The interface of work and family life.

Dramatic changes in the workforce and workplace contribute to the need for a synthesis of knowledge on the interdependence of family life, work, and the vocational development of children, adolescents, and adults. Four prominent themes in the work and family literature are reviewed with the intention of providing guidance for all applied psychologists. These include (a) the meaning of work embedded in people's lives, (b) multiple life roles, (c) work and family navigation, and (d) supportive family systems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Women, men, work, and family.

The lives of women and men, the relationships that they establish, and their work have changed dramatically in the past 50 years, but the dominant theories driving research in these areas have not. In this article, the authors argue that the facts underlying the assumptions of the classical theories of gender and multiple roles have changed so radically as to make the theories obsolete. Moreover, a large body of empirical data fails to support the predictions flowing from these theories. Yet the development of new theory for guiding research and clinical practice has not kept pace. The authors attempt to fill this theoretical gap by reviewing the research literature and articulating an expansionist theory of gender, work, and family that includes four empirically derived and empirically testable principles better matched to today's realities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental health effects of women's multiple roles.

At a time when some combination of work and family is the life-style preference of most Americans, but the two domains remain largely described as espousing conflicting values, it is important that the mental health effects of multiple roles be explored for possible directions for future research. This article reviews the problems and benefits associated with women juggling multiple roles, then points to the need for research that considers the physiological pathways involved in responses to stressful environmental and psychological conditions. Models that frame such efforts should be sensitive not only to the experience of the individual but also to the extent to which women's lives are embedded in a context full of feedback loops. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Women and gender in research on work and family stress.

Research on work-related stress has tended to focus on males and to neglect gender as a variable; often, findings from studies of men are incorrectly generalized to women. The failure to "build women in" to conceptual models has impaired our understanding of both work and family role stressors. This article focuses on assumptions, gaps, and biases in the literature; the home, for example, has been viewed as a stress-free sanctuary, whereas workplace stress has been overemphasized and seen as particularly dangerous for women. To better understand the costs and benefits of employment and of multiple roles for women, and the stressfulness of family roles, more attention to the qualitative aspects of roles is needed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology at the Intersection of Work and Family: Recommendations for Employers, Working Families, and Policymakers.

Demographic data show that major changes have been occurring in the everyday lives of families over the last generation, with the majority of mothers of young children in the workforce and an increasing number of men and women assuming caregiving responsibilities for older relatives. Thus, the 2 primary identities of most adults, defined by their multiple family and work roles, need to be coordinated in ways that promote positive family outcomes, returns on investments for employers, and societal values. Despite changes in the workforce, the world of work is still largely organized for a family model that is increasingly rare--one with a stay-at-home caregiver. Recommendations based on psychological and other social science research are offered to align the needs of working families and employers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The “CEO” of women's work lives: How Big Five Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Openness predict 50 years of work experiences in a changing sociocultural context.

Few long-term longitudinal studies have examined how dimensions of personality are related to work lives, especially in women. We propose a life-course framework for studying work over time, from preparatory activities (in the 20s) to descending work involvement (after age 60), using 50 years of life data from the women in the Mills Longitudinal Study. We hypothesized differential work effects for Extraversion (work as pursuit of rewards), Openness (work as self-actualization), and Conscientiousness (work as duty) and measured these 3 traits as predictor variables when the women were still in college. In a prospective longitudinal design, we then studied how these traits predicted the women's subsequent work lives from young adulthood to age 70 and how these effects depended on the changing sociocultural context. Specifically, the young adulthood of the Mills women in the mid-1960s was rigidly gender typed and family oriented; neither work nor education variables at that time were predicted from earlier personality traits. However, as women's roles changed, later work variables became related to all 3 traits, as expected from current Big Five theory and research. For example, early personality traits predicted the timing of involvement in work, the kinds of jobs chosen, and the status and satisfaction achieved, as well as continued work participation and financial security in late adulthood. Early traits were also linked to specific cultural influences, such as the traditional feminine role, the women's movement, and graduate education for careers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Issues of special concern to chronically mentally ill women.

Discusses sex differences with respect to the treatment of chronically mentally ill women and suggests that attention to these areas will aid understanding of their disorders and enhance the quality of their existence. The lives of chronically mentally ill women in relation to marital and family roles, other instrumental roles, social and sexual roles, rape and sexual exploitation, and physical health are described. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transition to adulthood of female garment-factory workers in Bangladesh

This article examines data from a study on garment-factory workers in Bangladesh to explore the implications of work for the early socialization of young women. For the first time, large numbers of young Bangladeshi women are being given an alternative to lives in which they move directly from childhood to adulthood through early marriage and childbearing. Employment creates a period of transition in contrast to the abrupt assumption of adult roles at very young ages that marriage and childbearing mandate. This longer transition creates a period of adolescence for young women working in the garment sector that is shown to have strong implications for the women's long-term reproductive health.     

"Your heart is never free": Women in Wales and Ghana talking about distress.

