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Master of Science / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Anthony Jurich / Gender is a constructing concept around which the traditionally structured marriage was formed. An undercurrent of traditional thought still influences how women make their decisions around pursuing a career and caring for their children. Their relationships with their husbands, in part influences both their decision-making and experience of their roles. This was a qualitative multiple care study describing women's decision-making around and their experiences of these roles. Themes found in the participant's narratives related to finances, intentional decision-making, and the fluidity of child-care and work roles. Final reflections during the child launching phase of life showed that role congruency was important for the participants and that they were currently satisfied with their situations.

Most industrialised countries have witnessed a shift in the 'male breadwinner' model of family life as new generations of mothers have increasingly combined employment with parenting responsibilities. This has had implications for the role of fathers and their contributions to childcare and domestic work have increased as a result. However the change in fathers' contributions has not kept pace with the change in women's economic activity, suggesting there are social, political, economic and cultural barriers in place. Two sweeps of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) are used to explore some of the conditions under which fathers become more actively involved in childcare and housework when cohort children are aged nine months and three years old. This question is examined cross-sectionally and longitudinally within the context of a two parent, heterosexual household in Britain. Three data classification techniques are used to derive two latent measures that represent two dimensions of paternal involvement (engagement and responsibility). Multiple regression is used to model involvement at aged nine months; logistic regression is used to model what type of caregiver a father is when the child is aged three. The main findings are: · Patterns of maternal and paternal employment have the strongest association with paternal involvement at both time points. When children are aged nine months, the hours that a mother works appear to have a stronger association with paternal involvement than fathers' own work hours (although this is still important). The likelihood of a father being involved with his three year old also increases dramatically the longer the hours the mother spends in paid work. Fathers' own work hours have a slightly stronger association with whether they take on a primary caregiving role at age three. · There are considerable variations in involvement when the child is aged nine months by ethnicity as involvement is lower for fathers with an Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi background. Responsibility for housework, however, is slightly higher for black/black British fathers. · Various demographics also have a small association with involved fathering atage three. For example, fathers are more likely to be involved when their child is a boy, when there are no other children in the household and when they took leave following their child's birth. The thesis exposes some of the employment and demographic conditions associated with greater paternal involvement with young children. In doing so it also brings to light some of the barriers to greater gender equity in the division of domestic labour (childcare and housework). The findings emphasise the importance of employment hours with long work hours hindering involvement and mothers' participation in the labour market encouraging it. The thesis provides a foundation from which to develop further analyses so that a better understanding of the variations in paternal involvement can be achieved.

Childcare is critical community infrastructure, yet it is typically not eligible for recovery assistance postdisaster. The effect of disaster on children has been extensively studied and research indicates that the return to normalcy (e.g., through restoration of childcare programs) helps aid recovery. Despite this, little research has been conducted on how childcare programs recover. The purpose of this research was to investigate how the recovery times for childcare programs affected by Superstorm Sandy varied based on childcare typology and the recovery funding resources used. A quasi-experimental research design was selected and data from 76 surveys was evaluated using one-way and factorial analysis of variance. The research questions were designed to evaluate the impact of recovery funding types used, childcare type, number of recovery funding resources used, and the interaction of childcare type and recovery funding types used on recovery time. Resource dependence theory was chosen as the theoretical framework because of its precept that only effective organizations survive through application of behaviors such as diversification of resources. The results revealed that there was a statistically significant relationship between the number of recovery resources used and recovery time (p = .04). Social change starts with information. This study supported social change by providing a baseline for childcare recovery research and emphasizing the importance of childcare to both community recovery and the recovery of children in disaster recovery policy.

High quality infant and toddler (IT) child care has repeatedly been linked to better outcomes for children. However, in the U.S., IT child care has also been plagued by poor quality. Using a mixed-methods design, the purpose of this study was to provide an indepth explanation of quality change in IT classrooms and the myriad of factors that contribute to higher quality. Framed in an ecological model that views quality as the product and interaction of process, structural, and caregiver characteristics, this study addressed the impact of a variety of variables on quality change. The sample was comprised of 86 classrooms nested within 48 centers that participated in Baby Steps, a quality improvement project administered by the Utah Office of Child Care. Quantitative data included ITERS-R scores, wages, turnover, capacity, geographic location, and parent fees collected between 2003 and 2010 as part of the Baby Steps Project. Seven center directors completed semi-structured interviews that provided an insider perspective on their perceptions of the barriers and contributors to improved quality. A mixed model analysis was used to examine quality change over time. Results indicate that classroom quality scores (as measured by the ITERS-R) did increase by the second year of participation in Baby Steps; however, subsequent years of participation did not lead to significantly higher scores. Specialized training also appears to contribute to higher quality but high turnover was associated with lower quality programs. Non-urban programs appeared to be especially receptive to the intervention. Center directors echoed these findings and spoke to the

