Household Arrangements Research Articles

John Dee: the politics of reading and writing in the English Renaissance

This text presents a reassessment of the career and cultural background of John Dee (1527-1609), one of Elizabethan England's most interesting figures. Challenging the conventional image of the isolated eccentric philosopher, Sherman situates Dee in a fresh context, revealing that he was a well-connected adviser to the academic, courtly and commercial circles of his day. The centrepiece of Dee's life is shown to be the massive library and museum at Mortlake, perhaps the first modern think tank. There he lived, worked and entertained some of the period's most influential intellectuals and politicians. Sherman discusses Dee's household arrangements, reading practices, and writings on subjects ranging from calendar reform to imperial policy. He also offers an account of the broad network of scholars and other experts who, along with Dee, operated behind the political scenes, providing textual and technological support during this time of unprecedented intellectual and global expansion.

Aging and Generational Relations: A Historical and Life Course Perspective

This review explores historical changes in generational relations in American society as they affect adaptation to the later years of life. Following a life course perspective, the review examines changes in the timing of life transitions, in family relations, and in generational and kin assistance and their impact on support in old age. In doing so, it demonstrates the significance of a historical and life course approach to the understanding of generational relations over time. Dispelling prevailing myths about coresidence and generational assistance in the past, the review discusses the circumstances under which nuclear household arrangements were modified and explores patterns of assistance inside and outside the household. It links demographic changes in the timing of life course transitions with patterns of supports to aging parents in the context of changing reciprocities among kin. By comparing two cohorts of adult children in an American community in terms of their supports to aging parents, as well as their attitudes toward generational assistance, the review identifies historical changes in the relations between generations in the larger context of family relations and kin assistance.

Towards a Strategic Approach to Housing Behaviour: A Study of Young People's Housing Strategies in South-East England

A model is advanced of young people's housing behaviour as resulting from strategies regarding household type, child-bearing, work, expenditure and family help, which in turn are partly a response to housing constraints. The model is applied to a sample of 724 young people in South-East England and it is shown that between 3 per cent and 34 per cent of young people had adopted particular strategies in the previous year in response to housing constraints. Strategic behaviour was not limited to any single social category, but the first four types of strategy were more likely among households with manual or part-time workers; younger, unmarried people were more likely to put up with awkward household arrangements; and older, married people and owner-occupiers were more likely to adopt expenditure-related strategies and to defer having children. This approach rejects the view that housing decisions are made by pre-existing households with given characteristics. Rather, household structure and resource levels result from strategies, and housing decisions involve trade-offs between aspirations and the acceptance of sacrifice and dependency - features which are ignored by measures of `ability to pay' such as affordability.

Teenage mothers in nuclear and extended households. Differences by marital status and race / ethnicity.

As an initial step in expanding our understanding of the influence of family context on adolescent mothers, this article investigates the patterns of, and factors associated with, their household arrangements. Although adolescent mothers are at great risk of eventually living in female-headed households and facing economic hardship, past research has said little about the households of these young mothers while they are teenagers. Using individual-level data from the 1980 U.S. Census, we show household arrangements vary by marital status, race/ethnicity, age, number of children, and central city residence. And there are important differences by race/ethnicity in the way the other variables are related to household arrangements. Importantly, household arrangements are related to school enrollment, labor force participation, poverty status, and receiving public assistance.

Aging and Generational Relations: A Historical and Life Course Perspective

This review explores historical changes in generational relations in American society as they affect adaptation to the later years of life. Following a life course perspective, the review examines changes in the timing of life transitions, in family relations, and in generational and kin assistance and their impact on support in old age. In doing so, it demonstrates the significance of a historical and life course approach to the understanding of generational relations over time. Dispelling prevailing myths about coresidence and generational assistance in the past, the review discusses the circumstances under which nuclear household arrangements were modified and explores patterns of assistance inside and outside the household. It links demographic changes in the timing of life course transitions with patterns of supports to aging parents in the context of changing reciprocities among kin. By comparing two cohorts of adult children in an American community in terms of their supports to aging parents, as well as their attitudes toward generational assistance, the review identifies historical changes in the relations between generations in the larger context of family relations and kin assistance.

