Perceived Effects of Voluntarism on Marital Life in Late Adulthood

The article presents a study dealing with the perceived effects of voluntarism on marital life in late adulthood among a sample of 595 Israelis (336 men and 259 women). These perceptions were examined from three perspectives: benefits, spousal accommodation, and harmful effects. Comparisons focused on different types of families, based on employment status (pre-retired versus retired) and actual volunteer activity (volunteer versus non-volunteer). The findings revealed that among all types of families, the prevailing tendency was to emphasize the beneficial effects of voluntarism on marital life, whereas perceived harmful effects were least prevalent. Synchronous families (both partners pre-retired) and asynchronous families (pre-retired participant / retired spouse) emphasized the need for spousal accommodation to marital life more than the other two types of families. In addition, men were found to emphasize the need for spousal accommodation more than do women. In asynchronous families (one partner pre-retired and the other retired), women showed a greater tendency than men to mention the harmful effects of voluntarism for the marital relationship. Congruent families (where both partners volunteer) showed a greater tendency to perceive voluntarism as having a beneficial effect on marital life than did other types of families

The Impact of Education and Family Attributes on Attitudes and Responses to Unemployment among Men and Women

The study deals with differences between jobless Israeli women (n = 361) and men (n = 253) in relation to the following aspects of unemployment: Reasons for rejecting potential jobs, job search intensity, and responses to unemployment. The women mentioned more reasons for rejecting potential jobs, and their health-related responses to unemployment were more extreme than those of the men. However, the men tended to seekemployment more intensively than did the women. Married respondents of both sexes showed the greatest tendency to reject potential employment due to conflict with family responsibilities. Married women were also more likely than their male counterparts to reject potential jobs due to adverse working conditions or masculine-typed employment. Moreover, for both men and women the number of dependent children was related to the tendency to reject potential employment due to conflict with family responsibilities. The divorced-widowed respondents expressed more negative responses to unemployment compared with respondents the other family status groups. Education level affected responses to unemployment and rejection of jobs; although it did not have a differential impact on men and women