Sociology Final

"Divorce in Research Vs. Divorce in Media" (Rutter)

"Case for divorce" - in some situations, divorce may be a better outcome than remaining married.

Demography of Stepfamilies and Remarriages

- 2009: 9.6 million children living stepfamily households - Who remarries? o 2/3 of all divorced women will remarry o Women who divorce at younger ages are more likely to remarry o White women more likely to remarry than poor counterparts - Divorce Rates among Remarried o Remarriages more likely to end in divorce than first marriages

Contact

- 75-80% of older people live within an hour's drive from children - Regular contact with grandchildren o Largely dependent on geographical closeness o Also important for grandparents to have good relationship with mother of grandchild: daughter or daughter in law

Stepfamilies in Later Life

- Adult children: relationships with stepparents are typically of lower quality than those with biological parents o Strength of stepparent-stepchild bond closely tied to quality of the stepparent-biological parent relationship o Stepparent-stepchild bon stronger in married household o Step-grandparents from stronger bonds with step-grandchildren if involved in their lives from a younger age

Explaining Intergenerational Support Patterns

- Altruism: caring about others and making their lives easier o People feel more obligated to kin than other social ties - Exchange: individuals consider costs and benefits of assisting o Generalized exchange: assisting a family member with expectation that the support will be reciprocated in the future

What do Children do for Parents?

- Benefits of having children: o Positive mental health benefits: higher self esteem o Not a lot of research on wheat children do for parents - Importance of Parenthood o Becoming a parent is a highly valued and expected identity in American society

Development of Welfare State

- Capitalist government has enacted measures to protect workers and families from harshness of capitalist system o Welfare: broader sense of well-being of members in society - Rise and Fall of Family Wage System o Division of labor where husband earns enough money to support family and wife remains home to care for household and children o Push for higher wages for men and fewer hours for women could work to preserve the traditional breadwinner-homemaker model

Division of Labor in Marriage: Rethinking Care Work

- Care work: one person meets the needs of spouses, partners, children or parents who cannot fully care for themselves o Instrumental and emotional - Breaking the Work/Family Boundary o What caregivers do should be thought of as work o Abolish separation between families' activities and world of work • Melding the private and public - Valuing Caring Labor o Demeaned by being relegated to "women's work" o Unpaid or underpaid work o Employees disproportionately drawn from ethnic minority group

Child Abuse and Prevalence and Trends

- Child abuse: serious physical harm (trauma, sexual abuse with injury, or willful malnutrition) of a child by an adult o No single definition to capture all types - Rates higher for neglect than physical abuse - Children from disadvantaged backgrounds more likely to experience abuse - Long term adverse effects and poly victimization

Effects of Stepfamilies on Children

- Children in stepfamilies typically exhibit lower well-being compared to children in 2 biological parent families o Many adjust normally and in some cases there is no difference between children raised in different family forms - Children in cohabitating stepfamilies may also have lower well-being than children in married stepfamilies o Lower levels of commitments o More short term relationships o Effects of serial cohabitation

Family Policy Debates

- Conservative Viewpoint o Declining role: erosion traditional norms and values that supported marriage o Minimize role of economy in effecting change in the family o Modest role in supporting families o Advocate for government intervention when it undermines traditional vision of family • Anti-abortion campaigns • Push for traditional marriage (DOMA) - Liberal Viewpoint o Accept and defend family diversity and the multiplicity of family forms o Emphasis on economic change as a major influence on changing family forms o Advocate for more support for working parents • Subsidized childcare • Responsive workplace • Motherhood Manifesto documentary

"Flat Broke with Children: Ground Level Results of Welfare Reform" Sharon Hays

- Critical of the so called "success" of welfare reform o Successful transitions from poverty into self-sufficiency are rare and not the norm - Ethnography: interviewed caseworkers and welfare mothers - Some short term successes but one major family crisis could push a family over the edge - Creates a cycle of work and welfare: transitioning between low wage work and welfare benefits. - Working poor families often suffer more material hardship than their counterparts on welfare - Personal Responsibility Act: o Offered support for employment o Implemented harsh rules and punishment to steer the poor away from welfare • Increased pressure to find jobs: no matter how low the wages o Costs: People's unique situations and contexts are no longer considered

Domestic Violence

- DV: Violent acts between family members or between women and men in intimate or dating relationships o Intimate partner violence (IPV) - Rise in scholarly research on DV reflects growth of feminist movement.

