Rosalind Berkowitz King

Changing work and work-family conflict: Evidence from the work, family, and health network

Schedule control and supervisor support for family and personal life may help employees manage the work-family interface. Existing data and research designs, however, have made it difficult to conclusively identify the effects of these work resources. This analysis utilizes a group-randomized trial in which some units in an information technology workplace were randomly assigned to participate in an initiative, called STAR, that targeted work practices, interactions, and expectations by (1) training supervisors on the value of demonstrating support for employees’ personal lives and (2) prompting employees to reconsider when and where they work. We find statistically significant, although modest, improvements in employees’ work-family conflict and family time adequacy, and larger changes in schedule control and supervisor support for family and personal life. We find no evidence that this intervention increased work hours or perceived job demands, as might have happened with increased permeability of work across time and space. Subgroup analyses suggest the intervention brought greater benefits to employees more vulnerable to work-family conflict. This study uses a rigorous design to investigate deliberate organizational changes and their effects on work resources and the work-family interface, advancing our understanding of the impact of social structures on individual lives.

Work–Family Balance Issues and Work–Leave Policies

Unhealthy work environments are not only the consequence of physical characteristics. Psychosocial aspects of the environment, including control and social support, are also consequential factors. While holding multiple roles as both worker and family member can have positive implications for health, chronic stress experienced from lack of work–family balance has negative effects. This chapter describes an interdisciplinary model of how work–family strains impact the health and well being of employees, their families, and the organizations in which they work. We argue that both structure and culture count at the workplace: work–family conflict increases with both a lack of supervisor support for family obligations and ineffective workplace policies and programs regarding employees’ control over the time and timing of work. We then describe an ongoing randomized field experiment to implement and evaluate a workplace-based prevention program to improve work–family balance. We conclude with the implications of this model for future research.

A workplace intervention improves sleep: results from the randomized controlled Work, Family, and Health Study

STUDY OBJECTIVES The Work, Family, and Health Network Study tested the hypothesis that a workplace intervention designed to increase family-supportive supervision and employee control over work time improves actigraphic measures of sleep quantity and quality. DESIGN Cluster-randomized trial. SETTING A global information technology firm. PARTICIPANTS US employees at an information technology firm. INTERVENTIONS Randomly selected clusters of managers and employees participated in a 3-month, social, and organizational change process intended to reduce work-family conflict. The intervention included interactive sessions with facilitated discussions, role playing, and games. Managers completed training in family-supportive supervision. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS Primary outcomes of total sleep time (sleep duration) and wake after sleep onset (sleep quality) were collected from week-long actigraphy recordings at baseline and 12 months. Secondary outcomes included self-reported sleep insufficiency and insomnia symptoms. Twelve-month interviews were completed by 701 (93% retention), of whom 595 (85%) completed actigraphy. Restricting analyses to participants with e3 valid days of actigraphy yielded a sample of 473-474 for intervention effectiveness analyses. Actigraphy-measured sleep duration was 8 min/d greater among intervention employees relative to controls (P < .05). Sleep insufficiency was reduced among intervention employees (P = .002). Wake after sleep onset and insomnia symptoms were not different between groups. Path models indicated that increased control over work hours and subsequent reductions in work-family conflict mediated the improvement in sleep sufficiency. CONCLUSIONS The workplace intervention did not overtly address sleep, yet intervention employees slept 8 min/d more and reported greater sleep sufficiency. Interventions should address environmental and psychosocial causes of sleep deficiency, including workplace factors.

Romantic Relationships among Immigrant Adolescents1

We examine the importance of the family and friendship group as two crucial developmental contexts for adolescent relationship experiences. We focus particularly on immigrant adolescents who make up an increasing proportion of the youth population and who come from cultural contexts with stronger family traditions than native-born adolescents. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we model the characteristics associated with having romantic relationships and participating in sex-related activities within relationships for immigrant adolescents, children of immigrants and adolescents in native-born families. First generation adolescents are less likely to enter romantic relationships than adolescents in native-born families, but those who do participate engage in similar sex-related activities as native-born youth. This evidence suggests that immigrant youth who enter romantic relationships are selective of the more assimilated to native adolescent norms of heterosexual behavior. The peer group is especially important for immigrant adolescents because it provides opportunities for romantic relationship involvement.

Social and Economic Aspects of Immigration

The absolute size of the foreign‐born U.S. population is at a historical high, but neither the share of the population that is foreign born nor the share of children in immigrant families is high compared with the beginning of the 20th century. While poverty rates for immigrants and children in immigrant families are substantial, poverty is concentrated among certain groups, particularly Hispanics and blacks, non‐citizens, and recent arrivals. The general economic well‐being of immigrants improves with the move to the United States and as time in the United States increases. However, immigrants remain disadvantaged in terms of health insurance coverage. The economic situation of children in immigrant families has declined since the late 1960s, despite the high labor force participation of immigrant men and the lower prevalence of single‐parent households among immigrant families. Still, children in immigrant families are at least as healthy as children in native families and are less likely to engage in risky behaviors. With socioeconomic factors taken into account, children in immigrant families do as well as other children in school. Analyses of the socioeconomic well‐being of immigrants have been hampered by lack of information in major data sets about legal status and about the visa status of legally present immigrants, as well as by limited availability of longitudinal data.