Thesis advisor: Claudia Olivetti / Thesis advisor: Arthur Lewbel / The goal of this dissertation is to understand the absence of women from executive and high-earning positions, with a special focus on the corporate environment. In the first chapter, I analyze the role of news media towards explaining why women in top executive roles in the United States face more unstable appointments relative to their male counterparts. To improve female representation at the top of the firm, several European countries mandated gender quotas on corporate boards. In the second chapter, I analyze a board gender quota mandated on Italian listed companies and its effects on the composition of the board and firm performance. Family responsibilities are among the most important factors that prevent women from reaching high-earning positions. In the third chapter, I broaden the scope of my investigation to high-skill women in the United States, and provide explanations for the very large increase in childcare hours spent on young children by high-skill mothers of the recent generations. The first chapter, “Media Focus, Executive Turnover, and Female Leadership”, analyzes how the tendency of news media to focus on negative events affects executive turnover in publicly listed firms in the U.S., and to what extent negative media focus explains the relatively higher incidence of turnover for women in top executive roles. Negative media focus implies that news reporting decisions can produce downward-biased public beliefs on firm performance. From the standpoint of a rational board, pessimistic public beliefs on firm performance may affect the expected benefit of retaining a CEO, and in turn, turnover decisions. Linking CEO positions to firm-level news, I provide evidence that the negative focus is higher when a company is led by a woman or an outsider CEO. Counterfactual simulations from a model of executive turnover with event-dependent media focus show that the higher negative focus explains around 15% of the differential turnover rate in female-led firms, even when women are as effective at managing the firm as their male counterparts. In the second chapter, “Do Board Gender Quotas Matter? Selection, Performance, and Stock Market Effects”, co-authored with Giulia Ferrari, Paola Profeta, and Chiara Pronzato, I analyze the effects of a gender quota mandated on corporate boards of Italian listed companies in 2013. Exploiting staggered board elections, we find that quotas are associated with a new selection of board members – characterized by higher education and lower age – and no significant costs, neither on firm performance nor on the stock market. In the third chapter, “Revisiting the Childcare Gap Between High- and Low-Skill mothers”, I show that information diffusion on the importance of early child development has been growing fast starting from the mid-1990s. At the same time, childcare hours have increased, especially for mothers of very young children and the high-educated. I argue that information diffusion on the importance of early investments coupled with increasing income inequality plays an important role towards rationalizing some of the trends in childcare time and the widening of the education gradient in childcare hours at different ages of the child’s lifecycle. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Children' s relationships with their childcare teachers and its effects on their subsequent behaviors, attachments, and outcomes have been an interest in the last two or three decades primarily due to the significant increase of young children in full-time childcare. Attachment Theory, and its identifying behaviors in children categorized by the Strange Situation or the Attachment Q-Sort, has been the main focus of previous research. The purpose of my study, using an ethnographic approach, was to understand and describe the varied and multiple relationships between children (approximate ages 12 to 24 months) and their childcare teacher in their day-to-day interactions. Observations were my primary source of data, supported by videotaped sessions, and parent and teacher interviews. My focus was on secondary caregiver-child dyads, their relationships, and the parameters and identifying behaviors characterizing each pair. Data collection took place over an eight-week period in one toddler center classroom where I was a passive participant observer. Results indicated the children had warm, nurturing relationships, often with multiple caregivers, without the prevailing attachment behaviors. My research did not support the customary categorization of childcare relationships using the attachment paradigm, nor an increase in the insecure-avoidant category among children in full-time childcare. Evidence suggested, instead, a broader base of relationship descriptions, and a future development of a multiple caregiver model analogous to the extended family for understanding the varied relationships within a childcare center setting. / Ph. D.

Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) has been well established as a danger to children. Exposure to secondhand smoke can cause coughing and wheezing, bronchitis, pneumonia, ear infections, asthma, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Childhood exposure to ETS may also increase the risk of developing leukemia and lymphoma in childhood (Mitchell, 1997) as well as developing lung cancer as an adult (Glantz, 1992). Despite the great strides recently made in the implementation of regulatory measures to safeguard children from ETS in public places like schools, there remains significant concern regarding children's exposure at home and in their out-of-home care facilities (Ashley and Ferrence, 1998, Jarvis, 2000). In 1996, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that there were 336,749 Virginia youth exposed to ETS in the home (State Tobacco Control Highlights, 1999). The purpose of this study was to ascertain the number of family day home providers who allow smoking in their home and/or those that have some type of smoking policy. The sample consisted of 746 licensed, registered or locally approved family day home providers through the Department of Social Services. Of these childcare providers, 81.5% (n=608) completed a questionnaire about their tobacco use policy and its effects. An overwhelming majority (94.7%) of providers reported having a tobacco use policy in their family day home. Most of the providers, 67.6% indicated that smoking was allowed outdoors only while 26.3% noted that smoking was not allowed anywhere at any time, indoor or outdoor. Other policy specifics and background information are discussed in the study. The implications of these findings and recommendations for future training and educational programs for family day home providers are also reviewed. / Master of Science

This thesis studies the dynamics of parents’ time with children. It uses self-reported time diary data to empirically document discrepancies between high- and low-educated parents’ time spent in various childcare activities. By doing so, the study considers one important but under-researched form of childhood inequality, namely inequality in parental time investment. The thesis is among the first to provide an extensive and detailed empirical documentation of variations in parents’ time use with children and to examine the effect of macro-structure and policy context on parenting behaviour. Using the American Time Use Survey (2003-2008), the thesis first investigates variations in parents’ time spent in different types of childcare among white parents in the US. Then, the American Heritage Time Use Survey (1965-2010) is employed to examine whether differences between high-and low-educated parents’ time spent with children have been growing or diminishing over time. Finally, the Multinational Time Use Survey (1965-2008) is used to explore the relationship between specific policies, macro-economic structure and childcare across time and across countries. The results can be summarized as follows. High-educated parents provide more primary childcare for their children compared to low-educated parents. The difference is particularly acute during the early years of childhood, and the gap is particularly wide for childcare activities which are fundamentally important for the social and cognitive development of children. This parental investment gap, most notably between high-and low-educated mothers, has been widening in the US. The main source of this widening phenomenon is the steady increase in high-educated mothers’ time spent in interactive and developmental childcare activities, rather than in routine and physical childcare activities. The analysis of cross-national data shows that the strong positive effect of education on childcare is a cross-national occurrence. However, the strength of this association varies considerably across time and across countries: universal paid leave for mothers and a gender egalitarian labour market structure help alleviate the education and gender gap in childcare. Mothers provide more primary childcare as the number of available paid leave weeks increases, while fathers increase their contribution to primary childcare as the percentage of women in the labour market increases. The provision of paid leave for mothers decreases the effect of education on primary childcare, and specific family policies as well as gender egalitarian socio-economic contexts can help alleviate inequalities in parental time investment in children.

According to statistical date, 16 thousand children of Lithuania live in childcare homes, Every year nearly 3 thousand children are taken from their original families for various reasons and half of them settled in childcare institutions of different types. In these institutions they brought up by educators. Due to recent developments in the content of educational process in childcare, trying to implement family – based model of care as far as possible in order to consider children‘s rights and increase quality of care, functions of educators are also changing. There are not enough researches in scientific literature, devoted to this topic. Actuality of this problem induced this research, aimed at investigation of the pedagogical model of the functions of educators in childcare institutions in Lithuania. Objectives defined: - Create a theorethical model of pedagogical functions of educators, based on scientific literature. - Analyse the results of estimation of different pedagogical functions, done by educators themselves. - Assess the importace of different pedagogical functions in educational process, based on this analysis. - Disclose strengths and weaknesses in the educational work in childcare institutions. Main methodological approach in our research – holistic and humanistic approach towards the child. A quantitative empirical study was implemented through these stages: - Creating a theoretical model of educational functions, based on analysis of scientific... [to full text]