Marital and Cohabitation Dissolution and Parental Depressive Symptoms in Fragile Families

The consequences of divorce are pronounced for parents of young children, and cohabitation dissolution is increasing in this population and has important implications. The mental health consequences of union dissolution were examined, by union type and parental gender, using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n= 1,998 for mothers and 1,764 for fathers). Overall, cohabitation and marital dissolution were both associated with increased maternal and paternal depressive symptoms, though for married mothers, depressive symptoms returned to predissolution levels with time. Difference‐in‐difference estimates indicated no differences in the magnitude of the increase in depressive symptoms by type of dissolution, though pooled difference models suggested that married fathers increased in depressive symptoms more than cohabiting fathers. Potential time‐variant mediators did not account for these associations, though greater family chaos was associated with increased maternal depressive symptoms, and decreased social support and father–child contact were associated with increased paternal depressive symptoms.     

Father Involvement and Childhood Injuries

Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for children in the United States. Parental supervision is a key factor in preventing injuries, but little is known about the role of fathers. Today, one quarter of children live with a single mother, and another third live with a mother and her new partner, resulting in tremendous diversity in the amount and type of paternal involvement in children's lives. The authors examined the effects of involvement by resident biological, nonresident biological, and resident social fathers on the risk of injury among children from birth to age 5 using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,352). They found that living with a social father and social fathers' more frequent engagement with children increase risk of injury, but only for the youngest children. Higher levels of fathers' cooperative parenting reduce children's risk of injury regardless of fathers' biological or residential status.     

Estimating and using propensity score in presence of missing background data: an application to assess the impact of childbearing on wellbeing

Propensity score methods are an increasingly popular technique for causal inference. To estimate propensity scores, we must model the distribution of the treatment indicator given a vector of covariates. Much work has been done in the case where the covariates are fully observed. Unfortunately, many large scale and complex surveys, such as longitudinal surveys, suffer from missing covariate values. In this paper, we compare three different approaches and their underlying assumptions of handling missing background data in the estimation and use of propensity scores: a complete-case analysis, a pattern-mixture model based approach developed by Rosenbaum and Rubin (J Am Stat Assoc79:516–524, 1984), and a multiple imputation approach. We apply these methods to assess the impact of childbearing events on individuals’ wellbeing in Indonesia, using a sample of women from the Indonesia Family Life Survey. I am grateful to all the participants at the project “Poverty Dynamics and Fertility in Developing Countries” for their support and encouragement. Special thanks are due to Fabrizia Mealli for her insightful suggestions and discussions. I also thank Jungho Kim, who is the main author of the STATA code to produce Indonesia consumption expenditure. Finally, I thank Arnstein Aassve, and Letizia Mencarini for help working with the data and their very useful discussions, and Alexia Fuernkranz-Prskawetz, and Henriette Engelhardt for detailed comments and suggestions which have improved the paper. Financial support from CNR-EFS and COFIN 2005 is gratefully acknowledged.     

Who should care for our kids? The effects of infant child care on early child development

This paper examines the relationship between various types of child care during the first year of a child's life and the child's language and social development measured at age three. A unique contribution of the paper is the estimation of a general selection-correction model that accounts for non-random selection of children into different types of child care. The analysis uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), a birth cohort of children born to predominantly low-income single mothers. The results indicate that compared with maternal care, relative care during infancy has more beneficial effects on a child's language development, while day care centers have more beneficial effects on a child's behavioral development.     

Carers of People with Mental Illness from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities

Australia is a multicultural country and it is common for families from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities to care for their relatives with mental illness. However, there are limited Australian studies examining the experiences of informal carers of people with mental illness from CALD communities. A scoping review was conducted to search for peer-reviewed articles reporting the perception of carers regarding their caregiving experiences, wellbeing, and needs. Using cultural responsiveness as a conceptual framework, this study analysed the findings of the identified studies to generate themes. Findings show that carers experience severe caregiving challenges and face considerably poor culturally oriented services in mental health. Social work implications concerning the need to provide culturally responsive practice in mental health services are discussed.     

Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries: Reviewing the Role of Qualitative Methods

The authors review the contribution of qualitative methods to exploring concepts and experiences of wellbeing among children and adults living in developing countries. They provide examples illustrating the potential of these methods for gaining a holistic and contextual understanding of people’s perceptions and experiences. Some of these come from Young Lives, an innovative long-term international research project investigating the changing nature of child poverty in India, Ethiopia, Peru and Vietnam (), and others from the Wellbeing in Developing Countries ESRC research group (WeD), an international, inter-disciplinary project exploring the social and cultural construction of wellbeing in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Thailand (). The authors show how qualitative methods can be used both alongside and as part of the development of sensitive and relevant quantitative measures, and provide some practical and methodological recommendations. They propose that qualitative approaches are essential in understanding people’s experiences of wellbeing, both now and in the future. However, the authors caution that while these offer many benefits, for example, a less structured and hierarchical engagement between researcher and participant; they require time, energy, and sensitivity. Qualitative methods also work best when used by trained and experienced researchers working in the local language/s in a community where some rapport has already been established. Finally, the paper recommends combining data from qualitative and quantitative approaches (e.g. psychological measures or household surveys) to enhance its explanatory power.

Veteran Status,Race‐Ethnicity,and Marriage Among Fragile Families

We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,679 ) to examine the impact of men's past military service on the likelihood that a couple will marry within 5 years of a nonmarital birth. Logistic regression analyses showed that men's past military service increased marriage odds by 54% for couples with Black fathers even after controlling for potential mediators. But veteran status had no effect on couples with White or Hispanic fathers. As a result, the large Black‐White gap in postbirth marriage evident among couples with civilian fathers did not exist among couples with veteran fathers. Our findings bolster other evidence that military service exerts lasting and unique pro‐marriage effects on Blacks.     

Measuring Changes in Family Wellbeing in New Zealand 1981–2001

Since the mid-1980s, New Zealand has experienced extensive economic, social and political reforms. The economic impact of these changes has been closely monitored and much commented upon. However, the social impacts of the reforms on different family types are less well understood. This paper outlines a project designed to monitor how the reforms impacted upon specific family types via the use of indicators of family wellbeing constructed from census data. These indicators show that for a range of family types, the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s varied in their impact, with single-parent families faring worst.

Burnout and Wellbeing: Testing the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory in New Zealand Teachers

The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) is a public domain questionnaire measuring the degree of physical and psychological fatigue experienced in three sub-dimensions of burnout: personal, work-related, and client-related burnout. This study first examines the reliability and validity of the CBI in measuring burnout in New Zealand secondary school teachers, and then the relationship between burnout and wellbeing among this population. The CBI had acceptable reliability (internal consistency and homogeneity) as well as factorial and criterion-related validity. As expected, burnout was negatively related to wellbeing measures (wellbeing index, school connection, and perceived general health). The findings indicate that this burnout questionnaire is a valid instrument to use with New Zealand secondary teachers, and also highlight the potential impact of burnout on the health and wellbeing of teachers.

He Said,She Said: Comparing Mother and Father Reports of Father Involvement

This study compares mother and father reports of fathers’ involvement, including frequency of involvement and emotional involvement, with their child and examines demographic and social factors that predict the discrepancy in father and mother reports. Using matched pairs of parents (n = 2,058) from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing data, this study finds that father and mother reports of fathers’ involvement differ significantly. For example, fathers report spending 17.6% more time engaged in 11 activities with their young children than mothers report. How parental disagreement is measured yields starkly different results given the underlying distribution of these data. The paper also provides insight into what data issues should concern researchers studying fathers’ involvement and contributes to the growing literature on fathers’ involvement.