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Family Responsibilities (family + responsibility)
Kinds of Family Responsibilities Selected AbstractsBalancing Expectations for Employability and Family Responsibilities While on Social Assistance: Low-Income Mothers' Experiences in Three Canadian Provinces,FAMILY RELATIONS, Issue 5 2007Amber Gazso Abstract: Drawing upon a discourse analysis of public-use policy documents and qualitative interview data, this paper explores how mothers on social assistance in three Canadian provinces balance actual or expected policy expectations of their employability (e.g., participation in welfare-to-work programming) with their caregiving responsibilities. The results suggest that mothers' experiences of a time crunch, overload, and interference varied depending on their employability status and that they often experienced work-family conflict in ways similar to that experienced by working mothers not on assistance. The policy implications of these findings are discussed. [source] "How Come Nobody Told Me?"LEARNING DISABILITIES RESEARCH & PRACTICE, Issue 1 2002Fostering Self-Realization Through a High School English Curriculum Through collaboratively designed qualitative inquiry, we investigated the responses of high school students with learning disabilities to a teacher's intervention intended to promote self-realization, a fundamental component of self-determination. Activities were embedded within the general English curriculum and delivered in a special education classroom over the course of an academic year. Several themes emerged from analysis of student interviews, student responses to writing prompts and surveys, a teacher journal, and student portfolio pieces. Silence and misconceptions were prevalent in student experiences. However, through the intervention students acquired information that helped them make sense of their school experiences, redefine themselves in positive ways, and take small steps toward greater self-advocacy within their current school setting. The mediating influence of positive adult voices and concerns about social stigma were evident in students' responses, which prompted us to question teachers' and families' responsibilities for engaging young people in dialogue about special education and disability. [source] Balancing Work and Family: The Role of High-Commitment EnvironmentsINDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 2 2003Peter Berg Recently, researchers have begun to recognize that the nature of jobs, the workplace environment, and more generally, the culture of the workplace can have a significant impact on the ability of workers to balance their work and family lives. This article examines the effect of high-performance work practices, job characteristics, and the work environment on workers' views about whether the company helps them balance work and family. Using data from a survey of workers across three manufacturing industries, we show that a high-commitment environment,characterized by high-performance work practices, intrinsically rewarding jobs, and understanding supervisors,positively influences employees' perceptions that the company is helping them achieve this balance. This article reinforces the view that helping workers balance work and family responsibilities is not just a matter of benefits and formal family-friendly policies. Rather, it also depends on the characteristics of jobs within the business enterprise. [source] Use of the Zarit scale for assessing caregiver burden and collapse in caregiving at home in dementiasINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRY, Issue 10 2007Ana M. Gort Abstract Objectives The main objective was to analyse the Zarit scale's (ZS) ability to identify signs of caregiver collapse amongst people looking after patients suffering from dementia. We also evaluated the dimensions most affected by the ZS and risk factors associated with caregiver burden and collapse. Methods We administered the ZS and semi-structured interviews to identify signs of caregiver collapse amongst 66 people looking after patients suffering from dementia. We evaluated the risk factors associated with the patient: age, sex, type of dementia, place of residence, length of illness, behavioural disorders, incontinence, the Barthel index (IB), the Global Deterioration Scale (GDS), Folstein's Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the use of day-care centres and also risk factors associated with the caregiver: age, sex, relationship with the patient, help received with caring, the patient's illness, other family responsibilities and other work outside the home. Results There was a large degree of agreement between the findings from the interview and the ZS (Kappa,=,0.545; p,<,0.001). With regard to the risk factors evaluated in this study, there was a statistically significant relationship between behavioural disorders and both burden (p,<,0.27) and collapse (p,<,0.17) and between caregiver collapse and the caregiver and patient not living at the same home (p,<,0.27). Conclusion The ZS is not only useful for identifying caregiver burden, but also for predicting main caregiver collapse. Behavioural disorders and not living with the patient are the main causes of caregiver burden and collapse. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Social, Economic and Demographic Consequences of Migration on KeralaINTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 2 2001K.C. Zachariah Migration has been the single most dynamic factor in the otherwise dreary development scenario of Kerala during the last quarter of the last century. It has contributed more to poverty alleviation and reduction in unemployment in Kerala than any other factor. As a result of migration, the proportion of the population below the poverty line has declined by 12 per cent. The number of unemployed persons , estimated to be only about 13 lakhs in 1998 compared with 37 lakhs reported by the Kerala Employment Exchanges , has declined by over 30 per cent. Migration has caused nearly a million married women in Kerala to live away from their husbands. Most of these so-called "Gulf wives" experienced extreme loneliness to begin with, and were burdened with added family responsibilities to which they had not been accustomed when their husbands were with them. But over a period, and with a helping hand from abroad over the ISD, most came out of their early gloom. Their gain in autonomy, status, management skills and experience in dealing with the world outside their homes were developed the hard way and would remain with them for the rest of their lives for the benefit of their families and society. In the long run, the transformation of these million women will have contributed more to the development of Kerala society than all the temporary euphoria created by remittances and modern gadgetry. Kerala is dependent on migration for employment, subsistence, housing, household amenities, institution building, and many other developmental activities. The danger is that migration could cease, as shown by the Kuwait war of 1993, and repercussions could be disastrous for the State. Understanding migration trends and instituting policies to maintain the flow of migration is more important today than at any time in the past. Kerala workers seem to be losing out in international competition for jobs in the Gulf market. Corrective policies are needed urgently to raise their competitive edge over workers in competing countries in South and South-East Asia. Like any other industry, migration from Kerala needs periodic technological upgrading of workers. Otherwise, there is a danger that the State might lose the Gulf market permanently. The crux of the problem is Kerala workers' inability to compete with expatriates from other South and South-East Asian countries. The solution lies in equipping workers with better general education and job training. This study suggests a twofold approach. In the short run, the need is to improve the job skills of prospective emigrant workers. This could be achieved through ad hoc training programmes focussed on the job market in Gulf countries. In the long run, the need is to restructure the educational system, taking into consideration the future demand of workers not only in Kerala but also in potential destination countries all over the world, including the US and other developed countries. Kerala emigrants need not always be construction workers in the Gulf countries; they could also be software engineers in developed countries. [source] New social risks in postindustrial society: Some evidence on responses to active labour market policies from EurobarometerINTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY REVIEW, Issue 3 2004Peter Taylor-Gooby One result of the complex economic and social changes currently impacting on state welfare is the emergence of what may be termed "new social risks" as part of the shift to a postindustrial society. These concern access to adequately paid employment, particularly for lower-skilled young people, in an increasingly flexible labour market, and managing work-life balance for women with family responsibilities engaged in full-time careers. They coexist with the old social risks that traditional welfare states developed to meet, which typically concern retirement from or interruption to paid work, in most cases for a male "breadwinner". New social risks offer policymakers the opportunity to transform vice into virtue by replacing costly passive benefits with policies which mobilize the workforce, arguably enhancing economic competitiveness, and reduce poverty among vulnerable groups. However, the political constituencies to support such policies are weak, since the risks affect people most strongly at particular life stages and among specific groups. This paper examines attitudes to new social risk labour market policies in four contrasting European countries. It shows that attitudes in this area are strongly embedded in overall beliefs about the appropriate scale, direction and role of state welfare interventions, so that the weakness of new social risk constituencies does not necessarily undermine the possibility of attracting support for such policies, provided they are developed in ways that do not contradict national traditions of welfare state values. [source] Treading on Tradition: Approaches to Teaching International Relations to the Nontraditional UndergraduateINTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 1 2002Nancy E. Wright Nontraditional undergraduates (NTUs), undergraduates who typically are older than average, work full-time, and/or are entrusted with substantial family responsibilities, pose a special challenge to international relations educators. Severe constraints on time and access to library facilities both impede progress and may give an erroneous impression that NTUs are not as committed to their education as more conventional college undergraduates. The lack of continuity in education that typifies the NTU experience often manifests itself in anxiety, frustration, and gaps in fundamental knowledge. At the same time, the maturity and sophistication that come with life experience