Dataset Information

Parents' work and children's development: A longitudinal investigation of working-class families.

ABSTRACT: The current study examines the relationship between working-class mothers' and fathers' job autonomy across the 1st year of parenthood and their children's behavior problems and adaptive skills in the 1st grade. Data came from a longitudinal study of 120 couples interviewed 5 times across the transition to parenthood and again when the target child entered the 1st grade. Mothers' job autonomy and fathers' work hours during the child's 1st year of life directly predicted fewer behavior problems and more adaptive skills in their children at 6-7 years of age. For all parents a mediated relationship emerged such that greater job autonomy predicted less parenting overreactivity, which in turn predicted better child outcomes. Parent involvement was also a significant mediator linking job autonomy to children's adaptive skills but not behavior problems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

SUBMITTER: Perry-Jenkins M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7021583 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Parents' work and children's development: A longitudinal investigation of working-class families.

Perry-Jenkins Maureen M Laws Holly B HB Sayer Aline A Newkirk Katie K

Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43) 20190815 3

The current study examines the relationship between working-class mothers' and fathers' job autonomy across the 1st year of parenthood and their children's behavior problems and adaptive skills in the 1st grade. Data came from a longitudinal study of 120 couples interviewed 5 times across the transition to parenthood and again when the target child entered the 1st grade. Mothers' job autonomy and fathers' work hours during the child's 1st year of life directly predicted fewer behavior problems a ...[more]

PMID: 31414863

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundThe aim of the study was to describe families with small children who participated in parent-child interaction interventions at four centres in Sweden, and to examine long term and short term changes regarding the parents' experience of parental stress, parental attachment patterns, the parents' mental health and life satisfaction, the parents' social support and the children's problems.MethodsIn this longitudinal study a consecutive sample of 101 families (94 mothers and 54 fathers) with 118 children (median age 3 years) was assessed, using self-reports, at the outset of the treatment (T1), six months later (T2) and 18 months after the beginning of treatment (T3). Analysis of the observed differences was carried out using Wilcoxon's Signed-Rank test and Cohen's d.ResultsThe results from commencement of treatment showed that the parents had considerable problems in all areas examined. At the outset of treatment (T1) the mothers showed a higher level of problem load than the fathers on almost all scales. In the families where the children's problems have also been measured (children from the age of four) it appeared that they had problems of a nature and degree otherwise found in psychiatric populations. We found a clear general trend towards a positive development from T1 to T2 and this development was also reinforced from T2 to T3. Aggression in the child was one of the most common causes for contact. There were few undesired or unplanned interruptions of the treatment, and the attrition from the study was low.ConclusionThis study has shown that it is possible to reach mothers as well as fathers with parenting problems and to create an intervention program with very low dropout levels - which is of special importance for families with small children displaying aggressive behaviour. The parents taking part in this study showed clear improvement trends after six months and this development was reinforced a year later. This study suggests the necessity of clinical development and future research concerning the role of fathers in parent-child interaction interventions.

Project description:Substantial gender disparities in career advancement are still apparent, for instance in the gender pay gap, the overrepresentation of women in parttime work, and the underrepresentation of women in managerial positions. Regarding the developmental origins of these gender disparities, the current study examined whether children's views about future career and family involvement were associated with children's own gender schemas (gender stereotypes, gender identity) and parents' career- and family-related gender roles. Participants were 142 Dutch families with a child between the ages of 6 and 12 years old (M = 9.80, SD = 1.48, 60% girls). The families had different compositions (1 parent, 2 parents, 1 to 3 children). Children completed a computer task assessing gender stereotypes about toys and questionnaires on gender identity (i.e., felt similarity to same- and other-gender children) and their views about future career and family involvement. Parents reported their occupation, work hours, and task division in the home, which were combined in a composite variable reflecting gender-typicality of career and family involvement. Generalized estimation equations were used to take into account dependency between family members. Results revealed that parents', and especially mothers', gender-typical career and family involvement was associated with children's gender-typical views about future career and family involvement. In addition, children's felt similarity to the same gender was associated with children's gender-typical expectations about career and family involvement. These findings suggest that parents' career, work hours, and task division in the home, together play an important role in how their children envision their future work and family roles. Children themselves also play an active role in developing this vision for the future by their own gender identity, specifically by how similar they feel to individuals of the same gender. To reduce gender disparities in the occupational and domestic domain, programs need to be designed that focus on parental role modeling in the family as well as children's gender identity development.

Dataset Information

Parents' work and children's development: A longitudinal investigation of working-class families.

Publications

Parents' work and children's development: A longitudinal investigation of working-class families.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets