Suchergebnisse

AbstractPaternal involvement in instrumental and emotional parenting behaviours benefits families and children. While fathers have become more involved in childrearing over the past several decades, significant variability in paternal involvement with children remains. Yet, little work has focused on the facilitators and barriers to involved fathering and work in the Canadian context is particularly sparse. This study focuses on one potentially important factor, depressive symptoms, and its relationship with multiple dimensions of father involvement among Canadian men. Using national quantitative data from the Survey of Canadian Fathers‐Enquête des Pères Canadiens (n= 2,099) and ordinary least squares regression models, we focus on the relationship between depressive symptoms and six measures of fathering behavior. Results indicate that depression is significantly associated with most behaviours, but these results diverge from studies in other countries and contexts. Overall, our findings underscore the importance of context‐specific studies on parenting and the need for additional work on fathering and mental health in Canada.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, the federal government, supported by both Republican and Democratic administrations, has allocated roughly $1.5 billion to promote "healthy marriage initiatives." A major target of these initiatives have been unmarried parents, or what researchers call fragile families. Over the past two decades, studies have examined this issue within the general population. This study applied three areas of the marriage initiative used by McLanahan (2006) to American Indian people: potential participation in marriage promotion programs, potential impact of marriage programs, and likelihood of marriage. Data for 3,152 women were examined from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, including 154 who self-identified as American Indian. This study showed that American Indians exhibited a high willingness to participate in marriage promotion programs. American Indians were less likely than other racial/ethnic groups to see marriage as better for children. This study underscores the need to understand American Indian families and their unique approaches to developing healthy marriage and family structures. For marriage promotion programs to work, they should reflect the cultural practices of the individual American Indian communities.

As wealth inequality in the United States continues to grow, family characteristics have become increasingly important to researchers' understanding of changes in wealth inequality over time. One aspect of adulthood is having children and transitioning to parenthood, which can affect numerous outcomes, including wealth trajectories. Due to widely-recognized structural constraints, black and Hispanic households generally have fewer financial resources to draw upon when they begin to have children. Therefore, existing racial/ethnic wealth inequality may increase when minority families have children. W e use growth curve modeling techniques to analyze a sample of continuously married couples from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 cohort. Results suggest that children affect family financial resources in different ways and that this effect varies by race and ethnicity. These findings improve our understanding of how a similar family event-having children-within families contributes to divergent financial outcomes between families.

AbstractThe COVID‐19 pandemic created rapid, wide‐ranging, and significant disruptions to work and family life. Accordingly, these dramatic changes may have reshaped parents' gendered division of labor in the short term. Using data from 1,234 Canadian parents in different‐sex relationships, we compare retrospective reports of perceived sharing in how housework and childcare tasks were split prior to the declaration of the pandemic to assessments of equality afterward. Further, we describe perceptions of changes in fathers' engagement in these tasks overall, by respondent gender, and by employment arrangements before and during the pandemic. Results indicate small shifts toward a more equal division of labor in the early "lockdown" months, with increased participation in housework and childcare by fathers, supporting the needs exposure hypothesis. We conclude by discussing gender differences in parents' reports and potential implications for longer term gender equality.

AbstractScholars believe that family ties extending out to previous generations, called kin support, may have allowedAmericanIndians to withstand traumatic events. Although a series of traumatic and historical events disrupted the social structures of family life, kin support was found to be a major factor in the survival ofAmericanIndians. This study utilized theFragileFamilies andChildWellbeingStudy to compareAmericanIndians and whites (n= 1227) in factors that impact kin support. While urbanAmericanIndian mothers were similar to whites in a number of elements,AmericanIndian mothers that were not married, fell below the poverty threshold, were younger in age and co‐resided with kin were more likely than their white counterparts to receive kin support. Implications for urbanAmericanIndian mothers suggest that maintaining their role as kin keeper may serve as an intrinsic reward and motivation for caring for kin. The role of a kin keeper may also promote the unique contribution in their families and the preservation of their culture. Given the minimal research in this area, results of this study can be used to guide future research and the development of intervention strategies for practitioners working withAmericanIndian families.