Content uploaded by Livia Sz. Oláh
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Livia Sz. Oláh
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Policy changes and family stability: the Swedish case
Abstract and Figures
During the last few decades, policies concerning family dissolution and gender equality have changed radically in Sweden accompanied by growing family instability. This development raises the question whether policies influence family behaviour. By analysing data on families with children, extracted from the Swedish Family Survey of 1992-93, some interesting policy effects are detected. Although the no-fault divorce law had hardly any long-term effect on family stability in Sweden, joint custody and fathers' use of parental leave seem to be important. Also, findings regarding mothers' education and employment status indicate the influence of policy, at least indirectly, on family disruption.
Figures - uploaded by Livia Sz. Oláh
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Livia Sz. Oláh
Content may be subject to copyright.
... Uncommitted individuals might have stronger reactions to mate abundance or scarcity than those living in committed relationships or those with children. Given that non-marital cohabitation was common in Sweden during our observation period (Hoem, 1996;Olah, 2001), parental status complements an individual's marital status. However, this variable only identifies parents living in the same household as their children and therefore is only a weak proxy for an individual's reproductive status. ...
... Evolution and Human Behavior xxx (xxxx) xxx-xxx probabilities of unmarried and married men differ by a factor of 1.37compared to a factor of 6.1 when contrasting childless men and fathers (Fig. 4). This contrast between marital and parental status is most likely due to high levels of non-marital cohabitation and child birth in Sweden during our observation period (Hoem, 1996;Olah, 2001), meaning that the registered civil status is a noisy indicator of men's relationship status. Finally, our results suggest that the association between municipal sex ratios and registered offenses by men against male victims does not differ substantially across educational and income status groups ( Fig. S1.11). ...
There is widespread concern in both the popular and academic literature that a surplus of men in a population intensifies mating competition between men, particularly unpartnered men, resulting in increased violence towards both men and women. Recent contributions challenge this perspective and argue that male mating competition and levels of violence will be higher when sex ratios are female-skewed. Existing empirical evidence remains inconclusive. We argue that this empirical ambiguity results from analyses of aggregate-level data, which put inferences at risk of ecological fallacies. Our analysis circumvents such problems by using individual-level, longitudinal demographic register and police data for the Stockholm metropolitan area, Sweden (1990–2003, n = 758,498). These data allow us to investigate the association between municipality-level sex ratios and violent offending (homicide, assault, threat, and sexual crimes) while adjusting for sociodemographic factors. Results suggest that aggregated offending rates are negatively associated with male-skewed sex ratios, whereas individual-level violent offending correlates positively with male-skews. We find that the more-men-more-violence association holds particularly for male violence against other men, but is insignificant for violence against women. Moreover, the association is significant among childless men, but not among fathers. However, robustness checks question the causality of these associations. Female violent offending is positively, albeit due to a low number of cases, insignificantly associated with male-skews. Moreover, both male and female non-violent offending is higher in male-skewed municipalities. We discuss the implications with regard to the theoretical debate and problems of unobserved heterogeneity in the sex ratio literature.
... Sampson Lee and Johnson, 1992;Bianchi et al., 2000 Glasbeek, 2006 Mellor et al., 2008Dush et al., 2003Mansour, 2015Coyne et al., 2002Lee-Baggley et al., 2005Carver et al., 1989Haj-Yahia, 2000Haj-Yahia, 2002DeLongis and Holtzman, 2005 Haj-Yahia, Rutter, 2010Saloviita et al., 2003Stack and Wasserman, 2007Falconier andEpstein, 2010 Griffith et al., 1999 coping strategies Greenberg, 2004Austin et al. 2005problem-focused coping 2006Carver et al., 1989(Bruchon-Schweitzer, 2001 emotion-focused coping Mullis and Chapman, 2000Steptoe, 1991Thuné-Boyle et al., 2006Bruchon-Schweitzer, 2001Worthington and Scherer, 2004 negative coping strategies Dempsey, 2002Asarnow et al., 1987Carver et al., 1989(Essex et al., 1999) Loeber et al., 2000Ivanova and Israel, 2005Weiss, 2002Shaw et al., 1996Beeman and Edleson, 2000Woodhead and Brooker, 2008Lambert et al., 2013Diamond, 2015 1 - Kalmijn, 1999;Osborne et al., 2007;Waldfogel et al., 2010DeLongis et al., 2004Oláh, 2001Sameroff et al., 1993Owen et al., 1984Cutright, 1971 - ...
