Work conditions, mastery and psychological distress: are housework and paid work contexts conceptually similar?

This research examined how the conditions of paid work and unpaid housework were related to women's sense of mastery, depressed mood and anxiety. The data for these analyses were taken from the American Changing Lives (ACL) survey (House, 1986). This research draws from a subsample of 992 black and non-Hispanic white women aged 24 to 59. The conditions of work on the job and in the home are not consistently related to women's psychological functioning. Among employed women, decision latitude on the job is related to depressed mood indirectly through their sense of mastery; the physical demands of work are directly related to depressed mood, but the effect is stronger among employed women than employed homemakers. In contrast, decision latitude at home is directly related to depressed mood among homemakers; the physical demands of housework are related to depressed mood only indirectly through women's sense of mastery. This pattern is repeated in the relationship between anxiety and decision latitude both at home and on the job, and in the relationship between anxiety and physical demands of work on the job. Both unpaid housework and paid work are forms of productive activity, but these findings suggest they are not a ubiquitous entity with similar effects for all women. Rather the context of work shapes the effect of work conditions for women's psychological functioning.

Family structure and adolescent risk-taking behavior: a comparison of Mexican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican Americans.

We use the Hispanic HANES to examine whether family structure is related to alcohol and drug use among Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American adolescents. Mexicans adolescents living in female headed households have higher rates of drinking, drug use, and overall risk-taking behaviors than those living with both parents. Puerto Ricans adolescents living in female-headed households have higher rates of overall risk-taking behaviors than those living with both parents. Family structure is unrelated to Cuban adolescent risk-taking behavior. There is no evidence that gender modifies the effect of family structure for adolescent risk-taking behaviors.

Involuntary childlessness and marital adjustment: his and hers.

This study of 103 couples in treatment for infertility suggests that spouses are generally similar in the way they perceive their marital adjustment, but that they arrive at their views by different routes. Acceptance of a childless lifestyle is consistently associated with greater marital adjustment for men, but greater stress associated with infertility undermines marital adjustment for both husbands and wives. Men adjust better to an involuntarily childless marriage if their wives are employed or have high earnings. Wife's marital adjustment diminishes with the length of the marriage and the course of treatment for infertility. The stress women experience as a result of infertility influences their perception of their marriage and may undermine their ability to get the support they need during the transition to nonparenthood.

The relationship between alcohol use and attempts and success at smoking cessation.

This study assessed the relationships between alcohol use and smoking cessation in a general population sample (N = 2115) of adults living in a county in north Florida. Nearly half of the sample had ever smoked. Of these, 44% had successfully quit; 34% had tried unsuccessfully to quit; 21% reported never having tried to quit. In multivariate analyses which controlled for background factors, heavy drinkers were found to be less likely to attempt to quit smoking. And, if they had attempted to quit, they were less likely to succeed. Having quit drinking was very strongly related to success at smoking cessation, and slightly negatively related to attempts to quit smoking. Individuals who enjoyed smoking with alcohol were more likely to attempt to quit smoking and to be successful at quitting than those who did not enjoy smoking and drinking concurrently. Those who enjoyed smoking at stressful times were less likely to have tried to quit than those not using smoking to cope with stress. The authors suggest social-situational and stress perspectives as conceptual frameworks for future research.

Race, socioeconomic status, and psychological distress: an examination of differential vulnerability.

Using data from a 1985 epidemiological survey of 2,115 adults in Florida, this research has two goals: it tests the proposition that race and SES jointly influence mental health, and it examines the contribution of undesirable life events and economic problems to psychological distress across SES groups. Using multiple indicators of SES and mental health, we found that the evidence for a model of joint influence of race and SES on mental health varied with the measures being used. The most general conclusion is that SES interacts with race to increase psychological symptoms of distress. Partitioning the sample into three SES categories (low, middle, high), we examined the contribution of stressors to the greater distress among lower-SES blacks compared to other blacks and lower-SES whites. Lower-SES blacks are more vulnerable than lower-SES whites to the impact of undesirable events, but they are less vulnerable than lower-SES whites to the impact of economic problems. Lower-SES blacks are more vulnerable than middle-SES blacks to the impact of both discrete events and economic problems. Limitations of the study indicate a need for future longitudinal studies with measures of coping resources and support networks to further our understanding of the race, social class and psychological distress relationship.