Changes in work and care trajectories during the transition to motherhood

In most mid- and high-income countries, there have been significant demographic, structural, and cultural changes in the past decades. However, we know little about how these changes have shaped women's work patterns during a key life stage: the transition to motherhood. Using longitudinal data from Chile, covering over 30 years of employment histories and three periods of first births (1980–2010), I conduct sequence analysis to identify women's work-care trajectories during an eight-year period of the transition to motherhood. Over time, I find that continuous care work at home has declined, for which education plays a key role, while the chances of working continuously have not changed over time. Instead, I find an increasing trend of unsteady paths that combine paid work with either caretaking or unemployment. I discuss how these changes, as well as their association with education, have important implications for both gender and social inequality.     

Middle School Children's Perceptions on Welfare and Poverty: An Exploratory, Qualitative Study

This study was undertaken to determine how middle school children assess the effects of welfare reform on their daily lives. The study consisted of thirty interviews with children and their mothers recruited from a middle school in a large, metropolitan area. From the children's perspective, multiple jobs and evening/night hours interfered with the child-parent relationship. Other consequences included grades going down and not getting to school on time. All the children stated that mothers should work, but most children felt mothers should only work when their children are in school. Welfare and poverty were issues about which children were teased at school.     

Gender,lineage, and fertility‐related outcomes in Ghana

A growing literature examines the empirical relationship between the joint reproductive preferences of marital partners and reproductive outcomes in Africa. Less explored is how spousal power in decision making may be influenced by lineage type. Using pooled data from Ghana, we investigate how lineage affects gendered reproductive decision outcomes and find some evidence that matrilineal women are more able than nonmatrilineal women to translate their reproductive preferences into action consistent with their goals.     

Direct and Indirect Causal Effects via Potential Outcomes*

Abstract. The use of the concept of ‘direct’ versus ‘indirect’ causal effects is common, not only in statistics but also in many areas of social and economic sciences. The related terms of ‘biomarkers’ and ‘surrogates’ are common in pharmacological and biomedical sciences. Sometimes this concept is represented by graphical displays of various kinds. The view here is that there is a great deal of imprecise discussion surrounding this topic and, moreover, that the most straightforward way to clarify the situation is by using potential outcomes to define causal effects. In particular, I suggest that the use of principal stratification is key to understanding the meaning of direct and indirect causal effects. A current study of anthrax vaccine will be used to illustrate ideas.     

How do I get my way? A meta-analytic review of research on influence tactics

Despite considerable research investigating the role of influence tactics on work-related outcomes in organizations, consensus on the effectiveness of influence tactics has been elusive. Specifically, there is a lack of integration concerning the relationships between proactive influence tactics and their outcomes. We investigate the effectiveness of 11 influence tactics from a comprehensive perspective using meta-analytic techniques. In particular, the current study focuses on relationships between each of the 11 influence tactics (i.e., rational persuasion, exchange, inspirational appeal, legitimating, apprising, pressure, collaboration, ingratiation, consultation, personal appeals, and coalition) and task- and relations-oriented outcomes. In addition, we investigate the moderating effects of the direction of influence tactics, measurement of influence tactics, singular influence tactic (versus use of a combination of influence tactics), independence of data sources, and study setting involved in the study. Regardless of task- and relations-oriented outcomes, based on 49 independent samples (N = 8987), our results show positive relationships between outcomes and rational persuasion, inspirational appeal, apprising, collaboration, ingratiation, consultation, and a negative relationship between pressure and outcomes. Rational persuasion is the only tactic which held stable positive relationships with both categories of outcomes regardless of moderating factors. Implications and directions for future research in the area of influence tactics are discussed.     

Dealing with context in logic model development: Reflections from a realist evaluation of a community health worker programme in Nigeria

Logic models (LMs) have been used in programme evaluation for over four decades. Current debate questions the ability of logic modelling techniques to incorporate contextual factors into logic models. We share experience of developing a logic model within an ongoing realist evaluation which assesses the extent to which, and under what circumstances a community health workers (CHW) programme promotes access to maternity services in Nigeria. The article contributes to logic modelling debate by: i) reflecting on how other scholars captured context during LM development in theory-driven evaluations; and ii) explaining how we explored context during logic model development for realist evaluation of the CHW programme in Nigeria. Data collection methods that informed our logic model development included documents review, email discussions and teleconferences with programme stakeholders and a technical workshop with researchers to clarify programme goals and untangle relationships among programme elements. One of the most important findings is that, rather than being an end in itself, logic model development is an essential step for identifying initial hypotheses for tentative relevant contexts, mechanisms and outcomes (CMOs) and CMO configurations of how programmes produce change. The logic model also informed development of a methodology handbook that is guiding verification and consolidation of underlying programme theories.     