Modernization of Old Age

- Decline in mortality: men and women living to older ages o People living longer, healthier lives o Active life expectancy: number if years a person will live without disability - Social consequences o People can expect to live longer o Women on average outlive men o Older population people 65+ o Older population will increase and become older and older o Gerontology: study of aging - Decline of fertility: number of births in population o Grandparenthood separate stage of family life without child care obligation o Older people no longer caring for younger children when older children leave home - Growth of vertical kinship ties: relationships with relatives in your own generation - Longer number of years where adults may still have living parents

Effects of Welfare Reform

- Declines in TANF caseload and increases in employment rates of low income, single mothers o Fewer people entering into welfare than before - What happens to families who have left TANF? o Slight drop in percentage living in poverty o Rise in number of "disconnected" single mothers: unemployed, not receiving benefits and no adult earners in household

Changing Family Dynamics

- Divorce and remarriage may result in multiple sets of grandparents in children's lives - Unique issues faced by older adults: o In need of care because at greater risk of health complications o Large proportion at risk of poverty

Effects of Divorce and Remarriage

- Divorce may weaken intergenerational ties among family members - Precarious ties between step parents and step children - Importance of families of choice for older gay men and lesbians

Different Kids of Households

- Divorcing household o Raises risk of child dropping out of high school, teenage pregnancy and public assistance - Single-parent household o Can be stable and healthy but may suffer economically based on lack of second income o Higher risk of depression o Lower rates of parental monitoring and supervision - Household with parent and cohabitating partner o Children face higher risks of lower school engagement and high school graduation

Welfare Reform

- Emphasis on temporary assistance and getting job: poor mothers could no longer stay at home to care for children - Reasons for policy reversal: o Attitudes toward women's roles: reasonable to require jobs with increase in women's labor force participation o Recipient characteristics: cultural stereotypes regarding the "Deserving poor" vs. the "non deserving poor" - Concern about "dependency" after receiving prolonged support from government, people will lose initiative to find jobs

"Gay Parenthood and the End of Paternity as We Knew it" Stacey

- Experiences of gay men pursuing fatherhood - Pursuit of parenthood now hinges more on emotional desires rather than economic ones o Emphasis on social construction of parenthood o Created kinship networks - Gay fatherhood challenged norms of hegemonic masculinity as well as gay culture - Qualitative study of 50 gay men o Continuum of fathering desires - Predestined Parents: men who actively sought out fatherhood - Gay men navigate the complexities of (gestational) surrogacy, adoption, custody and same-sex marriage issues - Class differences determine the routes to parenthood that some men are able to access

What are Parents Supposed to do for Children?

- Families are primary source of support for children in first years of life - Socialization as Support and Control o Emotional support: love, affection, warmth, etc. o Exertion of control: limit or change children's behavior

Family National Guard

- Grandparents act as reserve resources for families when family crisis occurs

Long-term Unemployment

- Great Recession adversely affected dual-earner couples. o Men have lost more jobs than women: more detrimental when main earner is often the man - Many more women entered workforce when husbands lost jobs - Hit older adults harder: more difficult for them to find work again - Creates high stress and conflict within the family o Especially when women forced into breadwinner roles o Adverse effects on marital quality

Still, or One Again, Living at Home

- Great Recession caused by many young adults to move back in with parents o Can help with looking for jobs or going back to school o Can offset economic costs of being unemployed o Can create family resentment