Children at Risk: The Role of Family Structure in Latin America and West Africa

Many studies explore the relationship between income and nutrient intake. The focus upon households as a whole emerges from a research tradition rooted in the theoretical model of the family and the household proposed by the new household economics which has strongly influenced recent research on the family in both developed and developing countries. This mode however is overly simplistic where applied uniformly to diverse cultures. The author therefore considers the validity of these assumptions of uniform applicability with respect to the family forms and the nutrient available to children found in selected countries in Latin America and West Africa. The author uses demographic and health survey data from Ghana Mali Senegal northeast Brazil Colombia and the Dominican Republic with models of the family proposed by this new household economics to derive hypotheses regarding food available to young children in various household and family arrangements. It is concluded that these models unrealistically predict food and health care available to children because they assume that income or opportunity given to 1 family member translates into improvement in the welfare of all other members. The level of altruism toward children instead varies across cultures families and households. The author points out that these findings demonstrate the urgent need to develop alternative models of the family and notes that Nashs bargaining models have presented the most persistent challenge to neoclassical models of the family.

Commitment to Work and Family

Demographic change and behavioral shifts in employment and household arrangements have caused scholars and social critics to question the nature of individuals’ involvement with work and family. Interpreting the cultural meaning of those behavioral changes requires the study of individual commitment per se. This chapter reviews research on commitment to work and family by examining issues of definition, measurement, and specification of the concept of commitment, by assessing theoretical developments in the study of linkages between work and family, and by reviewing research that examines the relationship of work and family to gender, the life course, social origin, and race. The interrelationship between work and family commitment is examined, and issues to be resolved in future research are discussed.

Condición femenina y alternativas de organización doméstica : las mujeres sin pareja en São Paulo

El objetivo de este trabajo es explorar algunas de las circunstancias que se asocian al tipo de arreglos domésticos en que están involucradas las mujeres sin compañero en São Paulo, Brasil. Mujeres solteras, separadas o divorciadas y viudas enfrentan la contingencia de construir un mundo doméstico a partir de otros vínculos que no son el conyugal. La ausencia de un compañero no constituye, obviamente, la única circunstancia relevante. Tener o no tener hijos, padres u otros parientes representan también factores a partir de los cuales se conforman las alternativas de organización del universo de lo cotidiano.En este trabajo son considerados dos elementos centrales, a los cuales se les relaciona con una variedad de circunstancias de la vida. Por un lado la edad de la mujer, que es un indicador de la etapa de la vida en que ésta se encuentra. Por el otro, la situación conyugal, que distingue a las mujeres desde el punto de vista de la experiencia anterior de vida independiente, que posiblemente tiene influencia en sus arreglos domésticos. La pregunta central es la de saber en qué medida estas dos circunstancias afectan las posibilidades de la mujer sin compañero en la estructuración de los arreglos domésticos independientes. El carácter de independencia tiene que ver con las posibilidades de la mujer de construir, sola o con otras personas, un núcleo de vida cotidiano, con existencia propia. Es decir, la posibilidad o no de la constitución de un núcleo doméstico que no se apoye en la complementariedad de papeles socialmente atribuidos al hombre y a la mujer. De hecho, predominan en São Paulo y en Brasil arreglos domésticos organizados en torno a un núcleo conyugal. No obstante, la emergencia y el incremento reciente de otros arreglos revelan que el modelo conyugal no conforma un patrón válido para todos. Este incremento sugiere la fuerte presencia en nuestro medio de fuerzas de cambio en los patrones sociales de relaciones de género, capaces de alterar expectativas y formar nuevos modos de vida.

A longitudinal analysis of household and nonhousehold living arrangements in later life

Most explanatory models of living arrangements in later life link the decision process surrounding choice of living arrangement to personal resources such as income and health. Applications of these models, however, are based for the most part on cross-sectional rather than longitudinal data. In this paper we examine living arrangements in later life among the nonmarried population aged 55 and over, using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We observe individuals as they change living arrangements, die, or become institutionalized. Our results suggest that economic resources dominate the decision-making process in transitions across different household arrangements, whereas health is most important in explaining institutionalization.