Parents' Daily Time With Their Children: A Workplace Intervention

OBJECTIVES: In the context of a group randomized field trial, we evaluated whether parents who participated in a workplace intervention, designed to increase supervisor support for personal and family life and schedule control, reported significantly more daily time with their children at the 12-month follow-up compared with parents assigned to the Usual Practice group. We also tested whether the intervention effect was moderated by parent gender, child gender, or child age. METHODS: The Support-Transform-Achieve-Results Intervention was delivered in an information technology division of a US Fortune 500 company. Participants included 93 parents (45% mothers) of a randomly selected focal child aged 9 to 17 years (49% daughters) who completed daily telephone diaries at baseline and 12 months after intervention. During evening telephone calls on 8 consecutive days, parents reported how much time they spent with their child that day. RESULTS: Parents in the intervention group exhibited a significant increase in parent-child shared time, 39 minutes per day on average, between baseline and the 12-month follow-up. By contrast, parents in the Usual Practice group averaged 24 fewer minutes with their child per day at the 12-month follow-up. Intervention effects were evident for mothers but not for fathers and for daughters but not sons. CONCLUSIONS: The hypothesis that the intervention would improve parents’ daily time with their children was supported. Future studies should examine how redesigning work can change the quality of parent-child interactions and activities known to be important for youth health and development.

The NIH Science of Behavior Change Program: Transforming the science through a focus on mechanisms of change

The goal of the NIH Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) Common Fund Program is to provide the basis for an experimental medicine approach to behavior change that focuses on identifying and measuring the mechanisms that underlie behavioral patterns we are trying to change. This paper frames the development of the program within a discussion of the substantial disease burden in the U.S. attributable to behavioral factors, and details our strategies for breaking down the disease- and condition-focused silos in the behavior change field to accelerate discovery and translation. These principles serve as the foundation for our vision for a unified science of behavior change at the NIH and in the broader research community.

Supply of and demand for assisted reproductive technologies in the United States: clinic- and population-based data, 1995-2010.

OBJECTIVE To study national-level trends in assisted reproduction technology (ART) treatments and outcomes as well as the characteristics of women who have sought this form of infertility treatment. DESIGN Population-based study. SETTING Not applicable. PATIENT(S) For CDC: All reporting clinics from 1996-2010. For NSFG: for the logistic analysis, sample comprising 2,325 women aged 22-44 years who have ever used medical help to get pregnant, excluding women who used only miscarriage prevention services. INTERVENTION(S) None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S) CDC data (number of cycles, live birth deliveries, live births, patient diagnoses); and NSFG data (individual use of ART procedures). RESULT(S) Between 1995 and 2010, use of ART increased. Parity and age are strong predictors of using ART procedures. The other correlates are higher education, having had tubal surgery, and having a current fertility problem. CONCLUSION(S) The two complementary data sets highlight the trends of ART use. An increase in the use of ART services over this time period is seen in both data sources. Nulliparous women aged 35-39 years are the most likely to have ever used ART services.

Latent profiles of perceived time adequacy for paid work, parenting, and partner roles.

This study examined feelings of having enough time (i.e., perceived time adequacy) in a sample of employed parents (N = 880) in information technology and extended-care industries. Adapting a person-centered latent profile approach, we identified 3 profiles of perceived time adequacy for paid work, parenting, and partner roles: family time protected, family time sacrificed, and time balanced. Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory (Hobfòll, 1989), we examined the associations of stressors and resources with the time adequacy profiles. Parents in the family time sacrificed profile were more likely to be younger, women, have younger children, work in the extended-care industry, and have nonstandard work schedules compared to those in the family time protected profile. Results from multinomial logistic regression analyses revealed that, with the time balanced profile as the reference group, having fewer stressors and more resources in the family context (less parent-child conflict and more partner support), work context (longer company tenure, higher schedule control and job satisfaction), and work-family interface (lower work-to-family conflict) was linked to a higher probability of membership in the family time protected profile. By contrast, having more stressors and fewer resources, in the forms of less partner support and higher work-to-family conflict, predicted a higher likelihood of being in the family time sacrificed profile. Our findings suggest that low work-to-family conflict is the most critical predictor of membership in the family time protected profile, whereas lack of partner support is the most important factor to be included in the family time sacrificed profile.

Insights from the OppNet initiatives on psychosocial stress and sleep: themes for multidisciplinary team science research

Understanding the multilevel and bidirectional factors and basic mechanisms linking psychosocial stress, sleep, and their interactions to health outcomes is critical to building successful interventions and promoting population health. We report here on the first gathering of the National Institutes of Health Basic Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Opportunity Network grant recipients in the separate but interrelated topics of psychosocial stress and sleep. The meeting provided an opportunity for investigators to present their research methods and discuss emerging findings, gain insight into new research directions, and form innovative collaborations. Several recurring themes were identified: contextualizing behavioral processes as they unfold in the real world, developing and using novel measurement techniques, and looking over time and across the lifespan. The need for multidisciplinary team science was also identified as a key determinant of success. These themes suggest useful future research directions.