Does the Pandemic Affect Inequality Within Families?: The Case of Dual-Earner Couples in Israel
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PROVIDER: S-EPMC9551664 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:This article assesses the gendered impact of COVID-19 measures on changes in time that Swiss dual earner couples spent on unpaid work during the pandemic, focusing on families with children. Overcoming some of the methodological shortcomings of previous studies, high-quality representative panel data allow us to examine the change in time invested in housework and childcare before and during the pandemic, and test theoretical assumptions as to the mechanisms underlying the observed patterns. Gender inequalities are explained by the couple's work division prior to, and at the onset of, the pandemic and interpreted in the light of key theoretical approaches (economics of the family, bargaining and time availability, doing gender). Our results imply that in particular changes in the time availability of the partner are relevant for changes in time spent on housework, while in case of care work, the own time availability matters more. Moreover, we also found that the respondents' economic bargaining power within the couple matters both for housework and care work. Finally, the implemented COVID-19 measures neither led to an increase in patriarchal power structures nor did they foster an increase in equality for unpaid work among women and men. Instead, the results show that changes in time availability due to short-time, remote or overtime working schemes determined changes in time spent on unpaid care to a larger extent than gender alone.
| S-EPMC9350281 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectivesThis study examined the effectiveness of a newly developed work-family life support program on the work-family interface and mental health indicators among Japanese dual-earner couples with a preschool child(/ren) using a randomized controlled trial with a waitlist.MethodsParticipants who met the inclusion criteria were randomly allocated to the intervention or the control groups (n = 79 and n = 85, respectively). The program comprised two 3-h sessions with a 1-month interval between them and provided comprehensive skills by including self-management, couple management, and parenting management components. The program sessions were conducted on weekends in a community center room with 3-10 participants. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, 1-month, and 3-month follow-ups. Primary outcomes were work-family balance self-efficacy (WFBSE), four types of work-family spillovers (i.e., work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, work-to-family facilitation, and family-to-work facilitation), psychological distress, and work engagement reported by the participants.ResultsThe program had significantly pooled intervention effects on WFBSE (P = .031) and psychological distress (P = .014). The effect sizes (Cohen's d) were small, with values of 0.22 at the 1-month follow-up and 0.24 at the 3-month follow-up for WFBSE, and -0.36 at the 3-month follow-up for psychological distress. However, the program had nonsignificant pooled effects on four types of work-family spillovers and work engagement.ConclusionsThe program effectively increased WFBSE and decreased psychological distress among Japanese dual-earner couples with a preschool child(/ren).
| S-EPMC10075245 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Using data from the 2012 International Social Survey Program (n = 8,269), this study investigated how couples integrate and manage their income across 20 countries with varying degrees of gender inequality. Couples were more likely to report that one person managed the shared pot of money in countries with high gender inequality compared with couples in more gender equal countries. This pattern was not moderated by within-couple earnings equality. We found a cohabitation-marriage gap in income arrangements that is largest where national-level gender equality is high. In more gender equal contexts, married couples were more likely to pool and manage their money together, whereas a larger proportion of married couples assigned one money manager in countries with less gender equality. Cohabiting couples were more likely to keep some money separate than to take-up a pooled, jointly managed approach in more gender equal countries. Findings demonstrate the need to consider both management and pooling dimensions of couples' treatment of money to understand the influence of contextual factors on couples' income arrangements.
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Project description:Reciprocal family influences in the food domain have been little explored, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. To fill in this gap, this study explored actor and partner effects between parents' food modeling and parents' and their adolescent children's diet quality and satisfaction with food-related life (SWFoL); and the mediating role of diet quality between modeling and SWFoL. This study used a cross-sectional design. A sample of 430 different-sex dual-earner parents and one adolescent child were recruited in Rancagua, Chile, between March and June 2020. Parents answered the modeling dimension of the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire. Parents and adolescents answered the Adapted Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) and the SWFoL Scale. Analyses were conducted using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model and structural equation modeling. Results showed that one parent's modeling enhanced diet quality for themselves, their partner, and the adolescents. Parents' modeling was associated with their own SWFoL, directly and via their own diet quality. There were positive associations between mothers' modeling and adolescents' SWFoL; between mothers' diet quality and fathers' SWFoL; and between mothers' modeling and fathers' SWFoL via the fathers' diet quality. Parents' modeling can improve the three family members' diet quality, while mothers' modeling and diet quality showed to improve fathers' and adolescents' SWFoL.
| S-EPMC9158745 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Racism, segregation, and inequality contribute to health outcomes and drive health disparities across the life course, including for newborn infants and their families. In this review, we address their effects on the health and well-being of newborn infants and their families with a focus on preterm birth. We discuss three causal pathways: increased risk; lower-quality care; and socioeconomic disadvantages that persist into infancy, childhood, and beyond. For each pathway, we propose specific interventions and research priorities that may remedy the adverse effects of racism, segregation, and inequality. Infants and their families will not realize the full benefit of advances in perinatal and neonatal care until we, collectively, accept our responsibility for addressing the range of determinants that shape long-term outcomes.
