stressful encounters.     

Preschool and School Readiness of Children of Immigrants*

Objective. In this article, we use data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey—Kindergarten Cohort to analyze the links between preschool attendance and the school readiness of children of immigrants. Methods. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey—Kindergarten Cohort, we estimate multivariate regression models for the effects of preschool on school readiness for children of immigrants and children of natives. Results. We find that children whose mothers were born outside the United States are less likely to be enrolled in school or center‐based preschool programs than other children. We find that preschool attendance raises reading and math scores as much for children of immigrants as it does for other children. Attending preschool also raises the English‐language proficiency of children of immigrants. Although not the main focus of our study, we examined the effects of Head Start, and found that this program improves children's English proficiency, with especially large effects for children of immigrants whose mothers have less than a high school education; in this latter group, Head Start also improved math scores. Conclusions. Given that preschool benefits children of immigrants as much as it does children of natives and given that children of immigrants are less likely to be enrolled, our findings strongly suggest that enrolling more children of immigrants in preschool would help reduce inequality in skills at school entry.     

"Just like I'm saving money in the bank": client perspectives on care coordination services

Older adults face many challenges to community living. The literature has not sufficiently explored the roles of care coordination in the maintenance of housing and access to health care among older adults, particularly from their own perspectives. This qualitative study analyzes the findings from 25 interviews and 6 focus group discussions (48 participants) with a multiethnic sample of older adults in the New York City area. Care coordination services appear to assist older adults access health care, and to a lesser extent, maintain affordable housing. Disparities in access to care coordination appear to remain for immigrant, minority and suburban populations.     

The Active Audience? Gurus,Management Ideas and Consumer Variability

This study draws on an active audience perspective to develop a better understanding of mass audiences' attraction towards popular management ideas. It focuses on audience members' own experiences and, in particular, what audience activities actually play a role in shaping mass attraction, and how the deployment of these activities may vary. Analysing 65 in‐depth interviews with management practitioners in their role as audience members of guru seminars, the authors identify different key consumption activities, and explain how individual management practitioners may shift in consumption orientation throughout the communication process. This paper argues that such a broader and more dynamic understanding of consumption activity is essential in understanding the success and impact of management ideas, and opens several fruitful research directions.     

Estimation of Fibre Length Distributions from Fibre Endpoints

Estimating the fibre length distribution in composite materials is of practical relevance in materials science. We propose an estimator for the fibre length distribution using the point process of fibre endpoints as input. Assuming that this point process is a realization of a Neyman–Scott process, we use results for the reduced second moment measure to derive a consistent and unbiased estimator for the fibre length distribution. We introduce various versions of the estimator taking anisotropy or errors in the observation into account. The estimator is evaluated using a heuristic for its mean squared error as well as a simulation study. Finally, the estimator is applied to the fibre endpoint process extracted from a tomographic image of a glass fibre composite.     

Posterior consistency for the spectral density of non-Gaussian stationary time series

Various nonparametric approaches for Bayesian spectral density estimation of stationary time series have been suggested in the literature, mostly based on the Whittle likelihood approximation. A generalization of this approximation involving a nonparametric correction of a parametric likelihood has been proposed in the literature with a proof of posterior consistency for spectral density estimation in combination with the Bernstein–Dirichlet process prior for Gaussian time series. In this article, we will extend the posterior consistency result to non-Gaussian time series by employing a general consistency theorem for dependent data and misspecified models. As a special case, posterior consistency for the spectral density under the Whittle likelihood is also extended to non-Gaussian time series. Small sample properties of this approach are illustrated with several examples of non-Gaussian time series.     

Working and caring for a disabled adopted child during a pandemic

Integrating work and family demands can be challenging for families caring for a child with one or more disabilities. The pandemic and its changes to work, schooling and service delivery potentially added to these challenges. This exploratory mixed methods study sought to understand how the pandemic affected adoptive parents' work–life fit and service use. A total of 200 participants responded to survey questions about parenting an adopted child with a disability prior to, and after, the onset of Covid-19. More than half of the parents (59.2%) reported that it was somewhat to very difficult to integrate both work and family demands. Parents with greater access to workplace flexibility and supportive supervisors had significantly less difficulties combining work and family. Families who reported more problems with accessing mental health services, special education and respite care reported significantly more challenges with work–family fit. Parents reported increased stress due to the pandemic changes, but many also shared positive changes such as more time for family. Online services were experienced as effective for some children and reduced time spent driving to appointments. Recommendations for workplace and social service practice and policy supporting adoptive parents of children with disabilities are discussed.     

U.S. Citizen Children De Facto Deported to Mexico

Between 2000 and 2015, the U.S. deported unprecedented numbers of Mexican immigrants. During the same period, the population of U.S.-born children living in Mexico doubled in size. This study estimates the number of U.S.-born children who emigrated to Mexico from the United States in order to accompany a deported parent: de facto deported children. The data come from the Mexican National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (ENADID), a national probability sample of households in Mexico collected in 2014 and 2018. About one in six U.S.-born children living in Mexico in 2014/2018, amounting to an estimated 80,000–100,000 U.S.-born children, were there because the U.S. government deported one or both of their parents. De facto deported U.S.-born children are socioeconomically disadvantaged in Mexico compared to U.S.-born children whose parents migrate to Mexico for other reasons. Women are overrepresented among deported people who bring their U.S.-born children to Mexico, and when deported mothers bring their children, they are far less likely to do so with a partner than are deported fathers. U.S. policy should consider the interests of U.S. citizen children forced to live abroad when redesigning immigration and child welfare policies.