Separated by their Work

Abstract

In studying work and family life as overlapping domains, of interest is the impact of father absence created by work requirements. Commonly, father absence because of marital discord or death has been found to have detrimental effects on the social and cognitive development of children. In contrast, much less is known about the impact of transitory work-related father absence. Yet this is a new social phenomenon from a global perspective. In developing countries, increasing urban migration meant that families often lose one or both parents who are absent because of work. In Japan, one critical work-related family change is an increasingly common type of family termed tanshinfunin, in which fathers are relocated by their work organizations and are required to live apart from their families for prolonged periods. The present study targeted Canadian military families, which also formed the basis for a cross-cultural comparison of Japanese civilian tanshinfunin families. During father absence, measures of social support perceived by the mother and self-reported coping methods of the elementary school-age children were assessed. Mothers and teachers also rated the children's adjustment and academic performance. Results indicated that father absence which produced a loss of perceived social support by their wives was negatively correlated to behavioral adjustment and academic performance of their children. Children reported the most stress during actual father absence and emotion-focused coping was most commonly used. Interestingly, children who also used more social support seeking to cope with father absence were observed to show less acting-out behaviors in the classroom. Implications of work-related father absence as mediated by family coping resources and cultural factors were discussed.