Some Conclusions about Divorce, Remarriage and Stepfamilies

- Growing emphasis on personal fulfillment has increased the instability of marriage o Rising divorce rates o Increasing cohabitation rates - Changing living arrangements, such as stepfamilies, are leading people to actively engage in creating their own kinship ties - The impact of divorce, remarriage and stepfamilies on children is complex o Even if only a minority of children develop mental issues because of these unstable transitions, this area of research remains important

Sexual Aggression and Violence in Young Adult Relationships

- Historical lack of attention to sexually coercive tactics: o Lower rates of sexual activity among unmarried young people o Women were blamed more often for partners inappropriate behavior - 6% of all adult women have been raped by acquaintance - Drinking, being unmarried and past sexual assault all increase risk of victimization - Male perpetrators report greater hostility and negative views towards women

What is a Stepfamily?

- Household in which 2 adults are married or cohabitating and at least one adult has a child present from a previous marriage or relationship - Diversity o Cohabitating stepfamily o Married stepfamily o Previous relationship could have been married or cohabitating - "Work" of kinship o Created kinship o Establish relationships to be considered kin o Maintain kinship to be considered a relative

Do Children Have Rights?

- Increase in laws and policies addressing rights of children - UN established Convention on the Rights of he Child o Steps to protect economic, social and cultural rights of children o Somalia and US only nations that have not signed the treaty o Opposition: undermine freedom of caregivers to parent as they wish - National differences in beliefs of what restrictions should be placed on children

Separate Living Arrangements

- Increase of older people living alone o Sharp increase of older women living alone - Why are women living alone? o Women outlive men o Less common for adult child to remain living at home o Older Americans prefer living near children but not with them "intimacy at a distance" - More older men also living alone, but more likely to live with spouses

When Work Interferes with Family Life

- Increased conflict between work and family o Married couples, single parents and single adults with no children o More people cite interference from work to home rather than vice versa - 2 ways work interferes with family o Task size: unrealistic demands on time and energy from job (managerial, professional positions) • Ideal parent vs. ideal worker o Task Stress: emotional stress from dangerous work and little job security (hourly, less educated workers) • Spillover: transfer of mood or behavior between work and home o Non Standard work hours: increased in service sector

"The Work-Home Crunch" Gerson and Jacobs

- Increased pressures to balance work and home responsibilities - Growing split of labor force: overworked and underworked Americans - Transforming family life: - Effects of Family: o Increased stress on family functioning when working longer hours o Women much more likely to work than in the past o Especially difficult for single parents o Parents adjust work schedules when have children • Mothers work less; fathers work more - Solving the puzzle o Importance of changing social policy o Childcare o Family-friendly workplace

Barriers to Parenting

- Instability of family life o 8% of children in US living with mothers experience 3 or more maternal partnerships by age 15 - Multiple Transitions o The number of household transitions a child experiences related to negative outcomes o Unclear whether is cause-and-effect relationship or due to underlying circumstances - Frequent transitions cause greater family stress

Intergeneration Conflict and Ambivalence

- Intergenerational conflict: discord among family members that distances generations - Intergenerational ambivalence: contradictory emotions or mixed feelings in an intergenerational relationship o More common for women - Collective ambivalence: mixed feelings across multiple children o Parents/Grandparents may have mixed feeling towards children if different children provide different levels of care

Intergenerational Ties

- Intergenerational solidarity: traits of family relationships that knit the generations together o Contact o Assistance o Affinity: emotional closeness b/w parents and children. Agreement on values, attitudes and beliefs • Increasing emphasis on bonds of sentiment

Toward a Responsive Workplace?

