Work Roles, Management and Perceived Well-being for Married Women within Family Businesses

The study uses the National Family Business Survey and is grounded in the systemic Sustainable Family Business Model. It investigated the relationship between management activity of married women within family businesses and perceived well-being controlling for work roles, family context, personal and financial resources. Statistical analyses indicated that successfully achieving the most important family goal was positively related to management activity. Low-income women performed more management than did those with other income levels. Successfully achieving family goals, having lower education, less competition between family and business resources, no family cash flow problems, and higher management activity contributed to positive perceived well-being. Well-being increased at a decreasing rate as income increased.This study reports results from the Cooperative Regional Research Project, NE-167R, ‘Family Businesses: Interaction in Work and Family Spheres,’ partially supported by the Cooperative States Research, Education and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Experiment Stations at University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Illinois, Purdue University (Indiana), Iowa State University, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, Montana State University, University of Nebraska, Cornell University (New York), North Dakota State University, The Ohio State University, The Pennsylvania State University, Texas A & M University, Utah State University, The University of Vermont, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (for The University of Manitoba).     

What constitutes agency and empowerment for women in later life?

Ageing ‘successfully’ in western society has often been associated with material issues relating to declining health, social care and welfare. Indeed, it has been suggested that these topics have dominated the study of ageing leading to overly pessimistic accounts of later life ( Phillipson, 1998 ). It is also the case that the concepts used to measure agency and empowerment, such as autonomy and in/dependence, are often uncritically understood and applied from a Western (British/American) standpoint. Here success is associated with individual potential, or the ability to adapt to the ‘challenges’ of growing older. Ultimately, this means that culturally diverse interpretations and experiences of what constitutes agency and empowerment, that may challenge such an account, are rendered invisible. In response, this paper examines and reflects upon the meanings that older women from different ethnic backgrounds give to agency and empowerment in later life. The empirical accounts discussed in the paper suggest that the meanings attached to autonomy, independence and agency and empowerment are contextually based.     

Independence in assisted living

The aims of this study were to understand the meaning of independence for residents of assisted living and to identify factors influencing the operationalization of independence in this setting. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 17 providers and 55 residents in 17 assisted-living facilities in Georgia. Data were analyzed by using the grounded theory method. Findings show that assisted-living residents retained a strong value for independence and that independence had multiple dimensions of meaning. Whereas independence in most cases was reduced to performing everyday activities of daily living (ADLs), the multidimensional nature of meaning allowed residents with significant disability both to continue to perceive themselves as independent and to find satisfaction in their remaining abilities. Resident self-care requires significant effort from both residents and providers, but it also has far-reaching potential to help residents maintain intact identities and may hold the key to extending their stay in the assisted-living facility (ALF) environment.     

Differences in Perception of Risk Between People Who Have and Have Not Experienced Salmonella Food Poisoning

It is believed that food hygiene precautions in domestic kitchens are an important strategy in efforts to reduce the incidence of sporadic food poisoning, but recent research has shown that people who have suffered food poisoning handle the same types of foods and adopt similar food hygiene precautions in their kitchens to the rest of the population. This suggests the need to examine other factors. A case-control study of sporadic Salmonella food poisoning was conducted to investigate several domestic kitchen risk factors. Measures of perception of risk, knowledge, and control associated with food poisoning in case and control respondents are reported here. It was found that perceived personal risk from food poisoning in the home was less than perceived risk to other people. In contrast, ratings of personal knowledge about food poisoning and personal control over food poisoning in the home were seen to be greater than other people's knowledge and control. There were no differences between the cases and the controls in their ratings of knowledge about food poisoning or their control over food poisoning. However, cases perceived their personal risk from food poisoning to be higher than controls. Both case and control samples exhibited optimistic bias but this was reduced in the case sample, suggesting that experience with food poisoning may reduce optimistic bias.     

THE ESTIMATED EFFECT OF MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT ON CHILDREN UNDER MANDATORY AND NON-MANDATORY EMPLOYMENT CIRCUMSTANCES

Maternal employment's association with young school-age children's academic and behavioural outcomes was examined in a sample of families currently or recently receiving welfare. The sample comprised 1,197 African-American mothers and their preschool-age children who were randomly assigned either to the ‘human capital development’ (HCD) programme, the ‘labor force attachment’ (LFA) programme or to the control group in the Atlanta site of the Child Outcomes Study, a substudy of the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS). Once observed selection effects were controlled, maternal employment — regardless of whether obtained under mandatory or non-mandatory circumstances — was largely unrelated to contemporaneous measures of five to seven year olds’ academic school readiness and behaviour. There was one exception: maternal employment secured through Atlanta's HCD programme significantly predicted fewer and/or less frequent antisocial behaviours even after observed selection factors were controlled. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

An analysis of children and young people's calls to ChildLine about abuse and neglect: a study for the Scottish Child Protection Review

In 2001 a young child, who was known to child protection agencies, was murdered by her stepfather. Following a recommendation of an inquiry into her death, a ministerial multidisciplinary review of child protection across Scotland was carried out. The review aimed to promote the reduction of abuse or neglect of children and to improve the services for children who experience abuse or neglect. It was carried out by a multidisciplinary team and the report made 16 recommendations. The review was informed by a series of sub‐projects. This paper describes one sub‐project that aimed to collect the views of children and young people who might have been abused but might not have had contact with child protection agencies. The study was carried out in conjunction with ChildLine Scotland. Call data for one year were made available for quantitative analysis. Qualitative analysis was carried out on the counsellors' notes on all calls relating to abuse and neglect taken during a 2‐week period. Children described signi?cant levels of abuse and neglect. Many had told no‐one of the abuse and in particular had not contacted child protection agencies. The paper considers the implications of the ?ndings for the child protection system. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Role of the Father‐Adolescent Relationship in Shaping Adolescents’ Attitudes Toward Divorce

The quality of father‐adolescent relationships, especially for nontraditional fathers, has been neglected in investigating adolescents’ beliefs. Closeness of father‐adolescent relationships was examined as a predictor of adolescents’ attitudes toward divorce. A sample of European and African American adolescents (N = 300) reported on the quality of father‐adolescent relationships in 11th grade and their attitudes toward divorce at age 19. Boys who felt close to their biological custodial fathers, biological noncustodial fathers, and stepfathers felt less likely to divorce in the future than boys who did not feel close to their fathers. The same was not true for girls. Feeling close to a father—regardless of father type—is associated with boys’ confidence in the stability of their future marriages.     

The study of language variation and change: Changes in progress?

Book reviewed in this article:
J. K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill and Natalie Schilling–Estes (eds.), The Handbook of Language Variation and Change