Corinne Reczek

Stress and health behaviour over the life course

Abstract Recent work emphasizes a “natural alliance” of stress and life course perspectives with both childhood and adult stress exposure having consequences over the life course. Research in this tradition is primarily concerned with mental and physical health outcomes and views health behaviour as a possible mechanism linking stress to health. This chapter emphasizes the importance of merging stress and life course perspectives to elaborate on the impact of stress on health behaviour. Stress may lead to coping responses that involve health behaviours (e.g., smoking, drinking, or eating excessively) and the impact of stress on health behaviour may vary in magnitude, or even direction, at different points in the life course. We develop a theoretically driven model to guide research on stress and health behaviour over the life course and present growth curve results from national data to test some of the theoretical premises.

Conducting a Multi Family Member Interview Study

Family researchers have long recognized the utility of incorporating interview data from multiple family members. Yet, relatively few contemporary scholars utilize such an approach due to methodological underdevelopment. This article contributes to family scholarship by providing a roadmap for developing and executing in-depth interview studies that include more than one family member. Specifically, it outlines the epistemological frames that most commonly underlie this approach, illustrates thematic research questions that it best addresses, and critically reviews the best methodological practices of conducting research with this approach. The three most common approaches are addressed in depth: separate interviews with each family member, dyadic or group interviews with multiple family members, and a combined approach that uses separate and dyadic or group interviews. This article speaks to family scholars who are at the beginning stages of their research project but are unsure of the best qualitative approach to answer a given research question.

Gendered emotion work around physical health problems in mid- and later-life marriages☆

The provision and receipt of emotion work-defined as intentional activities done to promote anothers emotional well-being-are central dimensions of marriage. However, emotion work in response to physical health problems is a largely unexplored, yet likely important, aspect of the marital experience. We analyze dyadic in-depth interviews with husbands and wives in 21 mid- to later-life couples to examine the ways that health-impaired people and their spouses provide, interpret, and explain emotion work. Because physical health problems, emotion work, and marital dynamics are gendered, we consider how these processes differ for women and men. We find that wives provide emotion work regardless of their own health status. Husbands provide emotion work less consistently, typically only when the husbands see themselves as their wifes primary source of stability or when the husbands view their marriage as balanced. Notions of traditional masculinity preclude some husbands from providing emotion work even when their wife is health-impaired. This study articulates emotion work around physical health problems as one factor that sustains and exacerbates gender inequalities in marriage with implications for emotional and physical well-being.

Parental Disapproval and Gay and Lesbian Relationship Quality

Parental disapproval of a different-sex romantic relationship is associated with reduced relationship quality and stability. However, little is known about how disapproval from parents matters for gay and lesbian relationship quality and stability. This article examines how 60 adults in gay and lesbian relationships understand and negotiate parental disapproval. Findings reveal three main ways parental disapproval is perceived to matter for the quality of gay and lesbian relationships. First, respondents describe experiencing increased relationship strain. Second, disapproval from parents is understood as promoting relationship resilience. Third, respondents separate themselves from parents to protect and bolster their relationship quality. In conversation with previous work on different-sex relationships, findings suggest that gay and lesbian adults perceive and negotiate strain from parents in ways that are both similar to, but also unique from, different-sex contexts. The implications for theory and research on intimate relationship quality in the context of family of origin relationships are discussed.

Marital Histories and Heavy Alcohol Use among Older Adults.

We develop a gendered marital biography approach—which emphasizes the accumulating gendered experiences of singlehood, marriage, marital dissolution, and remarriage—to examine the relationship between marital statuses and transitions and heavy alcohol use. We test this approach using individual-level (n = 10,457) and couple-level (n = 2,170) longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study, and individual-level (n = 46) and couple-level (n = 42) in-depth interview data. Quantitative results show that marriage, including remarriage, reduces men’s but increases women’s drinking relative to being never married and previously married, whereas divorce increases men’s but decrease women’s drinking, with some variation by age. Our qualitative findings reveal that social control and convergence processes underlie quantitative results. We call attention to how men’s and women’s heavy drinking trajectories stop, start, and change direction as individuals move through their distinctive marital biography.