- Job conditions are designed to allow employees to meet their family responsibilities o Beneficial to workers and employers - 2 tied class system: better paid workers receive more benefits than less advantaged workers o Flextime: policy that allows employees to choose when they will begin and working hour o Only in higher-prestige positions o Parental leave: time off from work to care for a child • US has Family Medical Leave Act: 12 weeks of unpaid leave

DV and Public Policy

- Majority of people disprove of intimate partner violence o Greater endorsement of "soft patriarch" model - Social programs o Spread of mandatory arrest policies in dv complaints: arresting lowers risk of repeated violence o Factors that may lead to higher rates of dv perpetration: alcohol abuse, prior arrests, unemployment

Current Debates

- Marriage Promotion: moral/political issue that views marriage as a path out of poverty o Research shows children can develop normally outside of a heterosexual marriage household o Increasing acceptance of divorce; people delaying marriage by cohabitating - Same-Sex Marriage: civil rights issue concerned with equitable access to legal rights of marriage o Opponents cite religious, moral and traditional arguments - Non-marital Childbearing: blame adolescent sexual activity and risk of pregnancy - Single Parent Families: greater emphasis on providing aid to these families o Can be cohabitating families or living with kin o Dichotomy of married vs. not married no longer valid - National Health Insurance: would provide equitable health insurance to all, especially to those who are uninsured - Responsible Fatherhood: shift towards focus on low-income fathers who have never married the mother of their children - Work-Family Balance: emphasis on making the workplace more responsive to working families

Men Experiencing IPV

- Men experience IPV as perpetrators as well as victims, through victimization is often overlooked in media and scholarly outlets - Stigma of reporting; fear of emasculation and not being taken seriously

Care of Older Persons with Disabilities

- More older people living in community than in nursing homes o Much of their care is provided by relatives o Women more likely to be caregivers o Hierarchy of caregivers: spouse, adult daughter, son or sister - Institutionalized care that most costly o Female caregivers help reduce the costs of government health care

Transnational Families

- More women migrating to wealthy countries to send money back to family - Immigrant caregivers o Growth in wealthy countries of low-wage service jobs o Rising demand for nannies to care for children while middle class mothers work o Technological means of communication allow for connections between immigrant mother and her family. • Creates transnational families: maintain mutual contact between members in sending and receiving countries o Effects on children • Migrating mothers leave children in care of kin. Remittances sent home help provide for care • Separation can strain familial relationships • Bonds still remain - Well Being of American Children o Well being depends on diverging demographics • Children of middle to upper class families more likely to live with 2 parents • Poor children more likely to live with only one parent • Hispanic and African American are underrepresented among high income families • Children in the middle have experienced a downward shift in well-being

Family and Social Policy

- Most American families receive substantial government assistance: through welfare, food stamps and tax breaks - Social Security Act of 1935: create Social Security, unemployment compensation and aid to mothers with dependent children o Aid to Families with Dependent Children: commonly known as "welfare" o 60s: expansion of programs assisting families - Different programs for different social classes: o TANF, SNAP, Head Start o Social Security, unemployment compensation, tax credits/subsides - 80s and 90s: public support for policies assisting families grew o Family policy: political beliefs about how the government should assist families in caring for dependents • Can include both children and adults in need of care - Debate over 2 major issues: o Responses to childhood poverty, increases in non-marital childbearing and single-parent families o Assistance to parents working outside the home

Adoption

- Most children develop normally; minority show emotional/behavioral issues - Decline of white, unmarried women who put children up for adoption Types of Adoption - Domestic Adoption o Within US through private agencies or foster care system • Foster care children more disadvantaged: 2/3 are racial/ethnic minorities and over half have special needs - Transnational adoption o ¼ of all adopted children were born outside of the US • Rise of transnational adoption • China: growth of female babies up for adoption due to 1 child/family policy and cultural preference for boys

Profound Change

- Movement of married women into workforce one of the most important changes in American family life o Less pronounced for poor or women of color - Current Situation o Slight decline in women's labor force participation o Pattern of "opting out" of labor force for well educated, professional women to raise family o What family conditions allows for women to make these decisions? - Dual-earner married couples are the norm o 2009: 60% of all marriages included dual-earner couples