This paper documents women's own constructions of their psychosocial health and the way they trace the problems they experience to the social and material conditions of their lives. The authors report on 2 qualitative studies: one in which 35 women (aged 20–89 yrs) in South Wales were interviewed about their main health concerns and a similar study in Ghana, West Africa which included interviews with 75 women (aged 20–80 yrs). Women's accounts of their distress are set in the context of 3 key issues: money problems, relationships with men, and motherhood. Despite cultural differences in the expression of distress, the common themes point to the influence of gender relations and women's roles in production and social reproduction. The authors argue for greater documentation of the material and social circumstances of women's lives and their effects on women's health. In so doing, it is important to incorporate women's own accounts of their health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Women's involvement in multiple roles and psychological distress.

Examined women's involvement in multiple roles in relation to 3 stress indices: role overload, role conflict, and anxiety. With hierarchical multiple regression analyses, the effects of number of roles occupied; occupancy of the particular roles of paid worker, wife, and mother; and the quality of a woman's experience in her roles were analyzed. Data were from a disproportionate stratified random sample of 238 White women between 35 and 55 yrs of age. For the total sample and for employed Ss, occupancy of the role of mother was related to 2 stress indices; occupancy of the role of paid worker was related to none. Role conflict and role overload were strongly related to anxiety only among nonemployed Ss. The quality of experience in the work and in parental roles was a significant predictor of role overload; quality of parental role experience was a significant predictor of role conflict and of anxiety. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Job and life satisfaction: A reevaluation of the strength of the relationship and gender effects as a function of the date of the study.

Through literature searches in psychology, sociology, counseling, management, and leisure, we found 34 studies (combined n?=?19,811) reporting relationships between job and life satisfaction. Contrary to previous reviews (e.g., Rice, Near, & Hunt, 1980), this meta-analysis found sizable overlap between work and nonwork experiences. Furthermore, although this correlation was substantially greater for men than for women in studies published prior to 1974, the difference disappeared in studies published after 1974. Demographic changes among female workers and changes in the relative importance of work to women's lives were suggested as explanations for the larger correlation observed for women in more recent studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of single- and multi-locus and polymerase chain reaction systems for zygosity determination--clinical application in twins with clefts of the lip and palate

The purpose of this study was to assess racial differences in the risk of alcohol-related problems associated with alcohol consumption, regular psychoactive drug use, a family history of alcohol-related problems, sociodemographic factors (age and education), and social roles (work, marital, and parental) among nonabstaining African-American and White gynecologic outpatients. In addition, work, marital, and parental roles were investigated to determine whether they mediated or explained racial differences observed in relationships between these factors and alcohol-related problems. Respondents were 630 African-American women and 769 White women aged 13-77 who were systematically sampled from three obstetric/gynecologic clinics and two private practices in Erie County, New York. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to test the significance of main effects of these factors on alcohol-related problems, to test the interactive effects of race with each factor, and to test the interactive effects of social roles with alcohol consumption, the only factor for which a racial difference was observed in its relationship with alcohol-related problems. Overall, results indicated that correlates of alcohol-related problems were similar for African-American and White women. Higher risk of alcohol-related problems was associated with lower levels of education and lack of work and parental roles. In addition, married women who drank heavily were at higher risk of alcohol-related women who drank heavily were at higher risk of alcohol-related problems than unmarried women who drank heavily.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

The interplay of work and caregiving: relationships between role satisfaction, role involvement, and caregivers' well-being

This study applied theory from the general work and family literature to the dual roles of work and caregiving, in order to examine whether level of satisfaction and time involvement in each of these roles moderate the effects of stress in the other role on well-being. Respondents were 118 employed women who were providing care to an impaired parent or parent-in-law. As predicted, greater time involvement in work was found to buffer women from the negative effects of caregiving stress. Satisfaction with caregiving and satisfaction with work were directly associated with better well-being, beyond the effects of stress in both roles. However, women who experienced high levels of caregiving stress and who were highly satisfied with work were especially vulnerable to depression. These findings illustrate the importance of examining the effects of caregiving stress on well-being in the context of work-related experiences.     

Searching for the second generation of American women psychologists.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 11(3) of History of Psychology (see record 2008-10736-005). The authors would like to indicate that Inez Beverly Prosser's academic degree was incorrectly listed as EdD in the Appendix. Prosser's correct degree is PhD.] As a consequence of the groundbreaking work of E. Scarborough and L. Furumoto (1987), the contributions of the pioneering first generation of American women psychologists are now well recognized within the history of psychology; however, the generation that followed the pioneers is less well known. The lack of recognition that most women psychologists of the interwar era experienced during the majority of their working lives resulted from sexism institutionalized through practices such as anti-nepotism rules that effectively excluded many married women from the academy, informal hiring practices operating in "old-boy network" fashion, and exclusion from certain key graduate training centers. Yet, many women were productive psychologists during this era and contributed to the growth and expansion of the discipline. Examination of published literature generated biographical information for 107 eminent women; C. A. Murchison's (1932b) Psychological Register provided a less detailed but more inclusive inventory to yield data on a total of 320 women. This article recounts our systematic search for this "lost generation" and emphasizes the extent and diversity of their contributions to psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychology of working: The clinical context.

