The Relationship Between Disadvantaged Fathers’ Employment Stability,Workplace Flexibility,and Involvement With Their Infant Children

ABSTRACT

In the United States, the slow pace of economic recovery and change in the workplace has created barriers for disadvantaged fathers to engage with their infant children. Using secondary data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (n = 1,548), one of a few national studies that examine disadvantaged fathers, we conducted a series of regression analyses examining the relationship between disadvantaged fathers’ employment stability, workplace flexibility, and involvement with their infant children. The results showed that resident, younger, Black, higher income-earning fathers and fathers with stable employment and workplace flexibility were more involved with their infant children. This study provides additional evidence to the literature espousing the importance of workplace policies and arrangements that provide employees with stability and flexibility in the workplace. In doing so, policymakers, employers, and practitioners should develop and implement workplace policies and arrangements strengthening the relationships between disadvantaged fathers and their children and families, employees and their employers, businesses and their consumers, and businesses and their communities. With changes in the American household and workforce nationwide, especially as they relate to men and disadvantaged fathers, it is important that future research continue to examine the relationship between these two entities.     

Acute health effects of transported air pollution: A study of children attending a residential summer camp

Sulphur dioxide was very low throughout the study period, with the highest hourly value reaching only 8.9 ppb. Sulphuric acid concentrations were usually below the detectable limit of 2 μg/m³. The highest hourly concentrations of 5 μg/m³ were attained on days of relatively low sulphur concentrations. Due to the low concentrations of SO₂ and H₂SO₄, these environmental variables will not be considered further here. The environmental factors of interest are PM_2.5, SO₄⁼, O₃ (one-hour maximum), temperature, and relative humidity, where SO₄⁼, temperature, and relative humidity are averages of continuous measurements over the sampling period. The values of these variables are listed by lung-function testing period in Table 1. Two periods of elevated pollution levels occurred during the study period, the first lasting from 30 June P. M. to 1 July P. M., and the second from 3 July P. M. to 4 July P. M. On four of the nine days, the current Ontario air-quality standard for ozone of 80 ppb (1-hour maximum) was attained or exceeded. A back-trajectory analysis conducted by Environment Canada showed air-mass transport from the Ohio valley on both 30 June and 3 July. Fifty-two campers, including 23 asthmatics (12 boys and 11 girls) and 29 nonasthmatics (16 boys and 13 girls), completed all components of the study. The mean values of the three lung-function indictors (FVC, FEV_1.0, and PEF) for asthmatics and nonasthmatics are given in Table 2 for each of 18 testing periods. The first testing period (29 June P. M.) was considered as a training session and is not included in this presentation. The three lung-function responses tend to follow a similar pattern over time, with the highest responses occurring at the beginning of the camp, followed by a steep decline for several subsequent testing periods. A gradual increase is then observed, with some stabilization occurring near the completion of the camp. The child-specific variation in lung function over time is given in Table 3. There are appreciable differences in the variance of the lung-function measurements between children, with asthmatics tending to exhibit larger variances than their nonasthmatic counterparts. Table 4 gives the frequency of a positive response to several questions concerning respiratory symptoms for each session for asthmatics and nonasthmatics respectively. Here, a positive response to Cough and Sneeze is defined as an occurrence of these symptoms five or more times since the previous lung-function testing session. The number of children using medication since the last session is also reported. The consultants were asked to explore the possibility that the environmental factors in Table 1 may affect lung-function performance as measured by the parameters in Table 2 or occurrence of the respiratory symptoms summarized in Table 4. Differences in response between asthmatics and nonasthmatics are also of interest.     

Air pollution effects on hospital admission rates: A random effects modeling approach

Statistical methods are proposed to analyze parallel time series of hospital-based health data and measurements of ambient air pollution. Specifically, associations between the number of daily health events (hospital admissions or emergency-room visits for respiratory illnesses) and daily levels of ambient air pollutants in the vicinity of several hospitals are examined. A relative-risk regression model is proposed in which the regression parameters are assumed to vary at random among hospitals. Adjustment for seasonal trends in admissions are also considered. Simple computational methods based on generalized estimating equations are explored as the basis for statistical inference. The proposed methods are illustrated on data obtained from 164 acute-care hospitals in Ontario over the May-to-August period for 1983 to 1988. These admission rates are related to ozone levels obtained from 22 monitoring stations maintained by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.     

Including structural measurement errors in the nonlinear regression analysis of clustered data

This paper extends methods for nonlinear regression analysis that have developed for the analysis of clustered data. Its novelty lies in its dual incorporation of random cluster effects and structural error in the measurement of the explanatory variables. Moments up to second order are assumed to have been specified for the latter to enable a generalized estimating equations approach to be used for fitting and testing nonlinear models linking response to these explanatory variables and random effects. Taylor expansion methods are used, and a difficulty with earlier approaches overcome. Finally we describe an application of this methodology to indicate how it can be used. That application concerns the degree of association of hospital admissions for acute respiratory health problems and air pollution.     

United States public policy and the elderly

Cross-sectional comparisons show that poverty among the aged in the United States has dropped dramatically over the last two decades. We use longitudinal data to identify economic events associated with unfavorable economic outcomes and to trace the influence of these events on women and men at different ages. We find that while social insurance programs appear to prevent severe financial hardship from the most frequent work-related events, they are far less effective in cushioning the economic impact of widowhood and divorce, especially for women. We suggest a number of policy changes that would provide some measure of social insurance against adverse family-related events.This paper was presented at the ISPE Conference on the Fiscal Implications of an Aging Population, Limburg, The Netherlands, May 30, 1990. The authors shared equally in writing the paper and are listed alphabetically. The paper was completed while R. V. Burkhauser was a fellow at The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Deborah Laren provided superb research assistance.     

Addressing Emotional Communication in Family Relationships in the Treatment of Young People with Anorexia: A Case Study

Family‐based treatment (FBT) is an evidence‐based approach to anorexia nervosa in young people. Because it is not always successful, attention has been given to how families experience the treatment. A number of therapists have proposed possible additions to, or improvements in, the model. In successful cases relational containment may be achieved in the first phase of treatment. The treatment is often successful, but when initial goals, such as weight recovery, are not achieved, continuing to use the techniques described in the manual may become unhelpful. Sometimes therapists may need to address issues such as emotion coaching that are not specifically addressed in the FBT model. We describe a case in which the therapist addressed the family's emotional style in the first stage of treatment. This focus enabled progress to be achieved despite the adolescent's continuing difficulty in eating without parental support, and her escalating symptoms of anxiety and obsessional compulsive disorder (OCD). Therapy helped the adolescent and family understand that anorexic and OCD symptoms can be understood as a way of distracting from and managing distress. When this connection was made in therapy, the parents could help their daughter to manage distress in more adaptive ways. Parents may need help with their own difficulties in processing distress. In this case the parents needed the opportunity to resolve feelings of grief about a miscarriage in order to do so. We propose that therapy should address family difficulties with managing distress from an early stage.