Objective:
The aim of this systematic review was to identify and synthesize the best available evidence on first time fathers' experiences and needs in relation to their mental health and wellbeing during their transition to fatherhood.
Introduction:
Men's mental health and wellbeing during their transition to fatherhood is an important public health issue that is currently under-researched from a qualitative perspective and poorly understood.
Inclusion criteria:
Resident first time fathers (biological and non-biological) of healthy babies born with no identified terminal or long-term conditions were included. The phenomena of interest were their experiences and needs in relation to mental health and wellbeing during their transition to fatherhood, from commencement of pregnancy until one year after birth. Studies based on qualitative data, including, but not limited to, designs within phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography and action research were included.
Methods:
A three-step search strategy was used. The search strategy explored published and unpublished qualitative studies from 1960 to September 2017. All included studies were assessed by two independent reviewers and any disagreements were resolved by consensus or with a third reviewer. The recommended Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) approach to critical appraisal, study selection, data extraction and data synthesis was used.
Results:
Twenty-two studies met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review, which were then assessed to be of moderate to high quality (scores 5-10) based on the JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for Qualitative Research. The studies were published between 1990 and 2017, and all used qualitative methodologies to accomplish the overall aim of investigating the experiences of expectant or new fathers. Nine studies were from the UK, three from Sweden, three from Australia, two from Canada, two from the USA, one from Japan, one from Taiwan and one from Singapore. The total number of first-time fathers included in the studies was 351.One hundred and forty-four findings were extracted from the included studies. Of these, 141 supported findings were aggregated into 23 categories and seven synthesized findings: 1) New fatherhood identity, 2) Competing challenges of new fatherhood, 3) Negative feelings and fears, 4) Stress and coping, 5) Lack of support, 6) What new fathers want, and 7) Positive aspects of fatherhood.
Conclusions:
Based on the synthesized findings, three main factors that affect first-time fathers' mental health and wellbeing during their transition to fatherhood were identified: the formation of the fatherhood identity, competing challenges of the new fatherhood role and negative feelings and fears relating to it. The role restrictions and changes in lifestyle often resulted in feelings of stress, for which fathers used denial or escape activities, such as smoking, working longer hours or listening to music, as coping techniques. Fathers wanted more guidance and support around the preparation for fatherhood, and partner relationship changes. Barriers to accessing support included lack of tailored information resources and acknowledgment from health professionals. Better preparation for fatherhood, and support for couple relationships during the transition to parenthood could facilitate better experiences for new fathers, and contribute to better adjustments and mental wellbeing in new fathers.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CCBY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.
Full article can be accessed from: https://journals.lww.com/jbisrir/Fulltext/2018/11000/Mental_health_and_wellbeing_during_the_transition.10.aspx
Among interventions that seek to improve parenting skills, the evidence base on fathers' participation is small, methodologically weak and overwhelmingly from the global north (Western contexts). A systematic review (Panter-Brick et al. 2014) identified only 92 interventions that disaggregated findings by sex-of-parent. Sample sizes of fathers were usually small, the impact of engaging with both parents was almost never measured and evaluation design was weak. Mothers, fathers, and children benefit when fathers are engaged in parenting support. Engaging both parents is usually more effective than engaging just one. Content, style, methods, goals, and facilitator training may need to be modified if fathers are to be successfully included. Fathers' impact on children's development is substantial, for good and ill. Marginalizing such important players in parenting interventions, amounts to poor professional practice and may compromise the safety of mothers and children.