Moving in with Grandparents

- Multigenerational households: at least three family members reside in the same household o Child gives birth while neither married nor cohabitating o Parent separates from partner after childbirth o Increased in the US: may be due to immigration of Latino and Asian American families - Skipped-generation households: contain grandparents and grandchildren without either parent - Patterns largely a result of family crisis

Family Complexity

- Multiple partner fertility more common: having children with more than one partner during one's lifetime o More blended families o Related to increase in cohabitating rates o More common among mothers who had children at younger ages, African American women and attend fewer religious services - Effects of mass incarceration o Prevents parental involvement in children's lives o Especially a problem for African American males o Life-cycle stage for African American children and their fathers • Compounding adverse effects for family and children

"Gender, Diversity, and Violence: Extending the Feminist Framework" Yllo

- Must consider gender and power within context of domestic violence - Feminist lend of social action - Analyze DV in relation to larger systems of gendered power - Power and control elements of DV stemmed from battered women, activists and service providers - Focus on racial-ethnic and class diversity o Intersectionality: experiences of dv can vary across various social dimensions o Bridge private matters of dv to issues of public concern o Reflect on women's connection to or distance from white male power o "White washing" of poor (especially women of color) women's experiences

"The Modern American Stepfamily"

- Negative stereotypes of stepparents abound in popular culture and public policy - Divorce is typical cause of stepfamily formation o Leads to "phenomenon of more than 2 parents" o Addition of stepfathers more common; mothers more likely to remarry • Limited contact with biological father o Further complexity if nonresidential biological parent (father) remarries (stepmother) and has children o Law and Public Policy • "Stranger" model: most states treat stepparent as legal stranger with no rights/responsibilities concerning children • "Dependency" model: federal framework that assumes stepfather will provide support and benefits to children • Inconsistencies and ambiguity characterize statutes related to step-parenting o New Policy Proposals • "Negativists": stepfamilies as troublesome and something to be avoided • "Voluntarists": stepfamilies as complex and often distant; policy should not address them • "Reformists": stepfamilies should be strengthened and supported

Intergenerational Support

- Older adults providing more support to children than in the past - Mutual assistance: older people tend to give more support to adult children with greater needs and have reciprocated that assistance

Rising Standard of Living

- Older people have more money, on average, than in the past o Increased Social security benefits - Variations by age race, and gender o Oldest old, women, African Americans and Hispanics more likely to be poor o Nearly poor in very unstable economic situation • May not qualify for Medicaid and can't afford private insurance o Medicare: health insurance for older people o Medicaid: health insurance for people in poverty

Time Apart between Parents and Children

- Parental compensation for time apart o Even though working more, parents find time to make up with children • How? Cutting back on housework and leisure time • Increasing multitasking • Time with children spent in intensive activity rather than just monitoring or supervision - Consequences of non-parental care o Positive link between child care quality and academic achievement o Negative link between time in child care and impulsive behavior

Elder Abuse

- Physical abuse or neglect of an elderly person by a caregiver o Neglect by caregiver is most common type o Financial exploitation also prevalent

The Twentieth Century

- Political Model of DV o Relationship struggles over men's power to control women's behavior o Laws and customs reinforce patriarchy - Medical Model of DV o DV viewed as illness and source of injuries o DV issues can be solved by health and social welfare professionals o "Syndrome" approach - Feminists worked to enact laws to protect women from violence

Which families are poor?

