中国单身女性的困境: 多元交叉的社会压力和歧视

随着中国单身人口比例的上升,单身人群特别是单身女性群体受到了社会各个层面的关注。目前国内对单身女性的研究主要通过深度访谈来探讨单身未婚女性的身心和生活状态,缺乏系统的理论观照,且访谈样本又大都局限于大城市的中产阶层单身未婚女性,因而限制了研究成果的代表性。从交叉性理论出发,分析中国单身女性面临的宏观(儒家文化和人口调控压力)、中观(媒体的形象控制和代际压力)和微观(性别歧视、年龄歧视和单身歧视)的多元交叉压力和歧视,厘清目前单身女性所受到的压力和歧视,从不同阶层单身女性的需求出发,才能为她们提供切实有效的帮助,并有助于解决目前我国单身人口比例上升的问题,缓解人口老龄化的压力。     

An Individual Mixed‐Evaluation Method for Career Intervention

Economic issues linked to career counseling are a cause for concern to policy makers in developed countries because they expect career practitioners to provide evidence of the efficiency of career counseling interventions. The aim of this study was to test an individual evaluation method mixing time series (outcomes) and life narrative (processes). The method used 5 items related to 1 client's career decision self‐efficacy and studied the evolution of those items throughout the intervention of 1 career counselor (43 days). Changepoint analysis helped in identifying the changes that have to be taken into account for time series and which are contextualized in the client's verbatim analysis. This mixed method highlighted that the career counselor's intervention increased the client's career decision self‐efficacy. Practitioners could use the methodology proposed in this article to evaluate their interventions. They could also report their practice to clients, employers, and decision makers.     

An Extended Single‐index Model with Missing Response at Random

An extended single‐index model is considered when responses are missing at random. A three‐step estimation procedure is developed to define an estimator for the single‐index parameter vector by a joint estimating equation. The proposed estimator is shown to be asymptotically normal. An algorithm for computing this estimator is proposed. This algorithm only involves one‐dimensional nonparametric smoothers, thereby avoiding the data sparsity problem caused by high model dimensionality. Some simulation studies are conducted to investigate the finite sample performances of the proposed estimators.     

The experience of sole mothers balancing paid work with care for a child with a disability

There are increasing numbers of families in Australia headed by sole parents, but little is known about the experiences of those who also care for a child with a disability. Additional caring responsibilities have previously been shown to impact on the work participation of parents. This study involved qualitative analyses of interview data conducted with sole mothers with school‐aged children with disability (N = 11). Thematic analysis revealed four themes that enabled and supported participation in the workforce: social support; managing appointments; characteristics of the workplace; and the role of the school. Results suggest the importance of practical help from family and friends in facilitating participation in paid employment. Additionally, the importance of flexible appointment scheduling on the part of service providers was highlighted, as well as the importance of workplace flexibility and supportive workplace cultures. Such factors were important in supporting sole mothers to balance work with care, with important implications for personal and family wellbeing.     

Partial linear single-index models with additive distortion measurement errors

We study partial linear single-index models (PLSiMs) when the response and the covariates in the parametric part are measured with additive distortion measurement errors. These distortions are modeled by unknown functions of a commonly observable confounding variable. We use the semiparametric profile least-squares method to estimate the parameters in the PLSiMs based on the residuals obtained from the distorted variables and confounding variable. We also employ the smoothly clipped absolute deviation penalty (SCAD) to select the relevant variables in the PLSiMs. We show that the resulting SCAD estimators are consistent and possess the oracle property. For the non parametric link function, we construct the simultaneous confidence bands and obtain the asymptotic distribution of the maximum absolute deviation between the estimated link function and the true link function. A simulation study is conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed methods and a real dataset is analyzed for illustration.     

Maternal union instability and childhood mortality risk in the Global South, 2010–14

Efforts to improve child survival in lower-income countries typically focus on fundamental factors such as economic resources and infrastructure provision, even though research from post-industrial countries confirms that family instability has important health consequences. We tested the association between maternal union instability and children’s mortality risk in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia using children’s actual experience of mortality (discrete-time probit hazard models) as well as their experience of untreated morbidity (probit regression). Children of divorced/separated mothers experience compromised survival chances, but children of mothers who have never been in a union generally do not. Among children of partnered women, those whose mothers have experienced prior union transitions have a higher mortality risk. Targeting children of mothers who have experienced union instability—regardless of current union status—may augment ongoing efforts to reduce childhood mortality, especially in Africa and Latin America where union transitions are common.     

Teenage childbearing: young sole mothers challenge the stereotypes

Teenage sole mothers in receipt of welfare benefits are seriously affected by systematic and radical restructuring of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s state welfare system since 2008. With few exceptions, the changes oblige beneficiaries to prioritise obtaining paid work. To address questions of how welfare changes and socio-cultural context in Aotearoa New Zealand are experienced by teenage mothers we conducted a narrative study of 10 young women’s stories of sole mothering as beneficiaries. Purposeful sampling was used to recruit young mothers who were attending, or had recently attended a specialist school for teen parents. Thematic analysis of interview narratives represented experiences of financial and social deprivation, negative stereotyping, stigma and resistance. In contrast to the government’s explicit goal of getting welfare recipients into paid employment, the teenage mothers in our study placed full-time mothering as their principal duty. They also acknowledged the material and social advantages of entering paid employment, and were committed to working but only when their child was ‘settled and ready’ – a decision they understood to be their responsibility.     

(Re)constructing Family Images: Stepmotherhood Before Biological Motherhood

Strong cultural values and ideals attached to women in families deem the role of stepmother as inferior to that of biological mother. Although biological motherhood is celebrated, stepmotherhood is stigmatized, and women who wish to become mothers but become stepmothers prior to having biological children may grieve the loss of images surrounding normative ideals of creating a family. Using a feminist family science approach, the purpose of this grounded theory study was to explore the experiences of women without children in their transition to stepmotherhood. Interviews with 23 stepmothers (aged 26–47) revealed that women engaged in an internal process of creating and then adjusting personal images of family life to accommodate their new family circumstances. The process of (re)constructing family images had implications for later adjustment to stepmotherhood. Notions of the motherhood hierarchy emerged to depict the unique experiences of women who became stepmothers prior to having biological children.     

Deactivating the Buttons: Integrating Radical Exposure Tapping with a Family Therapy Framework

The purpose of this paper is to describe and illustrate with case examples a brief intervention termed Radical Exposure Tapping (RET). RET can be integrated with family therapy to address stuck points where the therapy is hindered by a family member's affective block, an intense and unchangeable emotional reactivity to a specific trigger. RET draws from the methodology of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and combines it with the tapping sequence of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to produce an intervention that is more flexible than EMDR, provides greater rigor than using the EFT technique alone and can be effective in a single session within the context of family therapy. The paper puts this work into context by first over viewing definitions of trauma and Post‐Traumatic Stress Disorder, arguing that family members' emotional reactivity may be a symptom of PTSD even when they would not qualify for the diagnosis because they had not experienced a life threatening event.