Vocational psychology increasingly has identified the centrality of work in people's lives. Yet in clinical practice, vocational and personal issues do not always receive equivalent attention, with vocational concerns often being overlooked. With a case study, the author illustrates several factors that can serve as barriers to the successful integration of work and personal concerns. The benefits of integration are then offered, along with strategies that have been proposed to more effectively address both work and personal issues. The author concludes with specific recommendations for integrating work and personal issues in psychological practice, as well as recommendations for training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Deinstitutionalization and women: Assessing the consequences of public policy.

Reviews and analyzes the literature concerning deinstitutionalization and women and highlights specific ways in which a major public policy initiative has affected the lives of both chronically mentally ill women and women who have been charged with the responsibility of caring for the chronically mentally ill. Special effects of deinstitutionalization on mentally ill women are evident in such areas as sexual exploitation and violence, homelessness, diversion into the criminal justice system, and stigmatization. A group of studies points to special circumstances pertaining to sexual behavior and reproductive control in a deinstitutionalized female population. It is suggested that the expectations of women's behavior based on societal role definitions have affected service planning for this population and that the use of such criteria for program planning runs the risk of injuring patients of both sexes. The need for more conceptual work and research on deinstitutionalization is stressed; however, because deinstitutionalization is an exceedingly complex phenomenon, the importance of remaining sensitive to the wide variety of circumstances that contribute to its outcomes is emphasized. (72 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mentoring in research: A developmental approach.

Psychologists are frequently called on to mentor students, trainees, and early faculty in various aspects associated with research. Little formal training is provided to mentors on how to effectively and successfully mentor trainees at the various developmental levels of the training process. The authors apply a developmental focus to the mentoring relationship. The literature on research mentoring is reviewed, including a review of mentorship with women and ethnic minorities. The multiple roles and functions of mentorship for clinical researchers and research scientists also are explored. Finally, the authors provide a list of the top 6 skills and behaviors that enable successful mentoring. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does entitlement mediate the link between masculinity and rape-related variables?

Previous research has found masculine gender roles to predict rape-related behaviors and attitudes, but there is some ambiguity in the literature regarding the mechanisms of these associations. Further, theoretical literature has suggested repeatedly that men's sense of entitlement to women is crucial in understanding rape-related behaviors and attitudes. On the basis of these 2 bodies of literature, we speculated that men's sense of entitlement may be an important 3rd variable partially driving the relations between masculine gender roles and rape-related variables. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to examine the relations among entitlement, rape-related behaviors and attitudes, and masculine gender roles. More specifically, the authors used path analyses to test a conceptual model whereby entitlement mediated the links between masculine gender roles and 4 rape-related variables. Results revealed that men's sense of general and sexual entitlement completely mediated the relations between masculinity and rape-related attitudes and behaviors in 3 of the 4 models and partially in the 4th. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work-family spillover and life satisfaction among professional psychologists.

How do the professional lives of psychologists influence their personal and family lives? Data from 485 psychologists who responded to a survey on professional and family life were analyzed to examine work-to-family spillover, life satisfaction, and family support. Respondents reported a significantly higher incidence of positive spillover, termed family enhancers, than negative spillover, termed family stressors. The low incidence of family stressors suggested that stresses associated with the professional work of psychology do not routinely spill over into professionals' family lives. Both positive and negative spillover, however, played significant roles in mediating the relationship between work and family domains. On the positive side, a sense of personal accomplishment at work was associated with increased family enhancers, which appeared to lead to greater family support and life satisfaction. On the negative side, emotional exhaustion at work was associated with more family stressors, which appeared to lead to less family support and life satisfaction. The implications of these findings for training and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Girls and Women.

During recent decades, women and girls of diverse ethnicities, social classes, sexual orientations, and life experiences have encountered dramatic and complex changes in education, health, work, reproductive and caregiving roles, and personal relationships. Although many of these changes have resulted in increased equality, opportunity, and quality of life, girls and women are also at risk for a variety of health concerns and life stresses. The aim of this document is to articulate guidelines that will enhance gender- and culture-sensitive psychological practice with women and girls from all social classes, ethnic and racial groups, sexual orientations, and ability/disability statuses in the United States. These guidelines provide general recommendations for psychologists who seek to increase their awareness, knowledge, and skills in psychological practice with women and girls. The beneficiaries include all consumers of psychological practice, including clients, students, supervisees, research participants, consultees, and other health professionals. Although the guidelines and supporting literature place substantial emphasis on psychotherapy practice, the general guidelines are applicable to psychological practice in its broadest sense. Rather than offering a comprehensive review of content relevant to all areas of practice, this document provides examples of empirical and conceptual literature that support the need for practice guidelines. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)