Family Social Resources Research Articles

A Prospective Study on Resilience Among Children with Different Migrant and Left-behind Trajectories.

Parental migration has been an important predictor of children’s psychological resilience. The present study discusses the effect of parental migration on children’s resilience in rural western China from a dynamic viewpoint. Using sequence analysis, this study investigates children’s entire migration trajectory over the course of childhood (ages 1–12) and identifies the typical patterns of the dynamic family structure associated with parental migration: continuously nonmigrant (N = 4,238), continuously migrant (N = 923), continuously left behind by one parent (N = 872), continuously left behind by both parents (N = 796) and frequent transition between migrant or left-behind statuses (N = 1,624). The results show that the trajectories of left-behind status and transition have a significant negative impact on children’s resilience, which demonstrates that both the effects of parent-child separation and family instability compromise children’s psychological functioning. Family resources can buffer these negative effects, but they work asymmetrically across different groups of children. Family economic resources serve as a significant protective factor among children continuously left behind by both parents, while family social resources are more protective for children in unstable families.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12187-022-09945-1.

Spoiling for a fight: A relational model of daily work‐family balance satisfaction

Previous studies demonstrate that both work and family factors explain employees’ work‐family balance satisfaction (WFBS); however, relatively less is known about the within‐person dynamics of WFBS on a daily basis. In this study, we adopt a relational perspective and draw on Cognitive and Affective Processing System and Conservation of Resources theories to clarify work and family relational influences on WFBS. First, we examine the effects of both work and family interpersonal conflict on WFBS through the mechanisms of employees’ negative work reflection and negative affective state. Second, we test whether job and family crafting behaviours, especially increasing job and family social resources, serve as personal resources that buffer the negative influences of work and family interpersonal conflict. Findings from our daily study indicate that negative work reflection mediates work interpersonal conflict and WFBS, while negative affect mediates family interpersonal conflict and WFBS. Interestingly, we only found support for the beneficial moderating role of increasing family social resources but not increasing job social resources. We discuss theoretical and practical implications as well as future research directions.Practitioner points Organizations and practitioners should provide interventions (e.g., conflict resolution workshops, team‐building programs, or counselling services) that can resolve occurrences of work and family interpersonal conflict, thereby preventing its harmful role in daily work‐family balance satisfaction. Managers may offer formal and informal support enhancing employees' daily relational crafting behaviours, especially increasing family social resources, which can mitigate the detrimental effect of family interpersonal conflict on work‐family balance satisfaction.

Pediatricians' Comfort Level in Caring for Children With Special Health Care Needs

BackgroundFew studies have investigated pediatrician attitudes about providing primary medical care for children with special health care needs. The objective of this study was to determine pediatrician perspectives on their comfort level in providing care and on where the medical home should be for children with chronic medical and developmental conditions. MethodsSurvey of pediatricians in California in 2014. Pediatricians were randomized to receive surveys featuring either a case of a child with a chronic medical (neurofibromatosis) or a developmental condition (autism). They were then asked about their comfort level in providing primary care for the child. We developed logistic regression models to adjust for practice and provider factors, and availability of family social resources. ResultsThe survey response rate was 50.2%. Primary care pediatricians expressed more comfort than nonprimary care pediatricians in providing a medical home for a child with chronic medical or developmental condition (range, 84%–92% comfortable vs 58%–79% comfortable), respectively. All pediatricians expressed more comfort providing care for a child with autism than neurofibromatosis. Nearly all primary care pediatricians (90%) believed that the medical home should be in pediatric primary care practice. Pediatrician comfort in becoming a medical home was higher when the family had more social resources. ConclusionsMost pediatricians endorse that the medical home for children with special health care needs be in the primary care setting. Improving access to subspecialty care and providing resources, such as case management, to address family social complexity might raise pediatrician comfort in providing primary care to children with medical and developmental conditions.