Egyptian wife performs multiple roles in life to settle oasis of hopes and prosperities for her family.
The current study assumes that such roles are probably the roots of the family stability. Life stresses
facing the wife probably have negative impacts on the family stability. Also, her coping strategy is probably
figured out through her social participations beside of the economic status of the family. To test these
hypotheses, 400 wives having children and their husbands were still alive were taken into a descriptive
analytical study. Three scales were used in the current study i.e. (a) family stability scale consisting of 3
subscales (spousal support, belonging and safety), (b)stresses scale comprising 4 subscales (social, job, and
economical stresses beside the psychosomatic disorders), and (c) coping strategies scale consisting
of one problem-focused coping strategies (active coping), and three emotional-focused coping
strategies (seeking for emotional social support, or escape-avoidance or anger feelings). Results showed that (1) family stability was significantly affected by the wife’s feelings of stress (2) Active coping was the most significant strategy used in facing job problems. On the other hand, seeking emotional social support was the most significant strategy used for facing social and economical stress beside psychosomatic disorder (3) Strategies of seeking for emotional social support or anger feelings recorded the highest significant correlations with the family income, while strategies of “active coping” or escape avoidance” recorded the highest significant correlations with residence (urban-countryside) and the type of family (extended-nuclear family) through the roles expected of the Egyptian wife.
Available at:
http://alexexch.org/Home/currentvolume?volID=2016003701&volLang=2&volName=VOL.%2037,%20Issue.%201&FileLink=
تحاول ربة الأسرة جاهدة أن تدفع بأسرتها نحو واحة من الأمل، والرخاء، من خلال قيامها بأدوار متعددة في الحياة، فتنمو وتكبر احلامها لتمثل زروع، وأشجار تلك الواحة، ولكن مع تزايد الضغوط المحيطة بالأسرة والتي تكون ربة الأسرة هي المسئول الرئيسي عن مواجهتها، فإن تلك الضغوط يمكن أن تنال من الاستقرار الأسري، خاصة عندما تتسم الأسرة بسوء التنظيم الإداري لها، واستهدف هذا البحث بصفة رئيسية دراسة تداعيات التهديدات الإجتماعية، والإقتصادية المحيطة بالأسرة المصرية علي أستقرارها، كما يهتم البحث بدراسة استراتيجيات التعامل التي تتبعها ربة الأسرة في مواجهة تلك الضغوط، والتي تفترض هذه الدراسة أنها تتشكل وفقا للظروف الإجتماعية، والإقتصادية للأسرة، ولتحقيق هدف الدراسة فإنه تم اختيار عينة قوامها 400 ربة أسرة عاملة بطريقة عمدية غرضية ممن لديهن أبناء وزوجها على قيد الحياة، وتم اتباع المنهج الوصفى التحليلى في جمع وتحليل البيانات مستخدماً الأدوات التالية (1) استمارة البيانات العامة للأسرة (2) استبيان الضغوط الحياتية مكون من 4 محاور (اسرية اجتماعية ، مهنية، واقتصادية، ونفسجسدية)، (3) استبيان استراتيجيات التعامل مع الضغوط مكون من 4 محاور ("الإسناد الإجتماعي"، "التصدي ومواجهة المشكلة"، و"الهروب لأنشطة أخري"، و " الغضب، والانفعال")، (4) استبيان الاستقرار الاسري مكون من 3 محاور (المشاركة الأسرية ، والشعور بالانتماء للاسرة ، والأمان الاسري)، وكانت أهم النتائج كالتالي: (1) الضغوط المهنية، والضغوط الاقتصادية، والضغوط النفسجسدية تؤثر سلباً علي شعور ربة الاسرة بالإستقرار الأسري، (2) تلجأ ربة الأسرة إلي المواجهة المباشرة أساساً لحل المشكلات المتعلقة بالضغوط المهنية، ولكنها تحتاج بصورة كبيرة إلي اسناد اجتماعي لمواجهة الضغوط الإجتماعية المتعلقة بالاسرة، والضغوط الإقتصادية، والضغوط النفسجسدية، (3) مستوي دخل الاسرة يؤثر بدرجة كبيرة في استراتيجيات التعامل مع الضغوط من خلال "طلب الإسناد الإجتماعي"، أو " الغضب، والإنفعال" ، أما مكان سكن الأسرة (ريف-حضر)، ونوع الأسرة (اسرة ممتدة-نووية) فهما الأكثر تأثيراً علي اسلوب "التصدي، ومواجهة المشكلة" من خلال الأدوار المتوقعة من ربة المنزل القيام بها، أو أنها تلجأ إلي الهروب لأنشطة أخري.