often far exceed that of the more conventional college student. Furthermore, typical requirements of international relations and international studies majors, such as second and third language proficiency, internships with international organizations, and overseas study are often not feasible for the working student with family responsibilities. Possibilities for meeting the challenges of teaching NTUs include greater use of open-book examinations, research proposals, case studies, simulations, problem-based learning (PBL), use of the Internet, and the development of short-term intensive overseas study opportunities that accommodate the working student's schedule. [source] Negative consequences of community group participation for women's mental health and well-being: Implications for gender aware social capital buildingJOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2009Katy Osborne Abstract Participation in community groups is argued to be an important way to create health-promoting social capital. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the ways in which gender affects the health promotion potential of participation. This paper reports on a qualitative study of women's experiences of participation in a diverse range of community groups, and considers how such involvement can potentially have a negative impact upon mental well-being. In-depth interviews were conducted with 30 women in Adelaide, South Australia. Women's accounts of their group involvement reflected that their identities as mothers were particularly important in shaping their participation. Some women reported difficulties in combining group involvement with their family responsibilities. Stress attached to negotiating social interaction within groups was also raised as an issue. It was found that participation can reinforce gender inequality and potentially have severe negative consequences for mental health, issues that need to be considered alongside the potential health benefits. The findings are considered in light of Bourdieu's critical conceptualization of social capital. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Sociological Ambivalence and Family Ties: A Critical PerspectiveJOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 3 2002Ingrid Arnet Connidis We develop the concept of ambivalence as structurally created contradictions that are made manifest in interaction. We discuss how our reconceptualization enhances the relevance of ambivalence to sociological analyses of family ties. Ambivalence is a particularly useful concept when imbedded in a theoretical framework that views social structure as structured social relations, and individuals as actors who exercise agency as they negotiate relationships within the constraints of social structure. The strengths of conceptualizing ambivalence within this framework are illustrated with examples of caring for older family members and of balancing paid work and family responsibilities. [source] Long work hours: a social identity perspective on meta-analysis dataJOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, Issue 7 2008Thomas W. H. Ng The current study utilizes social identity theory to investigate employees' work hours. Specifically, we use meta-analysis to examine the relationships between hours worked and indicators of organizational identity (e.g., organizational support and tenure), occupational identity (e.g., human capital investments and work centrality), and family identity (e.g., family responsibilities and family satisfaction). The meta-analysis also allowed us to explore other important correlates of hours worked (e.g., situational demands, job performance, mental health, and physical health), moderating variables (e.g., age, gender, and job complexity), and curvilinear relationships of work hours to social identity indicators. Overall, we found that occupational factors and situational demands had the strongest relationships with hours worked, hours worked were negatively associated with measures of employee well-being, gender had several significant moderating effects, and there were curvilinear relationships between hours worked and well-being and work,family conflict variables. The article concludes with directions for future theoretical and empirical research. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] WORK OF FEMALE RURAL DOCTORSAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF RURAL HEALTH, Issue 2 2004Jo Wainer Objectives: To identify the impact of family life on the ways women practice rural medicine and the changes needed to attract women to rural practice. Design: Census of women rural doctors in Victoria in 2000, using a self-completed postal survey. Setting: General and specialist practice. Subjects: Two hundred and seventy-one female general practitioners and 31 female specialists practising in Rural, Remote and Metropolitan Area Classifications 3,7. General practitioners are those doctors with a primary medical degree and without additional specialist qualifications. Main outcome measure: Interaction of hours and type of work with family responsibilities. Results: Generalist and specialist women rural doctors carry the main responsibility for family care. This is reflected in the number of hours they work in clinical and non-clinical professional practice, availability for oncall and hospital work, and preference for the responsibilities of practice partnership or the flexibility of salaried positions. Most of the doctors had established a satisfactory balance between work and family responsibilities, although a substantial number