Paternal Incarceration and the Housing Security of Urban Mothers

High rates of imprisonment among American fathers have motivated an ongoing examination of incarceration's role in family life. A growing literature suggests that incarceration creates material and socioemotional challenges not only for prisoners and former prisoners but also for their families and communities. The authors examined the relationship between fathers' incarceration and one such challenge: the housing insecurity of the mothers of their children. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,125) and a series of longitudinal regression models, they found that mothers' housing security was compromised following their partners' incarceration, an association likely driven in part, but not entirely, by financial challenges following his time in prison or jail. Given the importance of stable housing for the continuity of adult employment, children's schooling, and other inputs to healthy child development, the findings suggest a grave threat to the well‐being of children with incarcerated fathers.     

Work Hours,Schedules, and Insufficient Sleep Among Mothers and Their Young Children

Studies have linked parents' employment, work hours, and work schedules to their own sleep quality and quantity, but it is unclear whether these associations extend to children. The authors used data from the 5‐year in‐home survey of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,818) to examine the associations between maternal work hours and schedule and insufficient sleep among disadvantaged mothers and their young children. They found that mothers who worked more than 35 hours per week were more likely to experience insufficient sleep compared to mothers who worked fewer hours, whereas children were more likely to experience insufficient sleep when their mothers worked between 20 and 40 hours. Nonstandard work schedules were associated with an increased likelihood of insufficient sleep for mothers but not their children. The results highlight a potentially difficult balance between work and family for many disadvantaged working mothers in the United States.     

The Wellbeing of the Self’s Personality: A Structural Analysis

Leaning on the formal faceted definition of wellbeing (Levy and Guttman (1975) Social Indicators Research, 2, 361–388), a mapping sentence is provided for defining the universe of observations of the wellbeing of the self-expanding on personality aspects. The structure of the interrelationships among the variables of the expanded conceptualization of self’s personality is examined by the use of the SSA technique. The sample consists of 176 adult residents (20 years of age and over) from all parts of the city of Jerusalem, Israel. Results further verify the circular structure (radex) of personal wellbeing. The state of wellbeing-versus- wellbeing in the sense of possession of resources partition the space into two concentric belts, while the life domains of wellbeing play a polarizing role in partitioning the space into wedglike regions emanating from a common origin. Self’s personality domains-versus-self’s social environment domains serve as a rationale for the circular order. The expanded conceptualization of personal wellbeing enhance the earlier conceptualization of the 1975 study and makes possible the development of the theory of the structure of the wellbeing of the self in a systematic cumulative fashion.     

Better Parents,More Stable Partners: Union Transitions Among Cohabiting Parents

Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,702 couples) are employed to examine the association between mother‐ and father‐reported parenting characteristics (father involvement and coparenting) and transitions out of cohabitation through marriage or separation in the 5 years after a child is born. Father involvement and coparenting may be signs of commitment and investment among couples without the legal bonds of marriage. Both the level and change in father involvement and coparenting are associated with a decreased likelihood of separation, although neither is associated with greater odds of marriage. These results suggest that higher levels of father involvement and a positive coparenting relationship may keep couples together, which allows children to spend their early years with both biological parents in the household.     

A hole in the ladder: How to reconcile the benefits of equality with the merits of hierarchy

During recent decades, many researchers have advocated the benefits of equality over hierarchy. These scholars, for example, have argued that income should be uniform across the organization, layers of management should be dismantled, and that employees should be granted opportunities to participate in decisions that affect their lives. Yet, many complications of equality have also been unearthed. For instance, variability in income is sometimes positively associated with performance, employees tend to prefer organizations that are characterized by many tiers of management, and employee participation in all key decisions can undermine efficiency. Managers, therefore, must introduce measures that temper these complications. To identify suitable measures, managers need to understand how different dimensions of equality impinge on the determinants of wellbeing and performance. To fulfill this need, this paper first distinguishes three dimensions of equality: participation, authority, and income. Next, this paper invokes a variety of theories—from compensatory control to dominance complementarity—to understand how each dimension of equality affects the core needs of individuals, as defined by self-determination theory. Equality of authority tends to impede all three needs: relatedness, autonomy, and competence. Equality of participation and equality of income, however, foster all three needs. One exception is that equality of income may diminish competence on tasks that demand the application of established principles rather than intuition. This framework clarifies the designs and practices of organizations that may optimize wellbeing and enhance performance.     

Multipartnered Fertility and Depression among Fragile Families

We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the association between multipartnered fertility (MPF)-when parents have children with more than one partner-and depression. Random effects models suggested that MPF is associated with a greater likelihood of depression, net of family structure and other covariates. However, these associations disappeared in more conservative fixed effects models that estimated changes in MPF as a function of changes in depression. Results also suggested that social selection may account for the link between MPF and depression for fathers (but not mothers), as depressed fathers with no MPF were more likely to have a child by a new partner four years later. Ultimately, MPF and depression may be reciprocally related and part of broader processes of social disadvantage.     

Cyclical Cohabitation Among Unmarried Parents in Fragile Families

Building on past research suggesting that cohabitation is an ambiguous family form, the authors examined an understudied residential pattern among unmarried parents: cyclical cohabitation, in which parents have multiple cohabitation spells with each other. Using 9 years of panel data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,084), they found that 10% of all parents with nonmarital births and nearly a quarter of those living together when the child is 9 years old are cyclical cohabitors. Cyclically cohabiting mothers reported more material hardships than mothers in most other relationship patterns but also reported more father involvement with children. On all measures of child well‐being except grade retention, children of cyclically cohabiting parents fared no worse than children of stably cohabiting biological parents and did not differ significantly from any other group.     

Parents' Relationship Quality and Children's Behavior in Stable Married and Cohabiting Families

Although an extensive literature has shown that family structure is linked with child well‐being, less well understood is how the dynamics within families affect children, in particular the extent to which positive mother–father relationship quality is linked with children's outcomes. In this study the authors used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 773) to examine how couple supportiveness in stable coresident families is related to children's externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems over ages 3 through 9. Using latent growth curve and fixed effects models, they found that parents' greater supportiveness has a slight association with lower levels of children's behavioral problems. Using cross‐lagged structural equation models to examine the direction of the association, they also found some evidence that parents' relationship quality and children's behavioral problems are reciprocally related. Overall, this study suggests that more positive couple interactions are beneficial for children residing with both of their biological parents.     

Private Financial Transfers,Family Income,and the Great Recession

Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,701; 1998–2010), the authors studied whether the unemployment rate was associated with private financial transfers (PFTs) among urban families with young children and whether family income moderated these associations. They found that an increase in the unemployment rate was associated with greater PFT receipt and that family income moderated the association. Poor and near‐poor mothers experienced increases in PFT receipt when unemployment rates were high, whereas mothers with incomes between 2 and 3 times the poverty threshold experienced decreases. Simulations estimating the impact of the Great Recession suggest that moving from 5% to 10% unemployment is associated with a 9‐percentage‐point increase in the predicted probability of receiving a PFT for the sample as a whole, with greater increases in predicted probabilities among poor and near‐poor mothers.