Mothers' work patterns and Children's cognitive achievement: Evidence from the India Human Development survey

As female labor force participation increases globally, the relationship between maternal employment and children's development remains unclear. Using data from the India Human Development Survey (2005), we investigate the link between maternal employment and children's arithmetic and reading achievement. We develop a work pattern typology that goes beyond standard measures of employment and captures work intensity and its compatibility with child-rearing in a transitional economy. We find that the relationship between maternal employment and children's outcomes is not unidimensional. For example, children of self-employed mothers are not disadvantaged compared to those with stay-at-home mothers, but maternal employment in salaried jobs or wage work outside the home is negatively associated with cognitive skills in children. However, this negative association is reversed at higher levels of maternal education, suggesting greater access to resources and flexibility associated with better jobs mitigate the negative aspects of maternal employment posed by time constraints. Additionally, maternal employment is associated with maternal involvement in schoolwork and financial investment in academic activities, providing evidence that both time and resources devoted to children's education are significant.     

A Tiered Framework for Risk‐Relevant Characterization and Ranking of Chemical Exposures: Applications to the National Children's Study (NCS)

A challenge for large‐scale environmental health investigations such as the National Children's Study (NCS), is characterizing exposures to multiple, co‐occurring chemical agents with varying spatiotemporal concentrations and consequences modulated by biochemical, physiological, behavioral, socioeconomic, and environmental factors. Such investigations can benefit from systematic retrieval, analysis, and integration of diverse extant information on both contaminant patterns and exposure‐relevant factors. This requires development, evaluation, and deployment of informatics methods that support flexible access and analysis of multiattribute data across multiple spatiotemporal scales. A new “Tiered Exposure Ranking” (TiER) framework, developed to support various aspects of risk‐relevant exposure characterization, is described here, with examples demonstrating its application to the NCS. TiER utilizes advances in informatics computational methods, extant database content and availability, and integrative environmental/exposure/biological modeling to support both “discovery‐driven” and “hypothesis‐driven” analyses. “Tier 1” applications focus on “exposomic” pattern recognition for extracting information from multidimensional data sets, whereas second and higher tier applications utilize mechanistic models to develop risk‐relevant exposure metrics for populations and individuals. In this article, “tier 1” applications of TiER explore identification of potentially causative associations among risk factors, for prioritizing further studies, by considering publicly available demographic/socioeconomic, behavioral, and environmental data in relation to two health endpoints (preterm birth and low birth weight). A “tier 2” application develops estimates of pollutant mixture inhalation exposure indices for NCS counties, formulated to support risk characterization for these endpoints. Applications of TiER demonstrate the feasibility of developing risk‐relevant exposure characterizations for pollutants using extant environmental and demographic/socioeconomic data.     

Planning an integrated agriculture and health program and designing its evaluation: Experience from Western Kenya

Multi-sectoral programs that involve stakeholders in agriculture, nutrition and health care are essential for responding to nutrition problems such as vitamin A deficiency among pregnant and lactating women and their infants in many poor areas of lower income countries. Yet planning such multi-sectoral programs and designing appropriate evaluations, to respond to different disciplinary cultures of evidence, remain a challenge. We describe the context, program development process, and evaluation design of the Mama SASHA project (Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa) which promoted production and consumption of a bio-fortified, orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP). In planning the program we drew upon information from needs assessments, stakeholder consultations, and a first round of the implementation evaluation of a pilot project. The multi-disciplinary team worked with partner organizations to develop a program theory of change and an impact pathway which identified aspects of the program that would be monitored and established evaluation methods. Responding to the growing demand for greater rigour in impact evaluations, we carried out quasi-experimental allocation by health facility catchment area, repeat village surveys for assessment of change in intervention and control areas, and longitudinal tracking of individual mother-child pairs. Mid-course corrections in program implementation were informed by program monitoring, regular feedback from implementers and partners’ meetings. To assess economic efficiency and provide evidence for scaling we collected data on resources used and project expenses. Managing the multi-sectoral program and the mixed methods evaluation involved bargaining and trade-offs that were deemed essential to respond to the array of stakeholders, program funders and disciplines involved.