were overworked in order to provide an income for their families or meet the needs of their communities. Thirty-six percent of female rural general practitioners and 56% of female rural specialists preferred to work fewer hours. Female general practitioners with responsibility for children were more than twice as likely as female general practitioners without children to be in a salaried position and less likely to be a practice partner. The changes needed to attract and retain women in rural practice include a place for everyone in the doctor's family, flexible practice structures, mentoring by women doctors and financial and personal recognition. [source] Women's Inequality in the Workplace as Framed in News Discourse: Refracting from Gender Ideology*CANADIAN REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY/REVUE CANADIENNE DE SOCIOLOGIE, Issue 4 2004AMBER GAZSO Cet article examine les découvertes d'une analyse du schéma interprétatif du discours journalistique sur l'inégalité des femmes sur les lieux de travail dans The Globe and Mail et le National Post de novembre 2000 à novembre 2002. Les articles de journaux ont été analysés d'après la façon dont ils sont encadrés et, par la suite, selon la manière dont ils créent le genre en tant que structure sociale. On a découvert que le cadrage des expériences inégales des femmes sur les lieux de travail decoule de leur incapacitéà« s'intégrer », de choix « naturels » et de leur façon de » jongler « avec le travail et les responsabilités familiales. Une analyse ultérieure démontre que ces cadres reflétent une idéologie où le soutien de famille est masculin et les soins, féminins, suggérant que le genre est également moulé idéologiquement à l'intérieur de ce discours journalistique. This paper presents the findings of a frame analysis of newspaper discourse on women's inequality in the workplace in The Globe and Mail and the National Post from November 2000 to November 2002. Newspaper articles were analysed in terms of how they are framed by and further shape gender as a social structure. It was found that women's unequal workplace experiences are framed as a result of their inability to "fit in,""natural" choices and "juggling" of work and family responsibilities. Further analysis shows that these frames refract from a dominant male breadwinner/female caregiver gender ideology, suggesting that gender is also shaped ideologically within this news discourse. [source] Packaging Support for Low-Income Families: Policy Variation across the United StatesJOURNAL OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2001Marcia K. Meyers This paper addresses a gap in state-level comparative social policy research by analyzing policies that support low-income families with children. Variation in state policy "packages" is measured by considering three characteristics of 11 social programs. Individual measures of policy are found to be weakly and inconsistently inter-correlated at the state level, but when cluster analysis is used to analyze multiple dimensions simultaneously, five clusters or regime types are identified that have distinctive policy approaches. These range from the most minimal provisions, to conservative approaches emphasizing private responsibility, to integrated approaches that combine generous direct assistance with employment support and policies that enforce family responsibility. A comparison of a subset of programs at two points in time (1994 and 1998) suggests that states made substantial changes in cash assistance and taxation policies after the 1996 federal welfare reforms. The magnitude and direction of these changes remained consistent with the state clusters identified in 1994. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. [source] Influence of macrostructure of society on the life situation of families with a child with intellectual disability: Sweden as an exampleJOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY RESEARCH, Issue 4-5 2003M. B. Olsson Abstract Background Most studies on families with children with intellectual disability (ID) have been carried out in the UK or the USA, and are influenced by the societal organization, and political and economic climate of those countries. In the USA and the UK, the care and well-being of children, with or without ID, are seen almost exclusively as the individual family's responsibility. In Sweden, the care and well-being of children are seen more as a joint responsibility. Swedish society has developed many privileges for all parents in order to help them care for their children, and the support for parents of children with disabilities is provided exclusively by the Government and the community. The overall question explored in this descriptive, quantitative and qualitative study was: Are families in Sweden experiencing the stressors and life situations described in the studies of parents in more individualistic societies? Methods Two hundred and twenty-six families with children with ID and 234 control families with children ranging from 0 to 16 years of age answered mail surveys. Results Taken together, parents in Sweden describe most of the stressors proposed in the international literature with the exception of financial strain. Restricted social life and time restrictions seem to be the two most evident and bothersome stressors for Swedish families with children who have ID. Conclusions As in previous research, the parents of children with ID and autism experienced more stressors and restrictions in their lives than the parents of children with DS and control families. [source] | ||||||||||||||||