Parental job experiences and children's well-being: The case of two-parent and single-mother working-class families (original) (raw)
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Effects of Low-Wage Employment on Family Well-Being
The Future of Children, 1997
Assumptions about the processes that link a mother's employment to the development of her child must underlie expectations about how children may fare when their mothers move from welfare dependence into employment. This article explores the idea, mentioned in the research overview by Zaslow and Emig in this journal issue, that the working conditions such as wages, work hours, and task complexity that mothers experience on the job can influence their behavior as parents and shape the home environments they provide for their children. This article discusses the significance of home environments for children's intellectual and emotional development and considers how home surroundings change when mothers begin jobs that are more rewarding or less rewarding. The authors conclude that, while maternal employment is not necessarily harmful, if welfare recipients find only low-wage, stressful jobs, working may prove costly for both family and child wellbeing. The authors recommend that welfare-to-work programs devote attention to (1) assisting mothers to obtain more complex work at good wages, (2) helping mothers understand the role home environments play in shaping children's development, and (3) encouraging parents to make their children's home surroundings as positive as possible. A 116 116
The Psychological Availability of Dual-Earner Parents for Their Children After Work
Family Relations, 2013
Using data from a sample of Dutch dualearner parents ( N = 261), this study showed that parents' psychological availability acted as a link between negative and positive workday residuals (i.e., work-related negative mood, exhaustion, rumination, and workrelated positive mood and vigor) and the quality of parent -child interactions after the workday. Parents' preference for type of role combination moderated these relationships in that evidence for negative spillover was found only for parents who tended to integrate work and family life, whereas positive spillover was found only for parents who tended to segment work and family life. These findings suggest that workday residuals combined with parents' boundary management strategies have important implications for the parent -child relationship.
Some implications of maternal employment for the mother and the family
1987
The current paper explores the relation of mothers' employment status to a variety of factors relevant to the home environment, particularly those that may directly affect the emotional and cognitive development of children in these families. The results are based on secondary analyses of data from two independent studies--one of parents of preschool children, the other of families of elementary school children. Because issues pertaining to mothers' employment status were incidental to the main thrust of these studies, this report cannot do justice to more complex models of the linkages between work and family contexts. Most notably, our data sets do not include many of the factors hypothesized to moderate the interface between work and family situ-ations. Rather, it is hoped that these secondary analyses can contribute added information concerning the global relationship of maternal employment to some parent and family characteristics critical to children's healthy emotional development, while at the same time underlining some of the special needs of mothers who work outside the home.
Mothers’ Perception on the Impact of Employment on their Children: Working and Non-working Mothers
IAMURE International Journal of Social Sciences, 2012
Recently the number of working mothers with young children is increasing. The increasing trend of working mothers' participation in the labour force poses challenges in families especially in the developing countries. One of these challenges concerns in managing household as well as their profession, as mothers' employment has a significant impact on children well-being. Previous research on the impact of mother's employment on children has been found both positive and negative influence on the well-being of the family. The present study attempts to examine mothers' perception on the impact of their children academic, intellectual and cognitive development. The research is based on primary information and data collection. In this research a survey to working and nonworking mothers was made in the selected study areas. A total of 140 respondents were considered in this study. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed in this research. Together with examining both working and nonworking IAMURE: International Journal of Social Sciences 114 mothers 'perception the results show that although there are negative impacts of mothers' employment on children, working mothers are able to contribute to children development compare to non-working mothers. The study found that mothers' intellectual and economic resources contribute to children academic and cognitive development.
2012
The relationship between maternal employment and maternal and paternal parenting styles is investigated in this study. Subjects included 117 two-parent families with elementary school children. Responses were obtained from 111 mothers and 24 fathers. The survey was conducted by a telephone interview lasting 10-15 minutes in duration. Questions concerned: (1) parental employment status; (2) si)ousal relationship; (3) parent-child relationship; (4) and parenting practices. Results showed that nonemployed mothers were most likely to have perceived high spousal support of their parenting. No significant differences were found between families with employed and unemployed mothers for frequency of children's baths, a specific parent preferred for comfort, or the number of breakfasts and dinners the family shared together. Few significant parenting styles emerged. Results suggested that in response to the child pushing another child, nonemployed mothers were more likely to use vrrbal i...
The Effects of the Mother's Employment on the Family and the Child
My talk is going to be on the effects of maternal employment on families and children, with the focus on children. I'm going to present a review of previous research but since I have just completed a large study on this topic I will be drawing also on data from this. The results of the study will be reported in a book, published by Cambridge Press, called Mothers at Work: Effects on Children's Well-being by Lois Hoffman and Lise Youngblade, with Rebekah Coley, Allison Fuligni, and Donna Kovacs. Most of the maternal employment research and my own study deal with school-aged children, so the bulk of my talk will be on that age group, but since there is currently a great deal of interest in infants and the impact of maternal employment and nonmaternal care during the early years, I will also summarize findings for that period. Prior to the review itself, however, we need to place today's maternal employment in its social context. To understand its present effects on families and children, we need to understand how patterns of maternal employment have changed over the years, and how these changes have been accompanied by other social changes that interact with it.
Maternal Employment in Childhood and Adults’ Retrospective Reports of Parenting Practices
Journal of Marriage and Family, 2006
Do adults’ perceptions of their mothers’ and fathers’ parenting practices in childhood vary by their mothers’ employment status? Among adults in the Survey of Midlife Development in United States who lived with 2 biological parents until the age of 16 years (N = 2,246), those who had employed mothers during most or all of their childhood reported less support and less discipline from both parents than those who had stay‐at‐home mothers. Sons but not daughters who had employed mothers reported more verbal or physical assaults by both parents than their counterparts who had homemaker mothers. Despite greater social acceptance of maternal employment among younger Americans, cohort differences were not evident. These findings underscore the significance of mothers’ economic roles in influencing offspring’s perceptions of family dynamics.
Working-Class Jobs and New Parents' Mental Health
Journal of Marriage and Family, 2011
Little research has explored linkages between work conditions and mental health in workingclass employed parents. The current study aims to address this gap, employing hierarchical linear modeling techniques to examine how levels of and changes in job autonomy, job urgency, supervisor support, and coworker support predicted parents' depressive symptoms in a sample of 113 dual-earner couples interviewed five times across the transition to parenthood. Increases in job autonomy and decreases in job urgency predicted fewer depressive symptoms in fathers at 1 year postpartum. For mothers, coworker support predicted fewer depressive symptoms, and supervisor support mitigated the negative effects of job urgency on depressive
Maternal Working Conditions and Child Well-Being in Welfare-Leaving Families
Developmental Psychology, 2005
In the wake of welfare reform, thousands of low-income single mothers have transitioned into the labor market. This paper examines how the work conditions of mothers leaving welfare for employment are associated with the emotional well-being of 372 children ages 5 to 15. We examine the cumulative incidence, over a five-year period, of maternal non -"family -friendly" work conditions including long work hours, erratic work schedules, non-day shifts, and lengthy commute times in association with children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and levels of positive behavior. We find that mothers' lengthy commute times are associated with higher levels of internalizing problem behaviors and lower levels of positive behaviors.