- Poverty line: federally defined income limit defined as the cost of an "economy" diet for a family, multiplies by 3. - Annual increases to account for inflation - Poverty rates fluctuate with state of economy - Racial/ethnic minority families overrepresented in families living in poverty

Practical Comparisons

- Pragmatic agreement between liberals and conservatives: o Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC): refundable tax credit to lower income families with children at least one employed parent • Income subsidy for parents who earn low wages • Targets "working poor" both conservatives and liberals support it o 1996 Welfare Reform Law • Entitlement programs: government obligated to provide benefits to anyone who qualifies, regardless of total cost of program • Welfare reform ended entitlement to welfare benefits • Created a block grant: fixed amount of money for each state to spend on programs (TANF)

Rethinking Care Work

- Reasons why care work is viewed as inferior to noncaring work: o People devalue and demean labor identified as "women's work" o Cultural bias against women or "feminine" things o Labor that creates public goods, such as children, is underpaid in society o Many people find care work personally fulfilling so are willing to accept lower pay - Toward and ethic of care o Americans are interdependent on one another; individualism too embedded in society

From Single-Earner to Dual-Earner Marriages

- Rise of shared decision making among married couples - Increase in married women in labor force o Growing demand for service sector work: education, health care, communication, restaurant meals and legal representation o Women drawn into this work: requires some education but pays less than men's work - Shift from rural to urban living o Fewer children; no major need for child labor on farm o Rising divorce rate: risky for women to become detached from work force

What Difference do fathers make?

- Single fathers and gay couples also contribute to parenthood - Adolescents with better paternal relationships less likely to engage in delinquency - Children with more supportive (both emotionally and financially) fathers experience advantages - Quality of father time more important than quantity or frequency of visits

Explanations for DV and IPV

- Social exchange perspective: people calculate behavior by considering rewards and costs of behavior o Rational actor model

Explaining DV and IPV

- Social learning perspective: individuals learn behavior by observing others and seeing the consequences of actions o Children who witness violent acts more likely to act violently towards intimate partner as adult - Frustration aggression perspective: aggressive behavior occurs when a person is blacked from achieving a goal. o Emotional outburst of anger o Economic inequality, racial discrimination

Parenting and Children

- Socialization and Ethnicity o African Americans more likely to use physical punishment o Asian American parents more likely to insist on discipline and obedience o Corporal punishment linked to more problem behaviors in later life • Dependent on acceptability of physical punishment: differs by race o Generational transmission of culture • Families teach norms and values to children - Socialization and Social Class o Concentrated cultivation vs. natural growth

Parenting and Children

- Socialization and Gender o 2-pieces between parents and children o Gender-based toys and games reinforced by parents o Social learning of gender - Religion and Socialization o Conservative Protestantism may lead to more authoritarian parenting by fathers • Traditional gender roles • More likely to spank children, but also provide emotional nurturing • "Soft patriarchs"

Work-Family Balance

- Some Americans overworked, others underworked o Professional and managerial employees working longer hours o Hourly workers working less hours: often for part-time wages without benefits - Percentage of Americans working 50+ hours/week is higher than in others industrialized nations o Less public support for child care

"Families and Elder Care in the 21st Century"

- Some adults may spend more time caring for aging parents than for their own children - Carework and informal care of the elderly o Time Dimensions: • Short-term, intermittent (most common) and long-term • AARP and National Alliance on Caregiving survey- 12% of family caregivers spent 40+ hours/week caregiving o Geographic Dimension" • Distance from elder determines type and frequency of care • Rise of long-distance caregiving - Residential Dimension o Ongoing assessment of elder's living situation: minority of elders live in formal care facilities o Most remain living at home - Financial Dimension o Care, time and money are mutually exchanged across generations - Health Dimension o Health status of elder determines type of care they receive - Legal, Ethical and Emotional Dimension o Caregiver may be required to make medical decisions on the elder's behalf o Important to consider elder's emotional and spiritual needs in addition to their physical health - Racial and ethnic minority families more likely to provide family-based elder care - Employer and government responses: lack of widespread support for elder caregivers

An Incomplete Institution?

