Affect Family Structure Research Articles

Women’s Attitude Toward Fertility And Childbearing in Saudi Arabia

IntroductionThe decline in fertility is one of the major problems worldwide that could affect family structure. Many studies have been conducted to assess attitudes toward fertility and childbearing around the world, but there’s a lack of research about that in Saudi Arabia (SA). The study aims to assess women’s attitudes toward fertility and childbearing in SA and to investigate its association with sociodemographic, medical, and psychological factors.ObjectivesAim of the Study: The purpose of the study is to assess women’s attitudes toward fertility and childbearing in Saudi Arabia and to investigate its association with sociodemographic, medical and psychological variables.Specific Objectives: 1.To assess women’s attitudes toward fertility and childbearing in Saudi Arabia.2.To investigate association between attitudes toward childbearing with sociodemographic characteristics in Saudi Arabia.3.To investigate association between attitudes toward childbearing with medical and psychiatric history in Saudi Arabia.4.To investigate association between attitudes toward childbearing with the childbearing preferences in Saudi Arabia. MethodsThis cross-sectional study of a convenient sample of 2172 women in SA in Dec 2022 and Jan 2023. Data were collected through a survey link that contains:1)Sociodemographic data, 2) medical and psychiatric history, 3) childbearing preference and 4) the Arabic version of the Attitudes toward Fertility and Childbearing Scale (AFCS). Data were analyzed by SPSS 25 ;We described the variables in means ± SD or percentage as appropriate. Student’s t-test and ANOVA were performed to analyze differences between the components and background characteristics.ResultsIndividuals in the age group of 18-25 years (25.54± 9.08, p<0.001), unmarried (25.23 ± 8.87, p<0.001), and diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder (24.76 ±9.51, p<0.002) scored lower in importance of future of childbearing. In terms of hindrance at present and childbearing preparation, individuals in the age group of 18-25 years (25.66 ± 8.66, p<0.001) (18.53 ± 5.08, p<0.001) respectively, unmarried (25.71± 8.58, p<0.001) (18.46 ± 5.08, p<0.001) respectively, and students (25.92 ± 8.82, p<0.001) (18.55 ± 5.15, p=0.001) respectively were more likely to score high. Participants who had not made a decision about having children (9.36±3.32, p<0.001) scored lower in the female identity domain.ConclusionsIn conclusion, the findings of this study indicate that the younger age group (18-25 years) and those with psychiatric illnesses scored lower in the importance for future of childbearing compared to women of older age group (36-49 years ) and those without psychiatric illnesses. On the other hand, college students showed more concerns related to childbearing hindrance and preparation.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Why should we discuss gender inequalities in Latin America and their effects in later life?

AbstractBackgroundHigh inequalities in Latin America (LA) affect social groups differently, with women being disadvantaged in many domains. Further, dementia prevalence is higher and with earlier onset in LA, especially among women, after accounting for women’s longer life expectancy. This narrative review discusses the modifiable risk factors of dementia established by previous studies and postulates further harmful, often hidden, factors experienced by women that might influence gender‐specific time of onset and general prevalence of dementia.MethodWe searched databases for qualitative and quantitative articles systematising dementia‐associated factors between genders/sexes in LA.ResultWe review hidden modifiable risk factors for late‐life cognitive impairment that should be integrated into future research. In doing this, we point out pervasive gender roles around education, labour market participation, but also the distribution of resources within families and across generations. Gender roles affect family structure living conditions during childhood and extend their influence over the life course. Other stressors strongly correlated with established modifiable risk factors or intrinsically relevant to dementia risk seem to be commonplace in women’s lives in LA, such as food insecurity, overweight/obesity, violence, and limited career opportunities.ConclusionBased on the evidence of gender inequalities in many domains to the disadvantage of women in LA, there is a need to consider unexplored risk factors since they could perpetuate burden of dementia among women disproportionately. Moreover, bringing hidden risk factors to open discussion can encourage and promote public policies to decrease gender inequalities and protect women’s health and well‐being.

Welfare Rules, Incentives, and Family Structure

We reexamine the effects of welfare on family structure, emphasizing that AFDC and TANF rules are based more on the biological relationship of the mother’s children to any male in the household than on marriage or cohabitation. We find that many 1990s welfare reform policies did not affect family structure, but that several work-related reforms increased single parenthood and decreased marriage to biological fathers. These effects are most evident when work-related reforms are bundled and examined over a longer time period. We hypothesize that these effects stem from increased earnings of single mothers and factors specific to biological fathers.

