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.     

The Romance of Surrogacy1

This article seeks to demonstrate and analyze the cultural and emotional work surrogate mothers collectively engage in on the largest surrogacy support website, http://www.surromomsonline.com . Surrogate mothers’ online stories and discussions frame contract surrogacy as a “labor of love.” Women often describe their surrogacy as a “journey” of shared love; they hope for a lasting relationship with the couple they carry for. This article explores how the language of love, learned and internalized through online communication with other surrogates, creates both a cultural conceptualization of surrogacy and a ground for action. Love and altruistic giving are consistent with close interpersonal rather than market relationships; surrogates hope for a long‐term friendship with their couple. Surrogacy journeys, however, not infrequently end in disappointment; surrogates feel betrayed when couples cut ties. As a result of collective learning, surrogates’ discussions increasingly articulate the position that love, even when unreciprocated, can lead to repeated giving; love is noble and ennobling. Surrogates find appreciation and support in their online surrogacy community where they agree that giving life is a moral good. This stance has contributed to a renewed enthusiasm to bear children for others.     

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.     

(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.     

西安市失地农民的就业和社会保障对策思路

失地农民面临的首要问题是,失去了工作、生活和致富的保障。解决失地农民养老保险,是构筑和谐社会的重要举措。通过分析西安市失地农民面临就业、获得社会保障、资产的保值增值、农转非等问题,提出完善征地“片区综合价”制度,建立合理的征地补偿费的利益分享机制,拓宽安置途径,建立集体经济组织的经营管理和收益分配机制的思路。     

流民群体市民化的城市社会环境及制度建设——以成都市返乡农民工和失地农民为例

流民群体是制度变迁和社会转型产生的特殊群体,主要包括进城农民工、返乡农民工、失地农民。流民群体要在城市新的环境中获得生存的能力,以适应环境变化,必须融入城市生活,成为城市市民。“城市社会环境”对于城乡流民群体的市民化有着特殊的意义。对返乡农民工和失地农民,成都市政府做了有益的政策探索。     

失地补偿安置制度改革:保障农民利益、保护土地资源的关键

目前,我国失地农民利益受损、土地资源流失严重。究其原因,现象上,在于不合理的失地补偿安置制度,而本质上,则在于农民土地所有权主体地位的缺失。因而确立农民对土地的所有权主体地位,并以此对补偿安置制度进行系统改革,才是保护农民利益、保障土地资源的关键。