Elizabeth G. Menaghan

The stress process.

This study uses longitudinal data to observe how life events, chronic life strains, self concepts, coping, and social supports come together to form a process of stress. It takes involuntary job disruptions as illustrating life events and shows how they adversely affect enduring role strains, economic strains in particular. These exacerbated strains, in turn, erode positive concepts of self, such as self-esteem and mastery. The diminished self-concepts then leave one especially vulnerable to experiencing symptoms of stress, of which depression is of special interest to this analysis. The interventions of coping and social supports are mainly indirect; that is, they do not act directly to buffer depression. Instead, they minimize the elevation of depression by dampening the antecedent process.

Early Parental Work, Family Social Capital, and Early Childhood Outcomes

This article evaluates the impact of parental working conditions on both a cognitive child outcome and a social one among a national sample of three- to six-year-old children with employed mothers. Current maternal working conditions (i.e., a mothers working conditions at the time of the study) affect verbal facility, but paternal work hours in the early years have significant effects on childrens behavior problems. Mothers current occupational complexity interacts with her resources and employment characteristics to influence both cognitive and social outcomes. The conclusion is that adequate parental resources contribute to the forms of family social capital useful in facilitating positive child outcomes, but that conclusions regarding negative effects of maternal work in the childs first year have been overgeneralized.

Determining Children's Home Environments: The Impact of Maternal Characteristics and Current Occupational and Family Conditions.

This study examines determinants of the home environments employed mothers provide for their young children, and investigates the impact of current employment experiences, current family conditions, and maternal and child characteristics in shaping childrens home environments. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youths 1986 Mother-Child Supplement, the study focuses on 795 employed mothers with a child aged three through six years old. As work socialization theories suggest, the occupational complexity of mothers work positively affects the home environments mothers provide for their children. In addition, larger family size produces less optimal child environments. The personal resources that mothers bring to their childrearing-self-esteem, locus of control, educational attainment, and age-also have significant effects on childrens home environments. Given the importance of home environment for childrens cognitive and socioemotional development, these findings suggest pathways by which maternal resources and current occupational and family environments have intergenerational repercussions.

The determinants of first sex by age 14 in a high-risk adolescent population.

A study using data for mothers from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and their children aged 14 or older indicates that, after accounting for a wide range of demographic and socioeconomic antecedents, children are significantly more likely to become sexually active before age 14 if their mother had sex at an early age and if she has worked extensively. In addition, early sexual debut is eight times as likely among black boys as among non-Hispanic white boys. Children who use controlled substances at an early age are more than twice as likely to have sex before age 14 as those who do not, although the type of substance having an effect is different for girls (cigarettes) and boys (alcohol). Church attendance is an important determinant of delayed sexual activity, but only when a childs friends attend the same church.

Changes in Depression Following Divorce: A Panel Study.

The relationship between marital status and psychological well-being has been subject to conflicting interpretations. In this paper, panel data are analyzed to assess the impact of changes in marital status on psychological well-being. Data from a large metropolitan Chicago sample are used to examine changes in depressive affect in a group of adults divorced during the four years between interviews, and to compare them with people who have remained married. Those who would subsequently divorce were not significantly more depressed at the first time point than those who would remain married. Four years later, however, the newly divorced had become significantly more depressed. This increase in depression is mediated by greater economic problems, the perception that ones standard of living has deteriorated, and the lesser availability of close, confiding relationships. These findings suggest that despite its increased frequency, divorce remains an event that brings economic and emotional hardship to many; the greater depressive affect of the unmarried reflects the worsened life conditions they experience.

