abstract: Purpose: This study examines the role of social support on adjustment to widowhood. Past research has indicated that the role of social support on adjustment to widowhood remains inconclusive, and needs further examination. This study examines the varying coping trajectories of middle-aged and retired bereaved spouses. Additionally, this study examines how bereavement stage may also influence one's adaptation to widowhood. Methods: This study used in-depth and semi-structured interviews as a means of understanding the role of social support on adjustment to widowhood. Participants were recruited through two hospice services available in a major metropolitan area in the United States. Convenient and purposive samplings are used in this study; this study will execute a grounded theory approach in order to determine the inconclusive role of social support on adjustment to widowhood. This study is contrasting between two stages- life course stages (middle aged versus retirement aged people) and bereavement stages (a year or less time following the death of a spouse versus three or more years following the death of a spouse). As a means of reducing bias and subjectivity, all data collected during the interview will be transcribed immediately. Results: Middle-aged bereaved spouses reported higher levels of motivation for adjusting positively and quickly towards widowhood due to their concern for protecting the well-being of their surviving young children compared to retired bereaved spouses. Differences between middle-aged widows and widowers have been found in this study; middle-aged widowers have a higher linkage to negative health behaviors. Retired bereaved spouses may fare better depending upon their housing location. Living in a retirement center may lower negative effects of bereavement on retired spouses' health. Conclusions: Types of social support received and expected varied between middle-aged widows and widowers. Gender norms may influence the type of social support widows and widowers receive. Middle-aged widowers are less likely to receive emotional support which may explain their higher linkage to negative health behaviors. Bereavement stage and housing location may be the key factors that influence widowhood trajectories of retired bereaved spouses. Living in a retirement center may lower the negative effects of bereavement on overall health. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Sociology 2013

My study investigated the effects of abusive supervision on work and family outcomes including supervisor-directed and organization-directed deviance and spousal undermining. Using a moderated-mediation model, the relationship of abusive supervision on outcome variables was proposed to be mediated by moral courage and moderated by leader-member exchange (a-path) and work and family role quality (b-path). Two separate studies were conducted using a sample (N=200) recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and through relatives of students at a large US public southeastern university (N=150 dyads). Results confirm the effects of abusive supervision on work and family outcomes while analyses of contextual and conditional factors are mixed. Confirmatory factor analyses, factor loadings, and model fit statistics are provided and implications for research and practice are discussed.

In recent years, many married women have not only entered the working world, but are also rapidly climbing the career ladder. This has given rise to an increasing number of dual-career couples who have to constantly navigate between work and family life. Being in this position, coupled with Indians – generally regarded as one of the more traditional cultural groups in South Africa, with an emphasis on male dominance – provides a unique and interesting context for the study. In this study, the perceptions of Indian dual-career couples towards the wives’ career advancement are explored. The study places a specific focus on the role of the husband in the dual-career arrangement by determining the impact that the spouse has on the balancing of work and family life and, ultimately, the impact he has on the wife’s career progression. I embarked on this study from an interpretivist stance in terms of which a qualitative research strategy, using in-depth, semi-structured life-story interviews, was employed in order to gain a greater understanding of the various factors that mould the perceptions that couples currently hold with regard to the career advancement of women. Purposive as well as snowball sampling strategies were used to identify nine dual-career Indian couples, who constituted the sample for this study. A comprehensive analysis was conducted that involved thematic analysis. This process was aided by using the qualitative analysis software Atlas.ti. The results of this study reveal that, although there is a shift towards greater acceptance of career women, the spouses have not reached a level of parity as Indian women are not completely emancipated from their duties in the home domain. In addition, masculinity and the male ego were running threads throughout this study, tying in with various aspects of the study. My thesis contributes to the growing research on dual-career couples by focusing on an under-researched, but crucial aspect of the dual-career arrangement, and therefore opens avenues for further research. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Human Resource Management / Unrestricted

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This study addresses whether or not male and female intimate partner homicide offenders differ in a variety of characteristics using data from the Chicago Women's Health Risk Study, 1995-1998. Frequencies of male and female intimate partner homicide offender's risk factors were compared to look at how they differ. The areas that were explored were demographics, prior abuse, and the criminal justices response. A number of gender differences were found. Directions for future research pertaining to intimate partner homicide offenders are discussed.

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This dissertation represented an initial effort to model spousal family purchase decision behavior in terms of spousal coercion propensity. Two major issues concerning how spouses resolve conflicts were investigated: (1) What are the spousal behavioral interactions in household conflict resolution processes? (2) What are the temporal aspects of spousal family decision behaviors? It was hypothesized that spouses tend to not reciprocate their partners' uses of coercive influence strategies in a decision, given their avoidance of conflict. Also, spouses who used more power in the past tend to use less power in order to maintain equity in the long-term marital relationship. It was also hypothesized that spousal coercion propensity are contingent upon marital power, love, and preference intensity. Marital power and preference intensity are positively related to spousal coercion propensity while love predicts weaker coercive decision behavior. Consistently, it was proposed that coercive influence strategies are more effective in the short run, given the spouses' conflict avoidance and sense of equity in marriage. Thus, spouses who used coercive strategies are more satisfied with the decision outcome but less satisfied with the decision process. A dynamic simultaneous equations model (DSE) was developed to test the major hypotheses of this dissertation. The model was calibrated by means of an Autoregressive Two-Stage Least Square (A2SLS) approach. MANOVAs and a set of binary logistic regressions and linear multiple regressions were used to test the other hypotheses. The empirical study involving a random sample provided adequate support for the model. The implications of the findings, theoretical and managerial alike, limitations of the study, and future research directions were discussed. / Ph. D.

Caregiving research on heterosexual couples suggests that though husbands and wives generally perform the same care tasks for their spouses, wives report higher levels of mental stress, depression, and general frustration (Swinkles et al., 2017; Polenick and DePasquale 2019). Caregiving literature is unclear on why a gender difference exists regarding stress or burden when husbands and wives are largely performing the same tasks. Using gender relations theory, this study considers whether the performance of intimate tasks creates different levels of emotional stress and overall health outcomes for older, heterosexual husbands and wives caring for a spouse with Alzheimer's or related dementias. Intimate tasks (ITs) refer to tasks that likely infringe on the bodily autonomy of the care receiver and include dealing with incontinence and assisting with bathing/showering. To explore this, I conducted logistic regressions using the 2015 and 2020 "Caregiving in the U.S.'' surveys from the AARP. My results showed IT performance has a negative effect on the stress and overall health of both husbands and wives, but comparatively, there is no consistent gender difference in effect. Additional analysis found that when separating the Its, dealing with incontinence had a more negative effect on emotional stress while assisting with bathing/showering had a more negative effect on health outcomes. / Master of Science / Older spousal caregivers are responsible for completing many different tasks to properly care for their spouse. Husbands and wives typically approach completing these tasks in different ways. Husbands tend to focus strictly on completing the care tasks, while wives tend to additionally factor in their husband's emotions. Care tasks can include things such as managing medications, taking over household chores, or more intimate tasks like dealing with urinary and bowel movements or assisting with bathing. This study considers whether there is a gender difference in the effect of intimate task performance between older caregivers that care for a spouse with Alzheimer's disease or dementia. My findings show that completing these intimate tasks negatively affects husbands' and wives' emotional stress levels and overall health. When separating the two intimate tasks, dealing with urinary and bowel movements was more likely to affect levels of emotional stress. Alternatively, assisting with bathing or showering was more likely to affect overall health.