Bronfenbrenner in context and in motion

Urie Bronfenbrenner\u27s contributions to the understanding of human development span the multilayered contexts he himself identified. He succeeded in reframing the study of development, from an exclusive focus on the decontextualized individual to viewing developing persons in dynamic transaction with the multiple, nested layers of the (changing) environments in which they are embedded. He has been equally influential in moving scholarship in the social sciences beyond the false dichotomy differentiating \u27basic\u27 from \u27applied\u27 research, as well as the artificial divides between science and social policy. Urie\u27s greatest contribution is this: He transformed the way all of us - scholars, parents, teachers, policy makers - study, conceptualize, write about, and seek to enhance human development. His theories and concepts have been usefully employed by scholars located within and/or working across a wide range of societal, disciplinary, substantive, and age-graded boundaries. (DIPF/Orig.)Urie Bronfenbrenners Beitrag die menschliche Entwicklung zu verstehen, umfasst den mehrschichtigen Kontext, der durch ihn selbst gekennzeichnet wurde. Es gelang ihm die Untersuchung der Entwicklung von einem außergewöhnlichen Blickwinkel aus neu zu entwerfen: die Analyse die sich entwickelnder Personen in ihrer dynamischen Beziehung mit den vielfältigen ineinander geschachtelten (und sich verändernden) Umgebungen, in denen sie eingebunden sind. Er hat ebenso maßgeblich dazu beigetragen, die Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft in den Sozialwissenschaften dahingehend zu beeinflussen, die falsche Dichotomie von \u27einfacher\u27 und \u27angewandter\u27 Forschung zu überwinden, genauso wie die künstliche Trennung zwischen Wissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. Uries größter Beitrag ist, dass er die Denkweise von uns allen - Wissenschaftlern, Eltern, Lehrern und Verantwortlichen in der Politik - veränderte, die Art und Weise wie die menschliche Entwicklung zu untersuchen, begrifflich gedacht, darüber zu schreiben und zu verbessern sei. Seine Theorien und Konzepte wurden von Wissenschaftlern nutzbringend angewendet, die sowohl innerhalb ihrer Grenzen als auch über diese gesellschaftlichen, disziplinären, substanziellen und altersgestuften Grenzen hinaus arbeiten. (DIPF/Orig.

From 'work-family' to the 'gendered life course' and 'fit': five challenges to the field

"This paper introduces the concepts of the 'gendered life course' and 'life-course fit' in order to provide a broader, dynamic, and contextual perspective on the match or mismatch characterizing the social environments confronting workers, their families, and their communities. It summarizes five challenges confronting scholars of community, work, family, and policy: (1) updating outdated concepts and categories; (2) incorporating the gendered life course and family strategies to improve fit; (3) recognizing social change; (4) seeking work-time policy transformation, not simply assimilation or accommodation; and (5) focusing on prevention. In doing so, it provides a very brief history of the work family intersection from a US vantage point, along with an overview of organizational response by employers to the 'work-family' conundrum. There is a growing recognition that a sense of fit or misfit in terms of rising temporal demands, limited temporal resources and outdated work-hour constraints on workers and families has become a public health issue. The next step is for employers and policy makers to break open the time clocks around paid work - the tacit, taken-for-granted beliefs, rules and regulations about the time and timing of work days, work weeks, work years, and work lives." (author's abstract)"Dieser Beitrag stellt die Konzepte des 'geschlechtsspezifischen Lebenslaufs' und der 'Lebenslaufanpassung' vor. Hiermit soll ein breiterer, dynamischer und kontextbezogener Blick geworfen werden auf das Zusammenspiel bzw. Ungleichgewicht des jeweiligen sozialen Umfelds der Arbeitnehmer/innen, ihrer Familien und Gemeinschaften. Fünf Herausforderungen, mit denen Sozialwissenschaftler/innen konfrontiert sind, werden in diesem Beitrag zusammengefasst: (1) Aktualisierung überholter Konzepte und Kategorien, (2) bessere Vereinbarkeit des geschlechtsspezifischen Lebenslaufs mit Familienstrategien, (3) Anerkennung des sozialen Wandels, (4) Suche nach Arbeitszeittransformation im Sinne von Weiterentwicklung und (5) Fokus auf Prävention. Hiermit soll - aus US-amerikanischer Perspektive - ein knapper Überblick über die historische Entwicklung der Schnittstellen zwischen Arbeit und Familie gegeben werden. Ebenfalls wird ein Überblick über die Resonanz der Unternehmensseite hinsichtlich der Organisation des 'Arbeit-Familien-Komplexes' geboten. Es gibt ein gestiegenes Bewusstsein dafür, dass das (Nicht-)Passen aufgrund erhöhter Zeitanforderungen bei gleichzeitig begrenzten Zeitressourcen und überholten Arbeitszeitzwängen der Arbeitnehmer/innen und Familien zunehmend auch eine Frage der Gesundheit der Bevölkerung ist. Der nächste Schritt für Unternehmen und Politik wird sein, die rigiden Zeitkorsetts der bezahlten Arbeit aufzubrechen. Dies bedeutet, die stillschweigenden, für selbstverständlich erachteten Haltungen, Regeln und Regulierungen bezüglich Zeit und ihrer Bemessung für Arbeitstage, -wochen, -jahre und das ganze Arbeitsleben auf den Prüfstand zu stellen." (Autorenreferat