| S-EPMC6960093 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire (CFPQ) has been evaluated in international studies, but the evaluation of its psychometric properties in Spanish, and in particular for parents of adolescents is still limited, and the invariance of measurement according to gender has not been evaluated. Therefore, the objectives of this study were: (1) To adapt the five-factor model of the CFPQ instrument to Spanish; (2) To examine the psychometric properties of this adaptation; and (3) To evaluate the measurement invariance of the model to verify the equivalence of measurement of the perceptions of food parenting practices between mothers and fathers belonging to nuclear, dual-earner families with adolescent children. Participants were 946 mothers and fathers from Southern Chile. Results showed that the conceptual equivalence for the CFPQ was achieved. An exploratory factor analysis was performed for a five-factor model: Monitoring, Child control, Restriction for weight control, Modeling and Environment. Horn's parallel analysis identified four factors, while factor loading analysis determined the removal of the environment factor. Confirmatory factor analysis presented good reliability values. Convergent and discriminant validity was confirmed, and medium-to-high levels of goodness of fit were obtained, eliminating two items. Results supported a final model of four factors and 19 items. Multigroup analysis of the measurement model verified the configural and metric invariance between fathers and mothers, while the scalar and strict partial invariance was verified. These findings are a relevant guide to measure factorial scores in the four-factor model of the CFPQ, establishing a characterization of feeding practices of parents and adolescents.
| S-EPMC9846088 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The impact of work-to-family conflict (WtoFC) can extend beyond family and work, and to other domains that contribute to well-being, such as the food domain. This study examined associations between WtoFC, perception of atmosphere of family meals (AFM), and satisfaction with food-related life (SWFoL) in dual-earner parents with adolescent children, and tested the mediating role of AFM between WtoFC and SWFoL. Questionnaires were administered to 473 different-sex dual-earner parents and one of their adolescent children (mean age 12.5 years, 51.4% male) in Temuco, Chile. Parents responded to a measure of work-to-family conflict; the three family members answered the Project-EAT Atmosphere of family meals scale, and the Satisfaction with Food-related Life Scale. Analyses were conducted using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model and structural equation modeling. Results showed a negative association from WtoFC to SWFoL in both parents, while a more positive perception of atmosphere of family meals was linked to higher SWFoL in the three family members. Moreover, WtoFC was negatively linked to SWFoL in parents, while only mothers' WtoFC had a negative association with their adolescent children's SWFoL. Policymakers and organizations can contribute to workers' and their families' food-related well-being by fostering policies and measures to reduce WtoFC.
| S-EPMC8716810 | biostudies-literature
Project description:More married couples today consist of two high-earning or two low-earning partners (i.e., earnings homogamy), which leads to greater earnings inequality in married-couple families. Surprisingly few studies have examined this relationship by earnings level, leaving open the question of whether the increase in earnings homogamy at each level of earnings contributes equally to between-couple earnings inequality. I address this question using data on urban China during 1988-2013. Changes in earnings homogamy account for 6% to 11% of the increase in between-couple inequality, but importantly, decomposition reveals that 57% to 68% of the overall impact is driven by the growing earnings homogamy among the top 20% of husbands and their wives. I reach the same finding by replicating the analyses using data from the United States. Two explanations account for this finding: (1) earnings homogamy has increased more among high earners; and (2) all else being equal, increases among high earners are mechanically more influential in shaping the level of between-couple inequality. These findings have important theoretical and policy implications.
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Project description:The growing economic similarity of spouses has contributed to rising income inequality across households. Explanations have typically centered on assortative mating, but recent work has argued that changes in women's employment and spouses' division of paid work have played a more important role. We expand this work to consider the critical turning point of parenthood in shaping couples' division of employment and earnings. Drawing on three U.S. nationally representative surveys, we examine the role of parenthood in spouses' earnings correlations between 1968 and 2015. We examine the extent to which changes in spouses' earnings correlations are due to (1) changes upon entry into marriage (assortative mating), (2) changes between marriage and parenthood, (3) changes following parenthood, and (4) changes in women's employment. Our findings show that increases in the correlation between spouses' earnings prior to 1990 came largely from changes between marriage and first birth, but increases after 1990 came almost entirely from changes following parenthood. In both instances, changes in women's employment are key to increasing earnings correlations. Changes in assortative mating played little role in either period. An assessment of the aggregate-level implications points to the growing significance of earnings similarity after parenthood for rising income inequality across families.
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Project description:The theoretically well-grounded hypothesis that the availability of formal childcare has a positive impact on childbearing in the developed world has been part of the population literature for a long time. Whereas the participation of women in the labour force created a tension between work and family life, the increasing availability of formal childcare in many developed countries is assumed to reconcile these two life domains due to lower opportunity costs and compatible mother and worker roles. However, previous empirical studies on the association between childcare availability and fertility exhibit ambiguous results and considerable variation in the methods applied. This study assesses the childcare-fertility hypothesis for Belgium, a consistently top-ranked country concerning formal childcare coverage that also exhibits considerable variation within the country. Using detailed longitudinal census and register data for the 2000s combined with childcare coverage rates for 588 municipalities and allowing for the endogenous nature of formal childcare and selective migration, our findings indicate clear and substantial positive effects of local formal childcare provision on birth hazards, especially when considering the transition to parenthood. In addition, this article quantifies the impact of local formal childcare availability on fertility at the aggregate level and shows that in the context of low and lowest-low fertility levels in the developed world, the continued extension of formal childcare services can be a fruitful tool to stimulate childbearing among dual-earner couples.
| S-EPMC6883015 | biostudies-literature