How Work And Family Roles Influence Health Mental Health And Relationships Within Farm Families

Work-family conflict and balancing work and family roles remain important and relevant concerns among many families in the United States today, and the challenges and incompatibility associated with these roles can lead to declines in health and relationship quality. A life course framework highlights that partnered individuals do not live their lives in isolation and that understanding how the stresses and experiences of one partner influences the other is key to understanding individuals' mental health, health, and relationships. In this dissertation I analyze links between farm women and men's objective (i.e., workload-based) and subjective (i.e., perception-based) experiences with work and family roles and associations with individual well-being and relationships. Overall, I find that farm women contribute substantially to their farming enterprises via various types of work and family roles. Through analyzing survey data from women on family farms and ranches (n=470), I found that farm women's objective experiences in work and family roles---including absolute work hours, splitting hours over multiple roles, performing the majority of the couple's relative work hours in each role and majority of work hours in multiple roles---are not associated with farm women's health, mental health, or relationship happiness. Instead, women's subjective experiences with work and family roles---including perceived role appreciation and actual vs. desired couple work arrangements---are associated with women's health and relationship outcomes. In addition, through analyzing interview data with farm men and women (27 couples, n=54), I found that farm couples negotiate not only the actual division of labor in on-farm, off-farm, and family roles, but also negotiate the meaning they ascribe to that division of labor, often in gendered ways. I conclude that women's objective, workload-based experiences in work and family roles may be undercounted due to different interpretations of what is considered "work" or "farm work" by men and women alike within the discourse of the family farm.

In Massachusetts, a 12-year-old girl delivering newspapers is killed when a car strikes her bicycle. In Los Angeles, a 14-year-old boy repeatedly falls asleep in class, exhausted from his evening job. Although children and adolescents may benefit from working, there may also be negative social effects and sometimes danger in their jobs. Protecting Youth at Work looks at what is known about work done by children and adolescents and the effects of that work on their physical and emotional health and social functioning. The committee recommends specific initiatives for legislators, regulators, researchers, and employers. This book provides historical perspective on working children and adolescents in America and explores the framework of child labor laws that govern that work. The committee presents a wide range of data and analysis on the scope of youth employment, factors that put children and adolescents at risk in the workplace, and the positive and negative effects of employment, including data on educational attainment and lifestyle choices. Protecting Youth at Work also includes discussions of special issues for minority and disadvantaged youth, young workers in agriculture, and children who work in family-owned businesses.

This handbook is designed to illuminate issues involved in the intersection of family life and paid employment from a broad range of disciplines. These contributions by leading national and international work-family scholars represent state-of-the-art summaries of work-family research.

Work, Family, Health, and Well-Being grew out of a conference held in Washington, D.C. in June 2003 on "Workforce/Workplace Mismatch: Work, Family, Health, and Well-Being" sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The text considers multiple dimensions of health and well-being for workers and their families, children, and communities. Investigations into the socioeconomic gradient in health within broad occupational categories have raised important questions about the role of specific working conditions versus the role of conditions of employment such as wages and level of job security afforded a worker and his/her family in affecting health outcomes. Organized into seven parts, this text: *provides an overview of changes in work and family time and time use; *dedicates a section focusing specifically on employers and workplaces; *explores disciplinary perspectives on work, family, health, and well-being; *focuses on the most studied work and family nexus, the interrelationship between parental employment, especially maternal employment and the child's well-being; *examines gender differences in the division of labor, the effect of marriage on health, the shifting nature of care-giving throughout life, and the role of work on various health and well-being outcomes; *explores occupational health literature; and *focuses on the unique work-family issues faced by low-income families and workers in low-wage jobs. This book appeals to anyone in the fields of psychology, sociology, family studies, demographics, economics, anthropology, and social work.

Social Work Practice with Families uses resiliency-a strength-based perspective-to frame a collaborative approach to assessment and treatment with families. In so doing, the text aims to help practitioners select a therapeutic model that effectively assists in addressing risk factors and promoting important resources. The book provides clear examples of the elements in a strength-affirming assessment and engagement process, discusses resiliency in terms of families belonging to various cultural groups and family structures, and identifies resiliency issues and implications for practice with families facing major problems. Including current evaluation research from the United States, Canada, and around the globe, the text serves as a helpful resource to undergraduate and graduate social work students and practitioners.

Research in recent decades has proven that the seemingly disparate worlds of family life and the workplace are in fact closely intertwined. Moreover, scholars have begun to recognize the extent to which community life influences the work-family interface, for instance, the lack of fit between school hours and work hours, and assistance provided by community-based child care services. Work, Family, and Community is the first to provide a comprehensive review and analysis of the theoretical and empirical research that has examined the complex interconnections among these domains. This book integrates literature from several disciplines, including sociology, industrial-organizational and occupational health psychology, human development and family studies, management, gender studies, and social work. It documents significant patterns and trends in the economy and looks at the health of communities and neighborhoods, exploring the level of social integration, availability of community services, and the extent to which such services meet the needs of working families. Author Patricia Voydanoff takes an important step in conceptualizing the components and processes that comprise the work-family-community relationship, and provides direction for future theoretical and empirical work on the topic. This volume speaks to scholars, researchers, and students who address the theoretical, empirical, and policy-relevant issues associated with the work-family-community interface.

This book gives voice to the direct practice experience of social workers working in rural and remote contexts using Australia as the primary case-study. The authors undertake a qualitative research project, conducting in-depth interviews to examine social work theory and practice against the reality of rural and remote contexts. Practice examples provide the reader with an insight into the diverse and complex nature of social work in rural and remote Australia and the role of contemporary social work. Through placing rural and remote social work in its historical, theoretical and geographical contexts, this work explores a range of considerations. These include isolation; ethical dilemmas when working with small and closely linked communities; climate, disaster relief and the environment; community identity and culture; working with indigenous communities in remote contexts; and social work education. Based on direct practice research, this book challenges existing theories of practice and reframes those to reflect the reality of practice in rural and remote communities. As social work must continue to critically reflect on its role within an ever changing and individualistic society, lessons from rural and remote settings around engagement, sense of place and skillful, innovative practice have never been more relevant.