CS04-04 - Avoiding specific foods may reduce adhd: should we change our prescriptions?

The effects of a restricted elimination diet (RED) on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have been investigated in eight randomised controlled studies, five of which used a double-blind placebo controlled (DBPC) design (see table 1). The first and the eighth RED trial (the Impact of Nutrition on Children with ADHD (INCA) study), have been published in The Lancet. The RED studies provide convincing evidence for a statistically significant and clinically relevant effect of an RED on ADHD and on comorbid ODD, with an overall effect size on ADHD of 1.2 (see table 2). The INCA study has shown that sixty percent of a heterogeneous group of children with ADHD and ODD do not meet the ADHD and ODD criteria anymore following the RED, showing normal behaviour according to parents’, teacher's and blinded paediatrician's measurements (see figure 1 and figure 2). The results of the DBPC RED studies indicate that the beneficial effects of an RED on the behaviour of children with ADHD are not moderated by parental expectations. In addition, a recent randomised controlled pilot study investigating the effects of an RED on family structure and environment has shown that an RED does not seem to affect family structure or family environment in families motivated to enter RED research. It may be obvious that a restricted diet, commensurable to behavioural therapy, is very difficult to blind. Consequently, in order to conceal the treatment conditions in the DBPC studies, some dietary sacrifices had to be made to secure the blinding, obviously resulting in lower effect sizes than in open studies using an optimally restricted diet (see table 2). Considering that 1) the long-term effects of medication, the current therapy of ADHD, are disappointing; 2) 50% of children discontinue their medication within a two-year period; and 3) children with comorbid ODD have a worse prognosis, interventions that may prevent ADHD and ODD have great clinical potential. Children with ADHD responding favourably to a 5-week RED may be diagnosed Food-Induced ADHD (FI-ADHD); in these children ADHD may be considered a hypersensitivity disorder triggered by food (see figure 3). Children diagnosed FI-ADHD are advised to enter an RED challenge period to identify the incriminated foods, eventually resulting in a diet as elaborate as possible. Children with ADHD not responding favourably to an RED may be diagnosed Classic ADHD (C-ADHD) and may start treatment as usual. Further investigation is necessary to define the mechanism of food in children with FI-ADHD and the long-term effects of an RED. Taking the impressive results of all RED studies into account, a paradigm shift concerning diagnosis and treatment of ADHD is needed, and implementation of RED research in children with parents motivated to follow a 5 week RED is warranted.

The Elderly and Family Change in Asia with a Focus in Iran: A Sociological Assessment

Elderly people and families are attracting the attention of many social scientists nowadays. The paper tries to explore how much social change in Asia is affecting family structure, and how deep elderly people are influenced by this transition. The trend of these studies has been following various ageing referring to socioeconomic implications for those societies. A concept of ageing being followed in industrial societies is not well defined or touched in many of Asian societies yet. Rising challenges out of the phenomenon need due to find solutions to avoid further complications and controversies as far as a changing in family is concerned. Consequences brought from ageing such as: loneliness, loss of status, being apart from productive system and similarly reduction in quality of life could be sociologically tackled to harmonize the ageing phenomenon with family's responsibility. Hence, lowering family poverty would help much. Shortage of appropriate social security system in many of Asian societies, changing attitudes from youth towards elderly, change of family values system and their likes. All of those facts have led the elderly to poverty and inappropriate services at the ending stage of their life. The gap between the perceived need for assistance of the elderly and thir received assistance could be filled up by family and that should be what <ul>they</ul> traditionally expect. Iran is also facing this challenge due to rapid changes in family, mainly caused by the change in family relations whose values have ended. Hence, adequate policies need to be adopted to end up with the emerging challenge in Asia.$$aged society, family solidarity, gerontology, far/lat/modernization.

Cultural variation in Africa: role of mechanisms of transmission and adaptation.

