A longitudinal study on transactional relations between parental marital distress and adolescent emotional adjustment.

Using a cross-lagged effect model with 3 waves of data from a 6-year longitudinal study with 3-year intervals, transactional relations between parental marital distress and adolescent emotional adjustment were examined. The sample consisted of 531 parent-adolescent dyads. Results showed that marital distress as reported by parents and emotional adjustment as reported by adolescents were reciprocally related in a transactional model over time. This was principally true for girls and for late adolescents and young adults. For older adolescent girls, an almost full transactional model was found, whereas associations between marital distress and emotional adjustment were less strong for younger girls and were absent for boys.

Father's health in relation to spousal employment.

We studied the correlation between fathers' well-being and the number of hours that their wives work outside the home. Two groups of fathers were involved in the study: modern, caring fathers (in this cultural context meaning less than full-time employment outside the home) and more traditional fathers (in full-time employment). It would appear to be true for both groups that the number of hours their wives work correlates negatively with the fathers' well-being both physically and mentally. We compared two hypotheses: does the well-being of fathers correlate mainly with the wife's actual absence, measured by the absolute number of hours that she works outside the home? Or does it correlate more with symbolic factors, measured by the relative number of hours she works (her working hours compared with his), or by her relative share to the family income. Confirmation was found for both hypotheses, but the second, the 'unfulfilled husband' hypothesis had the most support. Finally, it must be observed that the number of hours men work still has a positive correlation with their well-being.