Physical Illness in Gay, Lesbian, and Heterosexual Marriages Gendered Dyadic Experiences

The inclusion of same-sex married couples can illuminate and challenge assumptions about gender that are routinely taken for granted in studies of physical illness. We analyze gender dynamics in gay, lesbian, and heterosexual marriages with in-depth interview data from 90 spouses (45 couples) to consider how spouses co-construct illness experiences in ways that shape relationship dynamics. Overall, findings indicate that men tend to downplay illness and thus provide minimal care work, whereas women tend to construct illness as immersive and involving intensive care work—in both same-sex and different-sex marriages. Yet same-sex spouses describe similar constructions of illness much more so than different-sex couples, and as such, same-sex spouses describe less illness-related disagreement and stress. These findings help inform policies to support the health of gay and lesbian, as well as heterosexual, patients and their spouses, an important goal given health disparities of gay and lesbian populations.

The Intergenerational Relationships of Gay Men and Lesbian Women

OBJECTIVES Despite the demonstrated importance of intergenerational ties across the life course, few studies examine relationships between gay men and lesbians and their later life parents and parents-in-law. The present study examines how midlife to later life gay men and lesbians in intimate partnerships conceptualize these intergenerational ties. METHOD Qualitative analysis of 50 in-depth interviews collected with midlife to later life gay men and lesbians (ages 40-72) in long-term intimate partnerships. RESULTS Findings reveal 4 central ways respondents describe supportive parent-child and parent-child in-law relationships: integration, inclusion through language, social support, and affirmations. Findings reveal 3 central ways individuals distinguish strained parent-child and parent-child in-law relationships: rejection in everyday life, traumatic events, and the threat of being usurped. Findings further articulate how intergenerational ambivalence is distinguished through descriptions of a parent as simultaneously supportive (via subthemes of solidarity) and rejecting (via subthemes of strain). DISCUSSION Findings from this study provide empirical evidence of how support, strain, and ambivalence in intergenerational ties are identified and experienced by gay men and lesbian women. This study reveals a new lens to view relationships between midlife to later life adults and their aging parents and parents-in-law and further identifies linkages between solidarity-conflict and ambivalence paradigms.

Family Structure and Child Health: Does the Sex Composition of Parents Matter?

The children of different-sex married couples appear to be advantaged on a range of outcomes relative to the children of different-sex cohabiting couples. Despite the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, whether and how this general pattern extends to the children of same-sex married and cohabiting couples is unknown. This study examines this question with nationally representative data from the 2004–2013 pooled National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Results reveal that children in cohabiting households have poorer health outcomes than children in married households regardless of the sex composition of their parents. Children in same-sex and different-sex married households are relatively similar to each other on health outcomes, as are children in same-sex and different-sex cohabiting households. These patterns are not fully explained by socioeconomic differences among the four different types of families. This evidence can inform general debates about family structure and child health as well as policy interventions aiming to reduce child health disparities.

Marriage and the Mental Health of Low-Income Urban Women With Children

Although numerous studies of the general population show that married people tend to exhibit better mental health than their unmarried counterparts, there is little evidence to suggest that the psychological benefits of marriage extend to low-income urban women with children. Building on previous research, this study uses longitudinal survey data from the Welfare, Children, and Families project (1999, 2001) to examine the effects of marriage and related transitions on changes in psychological distress among low-income urban women with children. It also tests the mediating influence of financial hardship, social support, self-esteem, and frequency of intoxication. Although entering and exiting marriage are unrelated to changes in psychological distress, continuous marriage is associated with lower levels of psychological distress from baseline to follow-up. The mediation analysis also suggests that the apparent mental health benefits of continuous marriage are partially mediated or explained by lower levels of financial hardship.

Instrumental- and Emotion-Focused Care Work During Physical Health Events: Comparing Gay, Lesbian, and Heterosexual Marriages

Objectives We consider emotion- and instrumental-focused care work and marital stress during significant physical health events in midlife gay, lesbian, and heterosexual marriages. Method We employ the factorial method, an extension of the actor-partner interdependence model, to analyze survey data from 808 midlife gay, lesbian, and heterosexual spouses in 404 unions. Results The amount of emotion- and instrumental-focused care work provided during physical health events, and the associations between care work and marital stress, depends on the gender of the respondent, gender of the spouse, and whether spouses are in a same-sex or different-sex union. For example, in both same- and different-sex marriages, women report providing more emotion-focused care work during their own health event than do men, and respondents report more health-related marital stress when the patient is a woman. Discussion Investigating how midlife same-sex and different-sex spouses care for each other during a spouses health event expands understandings of gendered aging experiences within marriage. Findings can elucidate health policies and clinical strategies that best support the health of men and women in same- and different-sex marriages.