- Stepparents remain third parties concerning rights and responsibilities over children - Stepfamilies create their own rules and norms because typical expectations of family may not apply - Stepparents limits by lack of legal recognition as a parent and are not required to provide child support

Financing Social Security and Medicare

- Tax burden on younger, working population increases as proportion of older people rises o 2007: 20% of federal budget spent on Social Security; 13% on Medicare - Increase in payroll taxes that fund Social Security o Surplus of money, but politicians dip into funds for other expenses - Spiraling increase of Medicare payments remains Social Consequences - Older parents and adult children less dependent on each other economically

Building Stepfamilies

- The transitional period: roles of a stepparent o Outsider or intruder o Affinity-seeker: building warm, congenial relationships with stepfamily; avoiding disciplinary actions o Polite outsider: avoid discipline and limit their efforts to build friendships; may display more warmth as family adjusts o Drawing boundaries: varying perspectives on how stepfamilies are conceptualized, even among members within the same stepfamily - Stepparent often becomes an intimate outsider- person who plays a role in a family that is somewhere between a parent and a trusted friend o Stepparents can provide social capital for stepchildren

Intimate Partner Violence

- Two types of violence: o Situational couple violence: arises from a specific situation where one or both partners act aggressively in anger • Men and women can be equally violent towards each other o Intimate terrorism: pattern in which a partner seeks to control his/her partner's behavior through repeated, serious, violent acts • Women most often the victims of this form of abuse, and men are the perpetrators

Lesbian and Gay Parenthood

- Types of gay and lesbian families with children: o Marries person who later came out as gay or lesbian, got divorce and retained custody of children • Becoming less common with more accepting culture o Same-sex couple adopted or conceived through donor insemination o Gay male fathers who obtain a surrogate or adopt a child from foster care system - Compared to children of heterosexual parents? o Studies show that children raised by 2 lesbian parents are very similar o Boys may display more androgynous character, but no less masculine o More open to possibility of same-gender sexual relationships Same-sex - Connection to "Daddy and Papa" documentary and video exploring transgender parents

Care Work cont.

- Who is doing care work? o Surveyed young people desire a more egalitarian balance between work and home responsibilities - Barriers to egalitarian marriages? - Increase in men's involvement in housework - Findings from time diary studies: Women still do more housework, pattern of convergence still evident - Employed wives have more bargaining power: husbands more involved in basic caregiving of children - As mother's income increases, more likely to outscore domestic labor

Current State of Housework

- Wives feel more pressure to multitask to balance paid work and housework - Wives report less leisure time than their husbands - Second shift: housework that must be done after completing a full day's worth of paid work - Little difference in amount of housework a father does if has full time or part time working wife

Prevalence and Trends in IPV and DV

- Women more likely to report experiencing IPV and at greater risk of serious injury resulting from IPV - Intimate partner rape: 46% of victims of who were raped in 2008 reported that the perpetrator was well known - Introduction of gender-neutral definition of rape - Married women have lower rates of IPV than cohabitating women - People with lower incomes have higher rates of IPV

Era of unrestricted divroce

1970-on - unrestricted access to divorce - granted to any married person - no fault divorce: granting of a divorce on the basis of breakdown of marriage - viewed to improve one's well being if in an unhappy marriage

How Divorce Affects Children

Child custody - Legal custody - right to decision-making about children and obligation to have legal responsibility over them. Physical custody - right of a divorced spouse to have one's children live with them. Joint legal and physical custody. What are the pros and cons of joint custody of children?

Economic Support

Children may suffer if fathers fail to provide support for them following a divorce. 2009 - 46% of women received any child support money. Mothers are hit especially hard following divorce: Lose husband's income. Less than half receive child support. Single-father families - Growth of this type of family. Tend to have higher incomes compared to single mothers. May be living with mothers, sisters or new girlfriends who provide childcare.