Cultural inheritance can be considered as a mechanism of adaptation made possible by communication, which has reached its greatest development in humans and can allow long-term conservation or rapid change of culturally transmissible traits depending on circumstances and needs. Conservativeness/flexibility is largely modulated by mechanisms of sociocultural transmission. An analysis was carried out by testing the fit of three models to 47 cultural traits (classified in six groups) in 277 African societies. Model A (demic diffusion) is conservation over generations, as shown by correlations of cultural traits with language, used as a measure of historical connection. Model B (environmental adaptation) is measured by correlation to the natural environment. Model C (cultural diffusion) is the spread to neighbors by social contact in an epidemic-like fashion and was tested by measuring the tightness of geographic clustering of the traits. Most traits examined, in particular those affecting family structure and kinship, showed great conservation over generations, as shown by the fit of model A. They are most probably transmitted by family members. This is in agreement with the theoretical demonstration that cultural transmission in the family (vertical) is the most conservative one. Some traits show environmental effects, indicating the importance of adaptation to physical environment. Only a few of the 47 traits showed tight geographic clustering indicating that their spread to nearest neighbors follows model C, as is usually the case for transmission among unrelated people (called horizontal transmission).

The Effect of Paternal Deprivation on the Capacity to Modulate Aggression

The Effect of Paternal Deprivation on the Capacity to Modulate Aggression Eleanor Galenson, M.D. (bio) Our commonly accepted concept of the experience of human loss presumes that the mourner has had meaningful physical and psychological contact with the person who has been lost. But there are many situations where the absence or loss of an individual in the family with whom a child may have had only minimal contact or has never even seen is acknowledged and referred to by the adults. Many children of single mothers who were conceived by artificial insemination can never know their father; children conceived but not yet born before their fathers left home for service in the armed forces, and children of fathers who visit them occasionally but do not form a psychological connection are all faced with the similar psychological dilemma of having no actual memory of the person whom others call “father.” How do children deal with such a void? The process of projective identification which plays a critical role in the evolving early parent-child relationship, as originally described by Klein and recently elaborated by Apprey, and Apprey and Stein, requires the actual presence of the parent. 1 Can the psychological structure of a child who has not experienced paternal intersubjectivity during the first few years of life be relatively stable? While the importance of the maternal relationship for optimal development has been recognized and documented extensively by many infant researchers and clinicians, 2 only recently has the role of the father in early development been studied in depth. 3 This omission is all the more surprising in view of Freud’s emphasis on the influence of his own father on his psychological development. The changing social mores of society affect family structure and family relationships. With more women in the work force, attention became focused on the effect of maternal deprivation on young children. The current need for greater paternal collaboration in infant care has now shifted more attention to the children’s relationship to the father, and the special influence of the father’s psychological and physical presence [End Page 443] on development of even very young infants is an important area of psychological inquiry. The clinical data presented below address the issue of the father’s influence during the first two years of life. Derived from two different sources, one body of data consists of analytic material: two male patients who were similar to one another in that they had both been born during the Second World War and had lived alone with their mothers during the first two years of their lives until their fathers joined the family at the end of the war. The similarity of the psychological conflicts in these two men strongly suggested that the early paternal absence they had both experienced played a crucial role in shaping their personality structure. The second body of data came from very young children for whom paternal absence appeared to have had serious consequences. These very young children were treated, along with their mothers, in three therapeutic nurseries for which I was responsible. The nurseries were situated within institutional settings where they provided diagnostic and therapeutic services to psychologically disturbed children who were below three years of age at the time of referral to us. Most of them lived in Medicaid-supported households where the biological father might appear briefly and unexpectedly, but never became psychologically involved with his child. While these households usually included one of the child’s grandmothers and often an aunt and cousins as well, an adult male relative was almost never present consistently. The deprived social and economic conditions of these families undoubtedly influenced the children’s development in an overall way. But there were striking similarities between aspects of the psychopathology of the two adult male patients referred to above and many of the boys in our nursery population. The nature of their maternal relationships, particularly in regard to the libidinal-aggressive balance, and distortions in the intensity and management of aggressive impulses were features common to both the adult males and the nursery boys. Clinical material from Mr. A.’s psychoanalytic treatment illustrates the nature of his problem in...

Alternative Models of the Effects of Family Structure On Early Family Formation

Data from the 1979-1985 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are used to examine the effect of residing in a nonintact family during adolescence on the probability of experiencing a teen birth and on the timing of first premarital births. Models are developed to account for possible unmeasured common factors that jointly affect family structure and early family formation. The results confirm previous research findings that, after controlling for various socio-demographic factors, living in a nonintact family at age 14 increases the likelihood of becoming a teen parent and lowers the expected age of experiencing an out-of-wedlock birth. Using differing assumptions about the process-generating nonintact family structure and early family-formation outcomes, we find no evidence of the endogeneity of family structure. However, in the absence of prior information, the effect of family structure on early adult outcomes cannot be identified. As such, estimates of family-structure effects depend on the assumptions researchers make about the processes affecting family structure and early family formation.