Locality Studies and the Household

One aspect of the growth in enthusiasm for locality studies has been the idea that they provide a focus for understanding local variation in all aspects of life, even down to the experience of the household. The author takes issue with that contention. The locality has usually been defined with reference to the rounds of investment and production decisions which have been central to the construction of local labour markets. This is not the level at which household arrangements can best be understood. The local labour market will be a necessary contextualising element in analysis, but household dynamics will also be affected by, for example, influences operating at national level, such as the regulation of the benefit system, influences operating at an ideological level, such as the patriarchal ordering of work and employment relations, and the more immediate social world in which the household is located. It is argued here that this world is best conceptualised with reference to social networks which often operate at neighbourhood level, rather than through ‘locality’ differences defined as local labour markets.

Family Strategies in a Subsistence Economy: Beech Creek, Kentucky, 1850–1942

In this study of landownership, life-cycle effects, and household composition in a rural Appalachian community, we examine the nature of family strategies in a subsistence-oriented economy. Baseline ethnographic data from 1942 are linked through genealogical information to data on households from the manuscript agricultural and population censuses of 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, and 1910. The great variability in household composition over this period indicates the necessity of observing household arrangements at many points in time. In 1880 and 1900 there was a relationship between landownership and household composition, controlling for age of the head of household, with young owners twice as likely to head complex households as young nonowners. This suggests that the family strategy of bringing additional kin into the household—usually as farm laborers—was a privilege of property ownership. Data on surplus food production show that this strategy of family extension primarily represented a way to stave off economic disaster rather than a response to increased economic opportunity. In addition, strong family group networks, observed in the 1942 ethnography, provided another survival strategy, making possible the reproduction of marginal and below-subsistence-producing farms through interhousehold economic cooperation.

The varying household arrangements of the elderly in three English villages: Nottinghamshire, 1851–1881

L'auteur suit les conditions de vie des résidents, âgés de 55 ans et plus, d'aprés des données puisées dans les registres des enquêteurs, lors des recensements de 1851 et de 1881, dans trois villages du Nottinghamshire ayant des industries de base différentes. Les conditions de vie des veuves varient en 1881 selon le type d'industrie locale. A part cela, il existe peu de différences dans les conditions de vie des personnes âgées lorsqu'elles dépendent de l'industrie spécifiquement locale. Les données corroborent les études qui semblent suggérer que l'âge en soi ne change en rien la façon dont vivent les personnes âgées. Ce sont plutôt la situation de la famille et le sexe, auquel s'ajoute l'âge avancé, qui créent des différences dans le mode de vie des personnes. Les résultats de ces recherches semblent suggérer que c'est plutôt l'aptitude relative des résidents âgés à rester indépendants et éventuellement la possibilité pour leurs enfants ou collatéraux adultes de subvenir à leurs besoins matériels qui déterminent le mode de vie des personnes âgées.

The influence of domestic position on health status

Data fro, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 1982 survey of access to health care are used to examine the influence of household composition and members' domestic position—e.g. age, sex, marital status, and presence of children, on health status and use of health services. A hierarchical analysis was undertaken to sort groups of individuals and households having different domestic structures. The results of the analyses of use and access for these groups show that, after controlling for age, domestic position and household arrangements are significant explanatory variables. Ways to refine the approach are discussed.

Toward a social ecology of the home-care household.

I examined the relation between household parameters of size, composition, and temporal variability and indicators of care-giver and elder well-being. Two discrete groups of 20 care-giver-elder pairs were included in the study: (a) a group in which elders were moderately to severely cognitively impaired, but physically well, and (b) a group in which elders were moderately to severely physically disabled, but cognitively unimpaired. Care givers and elders were interviewed and assessed in their homes, and the care giver completed a 3-day log of home-care activities. Results indicated that care-giver and elder well-being are related to opposite values of the same household parameters in the two groups. The study demonstrates the utility of a social-ecological framework for research on home care, and suggests that the degree of fit of any particular household arrangement is relative to the competence-disability profile of the elder in care.