Coping With Occupational Problems: The Limits of Individual Efforts

This analysis considers the effectiveness of four occupational coping efforts: direct action, optimistic comparisons, selective ignoring, and restricted expectations. Two criteria for effectiveness are considered: reduction in occupational distress, and reduction in later occupational problems. Data are drawn from two waves of interviews with a large metropolitan sample. Effectiveness is assessed net of age, gender, socioeconomic status, type, of employment, marital status, number of children, and initial level of difficulty. Lesser efforts to restrict expectations and greater use of optimistic comparisons were associated with lower concurrent occupational distress. as well as with reductions in distress over time. However, none of the coping efforts directly affected later occupational problems; rather, the initial level of difficulty, and characteristics of ones work life-full-time versus part-time, occupational prestige, and income level-were the key influences on later problem levels. When these findings are linked to earlier studies of coping effectiveness for marital and parental problems, they suggest that optimistic comparisons and avoidance of resigned, impotent stances are generally beneficial stances. The findings are also considered in light of recent discussions of social status and emotional distress, and it is concluded that neither lower social status nor female gender is consistently associated with less adaptive coping efforts.

Maternal working conditions and children's verbal facility : studying the intergenerational transmission of inequality from mothers to young children

We develop arguments regarding the impact of maternal working conditions on childrens verbal facility as a vehicle for studying the intergenerational transmission of inequality from mothers to yound children. We argue that the better paying the mothers job and the more substantively complex the work activities in her occupation, the higher her childs measured verbal facility. We also expect a nonlinear relationship between maternal work hours and verbal facility

Effects of Low-Wage Employment on Family Well-Being

Assumptions about the processes that link a mothers employment to the development of her child must underlie expectations about how children may fare when their mothers move from welfare dependence into employment. This article explores the idea, mentioned in the research overview by Zaslow and Emig in this journal issue, that the working conditions such as wages, work hours, and task complexity that mothers experience on the job can influence their behavior as parents and shape the home environments they provide for their children. This article discusses the significance of home environments for childrens intellectual and emotional development and considers how home surroundings change when mothers begin jobs that are more rewarding or less rewarding. The authors conclude that, while maternal employment is not necessarily harmful, if welfare recipients find only low-wage, stressful jobs, working may prove costly for both family and child well-being. The authors recommend that welfare-to-work programs devote attention to (1) assisting mothers to obtain more complex work at good wages, (2) helping mothers understand the role home environments play in shaping childrens development, and (3) encouraging parents to make their childrens home surroundings as positive as possible.

The effects of maternal working conditions and mastery on child behavior problems: studying the intergenerational transmission of social control.

We assess the impact of maternal sense of mastery and maternal working conditions on maternal perceptions of childrens behavior problems as a means to study the transmission of social control across generations. We use a sample of 521 employed mothers and their four-to six-year-old children from the National Longitudinal Surveys Youth Cohort in 1986. Regarding working conditions, we consider mothers hourly wage, work hours, and job content including involvement with things (vs. people), the requisite level of physical activity, and occupational complexity. We also consider maternal and child background and current family characteristics, including marital status, family size, and home environment. Maternal mastery was related to fewer reported behavior problems among children. Lower involvement with people and higher involvement with things, as well as low physical activity, were related significantly to higher levels of perceived problems. In addition, recent changes in maternal marital status, including maternal marriage or remarriage, increased reports of problems; stronger home environments had the opposite effect. We interpret these findings as suggesting how maternal experiences of control in the workplace and personal resources of control can influence the internalization of control in children.

Depressive Affect and Subsequent Divorce

Evidence for the relationship between marital status and psychological well-being has been largely cross-sectional and subject to multiple interpretations. Estimates of well-being prior to marital termination permit a fuller examination of the impact of psychological well-being on changes in marital status. The present study utilizes data from a large metropolitan Chicago sample to assess the initial life conditions and depressive affect of married respondents, and contrasts those who divorced during the following four years with those who remained married. Among women, significantly more of those who would subsequently divorce were employed at Time 1. Those who would subsequently divorce also differed from those who would remain married in being somewhat younger and more distressed by their marriages, but they were not significantly more depressed. These findings suggest that previously observed marital status differences in psychological well-being reflect the negative life conditions that follow divorce, and the decreased well-being associated with those new conditions, more than they reflect preexisting psychological problems.