The increasing trend of partnership disruption among families with children in recent decades has been accompanied by substantial changes in traditional gender roles in industrialized countries. Yet, relatively little is known about the effects of changing gender relations on family stability in the European context. In this paper, we study such gender influences at the familial and societal level in Sweden and Hungary between the mid-1960s and the early 1990s.
We focus on the disruption of the first parental union (i.e. the union in which a couple’s first child was born). Our analysis is based on data extracted from the Swedish and Hungarian Fertility and Family Surveys of 1992/93. We use the method of hazard regression.
The results suggest (i) that the establishment of the dual-earner family model influences family stability only if it is accompanied by some changes in traditional gender relations within the family, and (ii) that women’s and men’s labor-market behavior have different effects in spite of the relatively long history of women’s (also mothers’) labor-force participation in both Sweden and Hungary.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, entitled ‘Women, Peace and Security’, asks UN member states to mainstream gender in all peacekeeping missions. Although the governments of Great Britain, Sweden and Germany have been quite involved at the UN and in the EU in promoting SCR 1325, this article illustrates that they have implemented the resolution in rather different ways on the national level. The study adds to two existing strands of literature. First, it builds on growing research and debates relating to gender mainstreaming, in which security policy thus far has received little attention. Second, it engages in the literature on norms. Taking SCR 1325 as an expression of the gender-mainstreaming norm at international level, we argue that different interpretations of the norm are possible on a domestic level. Because the norm itself is vague, various actors understand and apply it in dissimilar ways. The evidence gleaned from the three cases demonstrates that, depending on how the norm is interpreted, implementation ranges from changing existing policies or decision-making processes to reaffirming the status quo. The varying interpretations make it difficult to determine precisely what constitutes a breach of the norm. They suggest that simply looking at policies or laws is insufficient to determine norm adoption. Instead, we also need to examine how the norm has been understood.
In response to population ageing, the UK intends to increase female labour supply. To this end, the Chancellor has announced a ten-year strategy designed to allow parents to combine work with family responsibilities more easily. The policies proposed centre on extending parental leave and childcare provision, while promoting greater flexibility in employment. While these policies may improve labour supply in the short term, this article looks at their implications for fertility, which if negative may reduce the labour supply in the longer term. Recent demographic studies suggest that measures which allow women more readily to combine childbearing with paid employment may also stabilise or improve fertility rates, so mitigating the trend to population ageing. However, the evidence is not conclusive, for relationships between female employment and fertility are complex and context dependent. The article suggests several factors that might therefore merit further consideration. These include gender inequities in the domestic division of labour, long working hours and a re-evaluation of unpaid work in the home. Enthusiasm for the work ethic may have to be balanced by a more explicit acknowledgement of a care ethic.
Using a quasiexperimental pre-post treatment design and archival data from the National Center for Health Statistics, we examined the effect of no-fault divorce law on the divorce rate across the 50 states. Also, education and income data from the United States Bureau of the Census and religiosity data from the Glenmary Research Center were used to assess the relation of education, median family income, and religiosity to the post-no-fault divorce rate. Results revealed that no-fault divorce law had a significant positive effect on the divorce rate across the 50 states. Of the moderators that we considered, median family income was the only significant predictor of the change in divorce rate; the adjusted post-no-fault divorce rate increased as median family income increased.