Households, Employment, and Gender: A Social, Economic, and Demographic View.

Events of the past 30 years have profoundly transformed arragements governing love work and the their routinization in households and employment; yet some patterns endure relatively unchanged. This book draws from both economics and sociology and from the work of demographer in both disciplines. Chapter 1 summarizes the changes that have occurred in the postwar period chapter 2 presents a conceptual framework for understanding these relationships ant their evolution and the remainder of the book expands on this framework and applies it to explaining the relationships of household employment and gender in the postwar era. In addition 3 levels of integration are offered: 1) the integration of households and employment showing similarities and causal links between household and employment arrangements; 2) a conceptual framework that includes both individuals choices and constraints that limit and price available options and 3) an integration of economic and sociological views of employment demographic behavior and other household behavior. Results show that the assignment of child rearing and housework to women the sex segregation of jobs and the sex gap in pay have been much more resistant to change than fertility the double standard of sexual morality female employment or the volume of housework that is performed. Also dramatic increases in female employment rates along with modest changes in female occupational segregation and only very recent change in the sex gap in earnings are noted.

The One-Child Population Policy, Modernization, and the Extended Chinese Family

This article examines structural social-psychological and ecological factors affecting the direction and types of changes occuring in the Chinese family and concludes that multiple demographic and socioeconomic influences and the families adaptive responses are creating conditions in China for the traditional household arrangement to survive while generating new variants of family organization. The 1-child population policy and the general modernization of China exert strong effects on the extended family structure but the robust nature of the extended kinship system in a modernizing society seems to allow for adaptation. Variant family patterns have emerged which do not fit either the stereotypical extended or the nuclear type. The 1-child family policy directly effects the physical formation of the extended family the manner in which family members relate to one another and the content and features of intergenerational ties. Since institution of this policy average family size has decreased reflecting expected changes in the power relationships among the generations. Married womens traditional role of childrearing and related household chores womens visibility in the workforce and interfamilial relationships are all affected. While the concept of family extendedness has been weakened other socioeconomic factors create a favorable climate for the survival of the extended family structure. Individualistic consumption orientation mobility and housing trends and historical concepts of economic interdependence between family members have an impact on the extended family sometimes in contradictory ways. Previous expectations that the Chinese family might give way to the nuclear family of the Western type have not been met and the factors discussed here have encouraged more diverse family types to grow and take shape.

Changing Family Forms

Abstract In this somewhat informal article, the author reflects on changing family forms. She describes her own childhood in a large, extended family, the various family types of those she studied and worked with as an architecture student, and her present family and household arrangements as a “working mother.” In the context of this description, the author discusses the changing social, political, and economic forces that are affecting American families. She concludes by considering the implications of these changes for planning and architecture.

On Migration and Risk in LDCs

The authors develop the hypothesis that aversion to risk rather than expectations of higher income is the primary motivation for rural-urban migration in developing countries. This hypothesis maintains that an optimizing risk-averse small-farmer family will try to place a family member in the urban sector in order to diversify its income portfolio. An additional hypothesis related to risk is also considered at the individual rather than the family level. (ANNOTATION)