Spillover

Discussion of the positive and negative effects of work-family spillover: the transfer of mood, affect, and behavior between work and home

Men\u27s and Women\u27s Definitions of Good Jobs: Similarities and Differences by Age and Across Time

Whether and to what extent men and women hold differing preferences for particular job attributes remains the subject of debate, with a sizable number of empirical studies producing conflicting results. These conflicts may have temporal sources—historical changes in men\u27s and women\u27s preferences for particular job attributes, as well as changes in preferences that commonly occur over individuals\u27 life cycle. Most previous research has neglected the effects of time on gender differences. Using data from national surveys of workers over a 22-year period, this study focuses explicitly on changes by age over time in men\u27s and women\u27s preferences for five key attributes of jobs—short hours, high income, meaningful work, chances for promotion, and job security. The results suggest that gender differences in preferences have been both stable and limited, although there is some evidence that the gender gap in preferences has actually widened among younger workers in recent years

The end of the career mystique? Policy and cultural frameworks that structure the work-family interface in the United States and Germany

'In den USA und in Deutschland prägt ein falscher Karriereglaube die Vorstellung des Normallebenslaufs; der Glaube nämlich, dass lebenslange, kontinuierliche und aufstiegsorientierte Erwerbsarbeit der Schlüssel zu einem beruflich und privat erfolgreichen Leben sei. Dieser 'Karrierewahn' ist die Kehrseite des 'Weiblichkeitswahns' (Friedan 1963) der 1950er Jahre; beide kulturelle Leitbilder versinnbildlichten die Trennung der Sphären von Beruf und Familie nach Geschlecht und fanden ihren Ausdruck im Ernährermodell als Norm des Familienlebens. Im Arbeitsmarkt und im Modus der sozialen Absicherung ist die Erwartung lebenslanger Erwerbsarbeit reifiziert, und Männer und Frauen streben heute eine kontinuierliche Vollzeittätigkeit an. So haben immer weniger Beschäftigte eine 'Hausfrau', die sie in ihrer Karriere unterstützt. Erst recht wenn Arbeitnehmer(innen) Eltern werden, brechen die Konflikte zwischen den Anforderungen der Erwerbsarbeit und der erhöhten Sorge- und Hausarbeit voll auf. Bei der Geburt von Kindern werden Berufs- und Familienrollen in der Paarbeziehung neu konfiguriert; die Vereinbarkeitsmodelle, die Paare dann wählen, sind mit geprägt durch Gelegenheitsstrukturen des jeweiligen wohlfahrtsstaatlichen, institutionellen und kulturellen Kontexts. In diesem Beitrag richten wir den Fokus auf drei Fallbeispiele (die USA, West- und Ostdeutschland), um darzustellen, wie wohlfahrtsstaatliche Politik und kulturelle Schemata zusammenspielen, und dabei bestimmte, geschlechtertypisierende Erwerbsmuster bei Elternpaaren und damit soziale Ungleichheiten hervorbringen und verstärken.' (Autorenreferat)'Both Germany and the United States endorse the culture of the 'career mystique,' the belief that a lifetime of continuous hard work is the path to occupational and personal success. The career mystique was the mirror image of the feminine mystique in the 1950s, and both cultural templates together reified a gendered work-family divide epitomized in the breadwinner-homemaker family norm in the middle of the 20th century. Today men and women increasingly see continuous full-time paid work as 'given,' with policies in Germany and the US reifying this pattern. However, very few employees - men or women - now have the luxury of a full-time homemaker available to support the commitment necessary to sustain this lock-step career mystique path. Most notably, as workers become parents, the contradictions inherent in fulfilling the career mystique (absent reliable back-up on the domestic front) become obvious and problematic. Since couples frequently reconfigure both work and family roles with the arrival of children, we illustrate the significance of policy, institutional and cultural contexts in shaping the work/family choices these couples make. We highlight three case examples (the US, West and East Germany) to demonstrate how policy regimes and cultural schema combine to produce distinctive and gendered work patterns, thereby serving to reinforce and reproduce both gender and class disparities.' (author's abstract

Deciding the future. Do dual-earner couples plan together for retirement

This study examines the retirement planfulness of men and women in dual-earner couples using data from the Ecology of Careers Study and structural equation modeling. It assesses whether each spouse plans independently, whether this is a gendered division of labor, whether both spouses' plans mutually influence each other, or whether decision making about retirement is an individual process for each member of a couple. The authors find that spouses' levels of retirement planfulness are positively related but in different ways depending on gender, cohort, and family circumstances. Perceived control (mastery), income adequacy, and workload all predict both husbands' and wives' planfulness. And husbands' planfulness tends to shape their wives' planfulness in the full sample. However, age cohort and family stage both moderate dual-earner couples' decision making about retirement. Younger couples (those in the trailing edge baby boom cohort) make plans independently, and in this younger cohort, only wives' planfulness can be modeled