The study of dissolutions in Finland until 1989 confirms corresponding findings from other countries. Consensual unions and marriages preceded by consensual unions were less stable than direct marriages. We do not interpret this as a causal relation, but rather as an outcome of a selection process. The choice of type of union is an indicator of the general attitudes and norms with respect to family formation and divorces. Furthermore, it is no longer meaningful to classify the unions according to formal marital status at the entry into the union. At present less than one union out of ten is a direct marriage, and we should instead focus on the marital status at entry into parenthood.
A million children experience divorce each year, and some policymakers argue for policies that would make it more difficult for parents to divorce. However, being exposed to a high degree of marital conflict has been shown to place children at risk for a variety of problems. Using mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and a prospective design, this research explores two questions: Do the effects of marital disruption on child well-being vary for children whose parents leave high-conflict marriages versus low-conflict marriages? How do children fare when their high-conflict parents remain together? We find that separation and divorce are associated with increases in behavior problems in children, regardless of the level of conflict between parents. However, in marriages that do not break up, high levels of marital conflict are associated with even greater increases in children's behavior problems.
This article uses data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth to examine the question: Are children better off when they remain in two-parent families characterized by marital conflict, or are they better off when their parents dissolve their marital relationship? I find that both parental marital conflict and marital disruption increase the later anxiety and depression/withdrawal of children aged 6-14 (n = 1,640). I also find significant interactions: Children remaining in high conflict environments generally exhibit lower levels of well-being than children who have experienced high levels of parental conflict but whose parents divorce or separate. These results support the possibility that marital disruption, following high conflict, may actually improve the emotional well-being of children relative to a high conflict family status.
We used longitudinal data involving parents and children to investigate the intergenerational transmission of marital quality and instability and the effects of parental divorce on children's marital quality. Results indicated that parental divorce increased daughters' likelihood of divorce, that some life course factors mediate the intergenerational transmission of divorce, that parental divorce had little impact on children's marital quality, and that the transmission of marital quality is moderated by parent and child gender. We discussed possible mechanisms for the intergenerational transmissions of marital instability and marital quality.
In this article, we describe recent changes in divorce laws in the United States, England and Wales, France, and Sweden in the areas of obtaining a divorce, spousal support, child support, and child custody. Although there are important differences among countries, there are some common trends. Divorce has become increasingly easy to obtain; spousal support has become less common; efforts have been made to increase child support awards and to improve payment compliance; and shared parental decision-making authority has become increasingly accepted and encouraged. We discuss the relation between individuals' values and their evaluations of the effects of changes in divorce laws on family members, as well as the relation between legal change and cultural values.
Cross-sectional studies show that adults who grew up in conflict-ridden two-parent families or who experienced parental divorce
report lower levels of psychological and marital well-being than do other adults. However, previous research has been unable
to determine how parental marital conflict, divorce, and children's long-term outcomes are related. Using a 12-year longitudinal
study, we find that the consequences of parental divorce depend on parental marital conflict prior to divorce. In high-conflict
families, children have higher levels of well-being as young adults if their parents divorced than if they stayed together.
But in low-conflict families, children have higher levels of well-being if their parents stayed together than if they divorced.
In marriages that do not end in divorce, parental marital conflict is negatively associated with the well-being of offspring.
Data from the 1991 Swedish Level of Living Survey (LNU) was analysed to study the long-term impact of parental divorce on the adult individual's self-reported psychological well-being. The results show that neither women nor men who experienced parental divorce during childhood fare poorer than women and men from intact families. Instead, the decisive factor is whether or not the individual experienced severe conflict in the family of origin. Respondents who grew up in intact families characterized by serious dissension report the lowest level of psychological well- being, followed by those who experienced conflict and parental divorce. Key words: parental divorce, psychological well-being, long-term consequences, family dissension, Sweden.