Psychological Distress Among College Youth as a Function of Family SES: The Mediating Effect of Sense of Poverty and the Mitigating Role of Family Resources

Although college provides an opportunity for socioeconomic advancement, poor college youth confront material scarcity and financial problems and are at risk for psychological distress. Yet, distress is a product not only of poverty per se but of a sense of poverty, or a subjective evaluation of one's socioeconomic conditions vis-à-vis life circumstances. Both sense of poverty and psychological distress, however, can be mitigated by collective problem-solving in the family and by the family's social resources. Analysis of data from Filipino college youth ( n = 831) shows that the family's inability to meet financial obligations is not directly associated with distress, but indirectly through sense of poverty. Lack of family assets is not a predictor of psychological distress, given that the positive indirect effect through sense of poverty is counteracted by a negative direct effect. Results also show that family problem-solving lessens psychological distress and that adequate access to social resources lessens the negative effect of sense of poverty on distress.

Social Class and Inequalities in Early Cognitive Scores

Research emphasising the importance of parenting behaviours and aspirations for child outcomes has been seized on by policymakers to suggest the responsibility of the worst off themselves for low levels of social mobility. This article provides a critique of the way in which research evidence has been used to support the dominant policy discourse in this area, as well as an empirical analysis. We use the Millennium Cohort Study to interrogate the relationship between social class and attainment in the early years of schooling. We investigate the extent to which social class inequalities in early cognitive scores can be accounted for by parental education, income, family social resources and parental behaviours. We conclude that social class remains an important concept for both researchers and policymakers, and that the link between structural inequalities and inequalities in children’s cognitive scores cannot be readily accounted for in terms of individual parenting behaviours.

Racial and Ethnic Differences in Experiencing Parents’ Marital Disruption During Late Adolescence

Using panel data from 9,252 adolescents in the National Education Longitudinal Study, this study finds that among children who experience parents’ marital disruption during late adolescence, European, Asian, and African American adolescents exhibit wider and greater maladjustment both before and after the disruption than their Hispanic American counterparts. This finding lends general support to the hypothesis of prevalence of disadvantages, although it is less consistent with the hypothesis of prevalence of divorce. Moreover, whereas Asian American adolescents in predisrupted families are more vulnerable to a shortage of family social resources, their African American peers are affected more by a shortage of financial/human resources. Finally, postdisruption effects on non‐Hispanic American adolescents are either completely or partially attributable to predisruption factors.

Community Context of Social Resources and Adolescent Mental Health

This study investigated cross‐level mediational and moderational community and family influences on adolescent depressive symptoms. Using multilevel data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we predicted that structural community characteristics such as community poverty and ethnic heterogeneity would influence community social resources, which in turn would influence adolescent depressive symptoms. We further predicted that community social resources would influence adolescent depressive symptoms through family social resources. Findings also suggested that the influence of the parent‐child relationship on adolescent depressive symptoms is weaker in more adverse communities than in less adverse communities. The findings underscore the importance of placing family process models within the community context when adolescent outcomes are investigated.

Social networks and psychiatric clients: the personal and environmental context.

The study examines the extent to which characteristics of psychiatric clients (interpersonal problem-solving) and their families (family climate and family social resources) are associated with dimensions of clients' social networks (size and support). Respondents were 35 clients recruited from outpatient psychiatric clinics and the family members with whom they resided. The results revealed that individual and environmental variables were significant correlates of social network dimensions. For example, client problem-solving was positively related to the number of intimates cited by the client, while level of independence was positively related to the degree of support clients reported receiving from their peers. Level of client psychopathology partially moderated the effects of some of the predictor variables. The results highlight the need to examine the individual and environmental processes that shape and are shaped by social network patterns.

Work stress and the stress‐buffering roles of work and family resources

AbstractThis paper describes the development of the Work Environment Scale, which includes measures of perceived stressful and supportive aspects of the job milieu. This scale is used to examine stressful effects of the work environment on personal functioning and the stress‐buffering value of work and family social resources among a representative community group of men and women. Work stressors had a greater impact on men, but supportive social resources provided more attenuation of such effects among men than among women. Although work stressors generally had less effect on men whose wives were employed, high stress in the women's work settings had some indirect negative consequences for their husbands.Reprint requests should be directed to the authors, Social Ecology Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University Medical School, Stanford, California 94305, U.S.A.