The impact of local labor markets on black and white family structure

This study employs 1980 census data to determine how economic characteristics affect the incidence of female headed families in metropolitan areas. The study also attempts to determine if black family structure responds differntly than white family structure to changes in the variables studied. It is found that changes in employment of men and women may have profound effects on family structure. Changes in the level of welfare support are also found to affect family structure. Black family structure is found to behave somewhat differently than white, thus lending support to Wilson's theory of the underclass.

Remarriage among Jews and christians in nineteenth-century eastern Europe

Studies of Jewish marital patterns in the past have rarely dealt in detail with patterns of remarriage. Rather, attention has been paid to topics such as age and age differences at the time of marriage, as well as patterns of selecting a mate in the first marriage.1 Patterns of remarriage, however deserve attention for a number of reasons. They influence fertility levels, affect family structure, play a role in networking, and serve as an indicator of the importance of marriage in a given society. They are highly revealing of group characteristics and behavior. Remarriage in late nineteenth-century Eastern Europe merits attention for an additional reason. Patterns of remarriage and their changes over time significantly diverged among various population groups. Eastern Europe is thus an excellent context for examining the impact of significant variables on remarriage by means of a comparative approach.

The Organization of Family Care for Impaired Elderly

Although families currently provide the bulk of care for aged relatives, demographic changes affecting family structure and documentation of the negative effects of caregiving have resulted in reservations about its continued prevalence. The purpose of this research was to examine the assumptions underlying these reservations as well as the notion that caregiving is facilitated by a large and active support network. In contrast to previous research, this study used interview data from 597 families in which the impaired elder resided with and was cared for by household kin. Findings indicated that caregiving occurred in diverse household configurations involving a substantial proportion of male caregivers, employed caregivers, and multi-generational contexts. Despite the diversity, most caregivers indicated a permanent commitment to the role. Although each day they provided on average three hours of personal care alone, wide variation was found in the incidence and severity of stress effects. Informal and formal supports, though present, seemed to supply relatively little hands-on care.

The Changing Structure of Australian Families

This paper reports briefly on some of the major contemporary demographic trends affecting family structure and family formation in Australia. It begins by noting some recent changes in the demographic character of Australian families and households. It then looks in turn at trends in first marriage patterns childbearing and divorce....It also highlights some of the new forces which now impinge on the processes of family formation and dissolution. (EXCERPT)

The Trumpet of Prophecy: A Sociological Study of Jehovah's Witnesses

in this field. To that extent the title of the book is somewhat misleading, since an important aspect of religion in changing Japan is excluded. The evidence presented on the decline of traditional Buddhism and Shinto all goes to show that urbanization and population movement, together with legal changes affecting family structure and religious associations, have significantly weakened religious practices associated with households, local shrines and local temples. It also shows that despite the more individualist style of modern life, the household, rather than the individual, is still the important unit. Younger people have a different, and generally weaker, pattern of affiliation and practice, but whether this is an age or a generation effect is not yet clear. Throughout these chapters there seems to run a Durkheimian interpretation, though the name of the master is not invoked, and only half-way through the book, and then only in a footnote, is it stated without argument that religion is a dependent variable. It might be thought that the comments on Christianity would, at least implicitly, challenge this interpretation, but not so. Professor Morioka contents himself with observing that Christianity appealed to some of the 'modernisers' among the samurai and middle classes, and that in the course of time some syncretism between Westerntype Christianity and Japanese culture has occurred. A further case of coexistence instead of conflict. In his account of the sociology of religion in Japan he points out how seldom Japanese writers have been concerned to test out Western theories of religion in a Japanese setting. This intriguing task still waits to be accomplished, and while I do not doubt that Professor Morioka could very powerfully contribute to it, he has not chosen to do so in this book. Nonetheless, all the material is interesting, not least in suggesting comparisons with the interactions of religion, economic modernization and nationalism in the Western world. B. R. Scharf London School of Economtvs The Trumpet of Prophecy: A Sociological Study of Jehovah's Witnesses James A. Beckford Basil Blackwell I975 244 PP £6