Work-Family Conflict, Family-Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (FSSB), and Sleep Outcomes

Although critical to health and well-being, relatively little research has been conducted in the organizational literature on linkages between the work-family interface and sleep. Drawing on Conservation of Resources theory, we use a sample of 623 information technology workers to examine the relationships between work-family conflict, family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB), and sleep quality and quantity. Validated wrist actigraphy methods were used to collect objective sleep quality and quantity data over a one week period of time, and survey methods were used to collect information on self-reported work-family conflict, FSSB, and sleep quality and quantity. Results demonstrated that the combination of predictors (i.e., work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, FSSB) was significantly related to both objective and self-report measures of sleep quantity and quality. Future research should further examine the work-family interface to sleep link and make use of interventions targeting the work-family interface as a means for improving sleep health

Can a Flexibility/Support Initiative Reduce Turnover Intentions and Exits? Results from the Work, Family, and Health Network

We draw on panel data from a randomized field experiment to assess the effects of a flexibility/supervisor support initiative called STAR on turnover intentions and voluntary turnover among professional technical workers in a large firm. An unanticipated exogenous shock-the announcement of an impending merger-occurred in the middle of data collection. Both organizational changes reflect an emerging employment contract characterized by increasing employee temporal flexibility even as employers wield greater flexibility in reorganizing their workforces. We theorized STAR would reduce turnover intentions and actual turnover by making it more attractive to stay with the current employer. We found being in a STAR team (versus a usual practice team) lowered turnover intentions 12 months later and reduced the risk of voluntary turnover over almost three years. We also examined potential mechanisms accounting for the effects of these two organizational changes; STAR effects on reducing turnover intentions are partially mediated by reducing work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, burnout, psychological distress, perceived stress, and increasing job satisfaction. The effect of learning about the merger on increasing turnover intentions is fully mediated by increased job insecurity. STAR also moderates the negative effects of learning about the merger on turnover intentions for different subgroups. Findings provide insights into the effectiveness of an organizational intervention, the dynamics of organizations, and how competing logics of two organizational changes affect employees' labor market expectations and behavior

Work/ family demands and cardiometabolic risk and sleep duration in extended care employees: multilevel findings from the Work, family and Health Network

The study investigates the associations of work-family conflict and other work and family conditions with objectively-measured outcomes cardiometabolic risk and sleep duration in a study of employees in nursing homes. Multilevel analyses are used to assess cross-sectional associations between employee and job characteristics and health in analyses of 1,524 employees in 30 extended care facilities in a single company. We examine work and family conditions in relation to two major study health outcomes: 1) a validated, Framingham cardiometabolic risk score based on measured blood pressure, cholesterol, glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), body mass index (BMI), and self-reported tobacco consumption, and 2) wrist actigraphy-based measures of sleep duration. In fully-adjusted multi-level models, Work-To-Family conflict, but not Family-to-Work conflict was positively associated with cardiometabolic risk. Having a lower-level occupation (nursing assistants vs. nurses) was also associated with increased cardiometabolic risk, while being married and having younger children at home was protective. A significant age by Work-To-Family conflict interaction revealed that higher Work-To-Family conflict was more strongly associated with increased cardiometabolic risk in younger employees. With regard to sleep duration, high Family-To-Work Conflict was significantly associated with shorter sleep duration. In addition, working long hours and having younger children at home were both independently associated with shorter sleep duration. High Work-To-Family Conflict was associated with longer sleep duration. These results indicate that different dimensions of work-family conflict (i.e., Work-To-Family Conflict and Family-To-Work Conflict) may both pose threats to cardiometabolic risk and sleep duration for employees. This study contributes to the research on work- family conflict suggesting that Work-To-Family and Family-To-Work conflict are associated with specific outcomes. Translating theory and our findings to preventive interventions entails recognition of the dimensionality of work and family dynamics and the need to target specific work and family conditions

Understanding the effects of Covid-19 through a life course lens

The Covid-19 pandemic is shaking fundamental assumptions about the human life course in societies around the world. In this essay, we draw on our collective expertise to illustrate how a life course perspective can make critical contributions to understanding the pandemic’s effects on individuals, families, and populations. We explore the pandemic’s implications for the organization and experience of life transitions and trajectories within and across central domains: health, personal control and planning, social relationships and family, education, work and careers, and migration and mobility. We consider both the life course implications of being infected by the Covid-19 virus or attached to someone who has; and being affected by the pandemic’s social, economic, cultural, and psychological consequences. It is our goal to offer some programmatic observations on which life course research and policies can build as the pandemic’s short- and long-term consequences unfold