Work And Family Roles And Womens Mental Health

The second edition of A Handbook for the Study of Mental Health provides a comprehensive review of the sociology of mental health. Chapters by leading scholars and researchers present an overview of historical, social and institutional frameworks. Part I examines social factors that shape psychiatric diagnosis and the measurement of mental health and illness, theories that explain the definition and treatment of mental disorders and cultural variability. Part II investigates effects of social context, considering class, gender, race and age, and the critical role played by stress, marriage, work and social support. Part III focuses on the organization, delivery and evaluation of mental health services, including the criminalization of mental illness, the challenges posed by HIV, and the importance of stigma. This is a key research reference source that will be useful to both undergraduates and graduate students studying mental health and illness from any number of disciplines.

Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.

Providing fresh insights into the complex relationship between stress and mental health, internationally recognized contributors identifie emerging conceptual issues, highlight promising avenues for further study, and detail novel methodological techniques for addressing contemporary empirical problems. Specific coverage includes stressful life events, chronic strains, psychosocial resources and mediators, vulnerability to stress, and mental health outcomes-thus providing researchers with a tool to take stock of the past and future of this field.

In 1981, Leonard Pearlin and his colleagues published an article that would ra- cally shift the sociological study of mental health from an emphasis on psychiatric disorder to a focus on social structure and its consequences for stress and psyc- logical distress. Pearlin et al. (1981) proposed a deceptively simple conceptual model that has now influenced sociological inquiry for almost three decades. With his characteristic penchant for reconsidering and elaborating his own ideas, Pearlin has revisited the stress process model periodically over the years (Pearlin 1989, 1999; Pearlin et al. 2005; Pearlin and Skaff 1996). One of the consequences of this continued theoretical elaboration of the stress process has been the development of a sociological model of stress that embraces the complexity of social life. Another consequence is that the stress process has continued to stimulate a host of empirical investigations in the sociology of mental health. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to suggest that the stress process paradigm has been primarily responsible for the growth and sustenance of sociological research on stress and mental health. Pearlin et al. (1981) described the core elements of the stress process in a brief paragraph: The process of social stress can be seen as combining three major conceptual domains: the sources of stress, the mediators of stress, and the manifestations of stress. Each of these extended domains subsumes a variety of subparts that have been intensively studied in recent years.

Contemporary Topics in Women’s Mental Health: Global Perspectives in a Changing Society considers both the mental health and psychiatric disorders of women in relation to global social change. The book addresses the current themes in psychiatric disorders among women: reproduction and mental health, service delivery and ethics, impact of violence, disasters and migration, women’s mental health promotion and social policy, and concludes each section with a commentary discussing important themes emerging from each chapter. Psychiatrists, sociologists and students of women’s studies will all benefit from this textbook. With a Foreword by Sir Michael Marmot, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London; Chair, Commission on Social Determinants of Health

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 this volume the authors examine the variety of ways in which gender affects the stress process.

INTRODUCTION The phenomenon of work-family conflict is a worldwide issue and attracts the attention of behavioural scientists and mental health specialists. Traditionally, men were breadwinners and women were homemakers who looked after and took care of family needs. In that respect, work and family domains were considered mutually exclusive and there was minor attention towards outcome of work-family interference. But in recent years, work scenario has changed as more and more women are joining various job positions. Modernizations in terms of economic growth, globalization and equality in opportunities have impacted the work life and employees' well- being (Panatik, Badri et al., 2011). Women workers have started contributing in volume in work sector, and this contribution is expected to rise with time. In India also, particularly before independence, the women from middle and upper classes were mostly confined to their homes. However, with the formation and implementation of many protective laws and legislations for women, enhancement of educational facilities and advent of globalization; there has emerged a newer professional class of women workers from middle and upper class of the economy. Thus, Indian women are also trying to attain a new place in the world of work. Women of the present time are performing multiple roles such as that of a mother, an employee and a homemaker etc. Thus, more and more women are juggling their dual roles of family and career. Woman at job has a dual role to play towards work as well as family and failure to extend her contribution with equal efficiency makes her feel tensed which in turn give rise stress and a threat to mental health. Therefore, it is required to balance work and life efficiently. The issue of work-family conflict is strongly inclined towards combining work and family related research. Research is focused now on issues like effect of work stressors on home life, and the link of family stressors with,

Presents an examination of occupational stress, health and well being, with particular emphasis on the multi-disciplinary nature of occupational stress. This book offers a critical assessment of issues in occupational stress and well being.