How Divorce Affects Children

Contact and co-parenting - Majority of children remain in the primary care of their mothers. Nonresident fathers have increased time spent with children. Why have nonresident fathers increased the time they spend with their children in contemporary times? Cooperative parenting - divorced parents coordinate and cooperate in raising their children. Parallel parenting - divorced parents operate in detached style, parenting their children separately

Psychosocial Effects

Crisis period - first year or two after divorce when both custodial parent and children experience difficulties adapting to change. "diminished parenting" - stress of parent(s) lowers the quality of parenting. Parental conflict - many parents reduce conflict 2-3 years after divorce; a minority experience prolonged conflict. Children are adversely affected by constant fighting/arguing from parents. What behavioral issues could children develop as a result of continued parental conflict?

Diverging divorce rates

Educational differences - divorce declined more for people with college education - divorce risks rose steadily for women with the least years of education

Three Era of Divorce

Era of restricted divorce: up until middle of 19th century; only on grounds of adultery or desertion - exclusive approach - typically only to wealthy men - most divorces granted on basis of wife's adultery - patriarchial dominance: men feared losing land or money to another man's child

Study Divorce

Measruing the dirvorce rate - difficult to know exact proportion because cannot know the future - Precise statistic: 20/1000 number of divroce in US in 2009 divided by number of married women Lifetime probability of divorce close to 50%

Divorce in the Media

Moral Entrepreneurs - heighten divorce anxiety to promote "traditional" family values. Utilize research that supports their claim that divorce always results in negative outcomes. Research Methods - selection bias may better predict the effects of divorce (i.e. divorced couples younger, more impoverished and less educated).

Psychosocial Effects

Multiple transitions - parent moving out of home; changing households, schools, neighborhoods, etc. After the crisis period - majority of children resume normal development. For some children, developmental issues persist into young adulthood. Studies show some children display long-term issues adjusting to life after divorce, but problems could have been present prior to dissolution. Majority of children adjust normally after divorce. Why might some children adjust better to divorce compared to others?

risk factors for divroce

No fault divorce: produced initial surge of divorce in 70s unclear if it has lasting effects - backlog effect of couples in unhappy marriages - cultural change: stronger emphasis on individualism and personal fulfillment - divorce viewed as a more acceptable means of reaching personal happiness - Men's employment decrease in men's economic opportunities may have increased stress in marriages

Individual Risk Factors for Divorce

Premarital cohabitation - couples who cohabit prior to marriage have higher divorce rates than those who marry directly. How do we explain this? What could be unique about people who cohabit? Parental divorce - people whose parents divorced are more likely to divorce themselves at some point. Living through a divorce may lower one's expectations of a successful marriage. Spouse's similarity - people who marry similar others less likely to divorce.

Dueling Divorce Coverage

Themes in Research Findings: Children of divorce exhibited high levels of resilience. Pre-disruption effects point to conflict that preceded the actual divorce. Post-disruption effects can lead to chain of negative effects, highlighting the need for intervention. Distressed marriages were more harmful to children than divorces. Conflicted marriages and personal emotional problems affected the outcomes of divorce. Conclusion: Divorce is complex issue that requires continued research.

Era of Divorce Tolerance

Up until 1970 grounds for divroce widened - Tolerant approach - more accesible to women - related to the shift in marriage to one based on love and companionship - Spiked during WW1 WW2 dipped during Depression

Societal Risk factors for divorce

Women's employment: increase in women in the workforce: especially mothers - independent effect: option of divorce viewed as a more viable if woman has own economic means to fall back on - income effect: increased income in household could lower chances of divorce by increasing family's economic stability

individual risk factors for divorce

age at first marriage: marrying at younger ages increase for divorce Race/ethnicity: african american have higher rates of divorce than other racial/ethnic groups - lower incomes, greater unemployment and lower educational levels could account for this - may lower cultural attachment to marriage

What does it mean not to be able to have children?

o Involuntary childless women report higher rates of distress and depressive symptoms o Becoming a parent matters more than the negative identity of being "infertile" in regards to self-esteem o Women who persist with a fertility problem and do not have children have lower self-esteem o Women who gain a fertility problem and have a child actual increase in self-esteem