Household Arrangements and Multiple Jobs in San Salvador

Previous articleNext article No AccessRevisions/ReportsHousehold Arrangements and Multiple Jobs in San SalvadorIsabel NievesIsabel Nieves Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Signs Volume 5, Number 1Autumn, 1979Women in Latin America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/493689 Views: 5Total views on this site Citations: 12Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1979 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Rochelle Stewart-Withers Contesting a Third World development category: Female-headed households in Samoa, Women's Studies International Forum 34, no.33 (May 2011): 171–184.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2010.11.003 Laurie F. DeRose Women’s Work and Breastfeeding Simultaneously Rise in Ghana DeRose, Economic Development and Cultural Change 55, no.33 (Jul 2015): 583–612.https://doi.org/10.1086/511193CECILIA MENJÍVAR The Intersection of Work and Gender, American Behavioral Scientist 42, no.44 (Jul 2016): 601–627.https://doi.org/10.1177/00027649921954381SARAH J. MAHLER Engendering Transnational Migration, American Behavioral Scientist 42, no.44 (Jul 2016): 690–719.https://doi.org/10.1177/00027649921954426SARAH BRADSHAW Women's Access to Employment and the Formation of Female-headed Households in Rural and Urban Honduras1, Bulletin of Latin American Research 14, no.22 (May 1995): 143–158.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1470-9856.1995.tb00003.xT. A. REPAK LABOR RECRUITMENT AND THE LURE OF THE CAPITAL:: Central American Migrants in Washington, DC, Gender & Society 8, no.44 (Dec 1994): 507–524.https://doi.org/10.1177/089124394008004003T. DAVID MASON Women's Participation in Central American Revolutions, Comparative Political Studies 25, no.11 (Apr 1992): 63–89.https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414092025001003Sharon Stichter Women, Employment and the Family: Current Debates, (Jan 1990): 11–71.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20514-1_2Lee Sennott-Miller The central role of midlife and older women in Latin America and the Caribbean, Ageing International 16, no.11 (Jun 1989): 25–33.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03004320Daniel Kaufmann, David L. Lindauer A model of income transfers for the urban poor, Journal of Development Economics 22, no.22 (Jul 1986): 337–350.https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3878(86)90135-5Barbara D. Miller Women, development, and anthropology: Focus on production and reproduction, Reviews in Anthropology 13, no.22 (Mar 1986): 104–114.https://doi.org/10.1080/00988157.1986.9977767Florencia E. Mallon Gender and Class in the Transition to Capitalism, Latin American Perspectives 13, no.11 (Jan 1986): 147–174.https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X8601300107

Sojourners versus New Urbanites: Causes and Consequences of Temporary versus Permanent Cityward Migration in Developing Countries

The causes and consequences of the contrasting patterns of migration are important and remain essentially unexplored. Those who regard themselves as sojourners in the city will seek different kinds of housing demand fewer amenities and services behave differently with respect to making friends and joining organizations use accumulated savings for different purposes and respond to different political issues and candidates than will people committed to the city as their permanent home. Where a large proportion of inmigrants regard their stay as temporary patterns of informal and formal urban social organization the nature and degree of demands on urban government and even the physical development of the city will be affected. This will hold regardless of whether the migrants who expect to return to their home places in fact do so. As long as they plan to return their intentions will shape their behavior in the city. Attention in this comparison of sojourners and new urbanites is directed to the following: variation in the permanence of cityward migration (intercountry differences the long run trend toward permanence); causes of variation in the permanence of cityward migration (economic and social consequences levels and patterns of political participation migration patterns and national political dynamics). Clearly the stability of demand for urban labor partly determines the mix of temporary and permanent migrants. Differences in levels of industrialization and the pace of economic growth must account for much of the contrast in migration patterns between South Asia and Africa on the 1 hand and Latin America Taiwan and Korea on the other. Tensions among ethnic groups are a less noted urban factor which may affect the permanence of migration. Urban conditions in general or as they bear on specific groups are only part of the explanation for varying migration patterns. For example except where strong economic discrimination is involved urban economic conditions fail to explain the behavior of atypical streams--temporary or cyclic migrants in places where permanent migration is the norm or permanent migrants in heavily temporary settings. Rural migrants desire and ability to return home after a shorter or longer stay in the city are strongly affected by their access to the land or to alternative sources of rural livelihood by rural kinship structure the importance of age graded social roles the cultural and religious significance of the land and by customs or events which make outcasts of certain groups of people. Rural conditions probably are the most important explanation for the particular forms of temporary migration in different areas but for the behavior of atypical streams. Commitment to the city strongly influences the flow of private savings into urban housing and associated amenities.