The purpose of this study is a descriptive one concerning some facets of the family setting with emphasis directed to several general questions. What is the basic family structure, i.e., what family characteristics (type of family or subfamily and the relationship to the head of the family or subfamily) characterize the aged? What is the level of family income of the aged? Finally, how do answers to these questions vary with respect to the three basic social traits of race, age, and sex?

Youth with type 1 diabetes (T1D) from single-parent families are more likely to be in poorer glycemic control (HbA1c). Demographic trends indicate more households are composed of unmarried adults and fewer youths. Family density, or a youth: adult ratio, may be a more salient factor than single-parent status in the association with glycemic control. Data from 257 adolescents aged 11-14 years (M = 12.84) at two different sites were collected as part of a randomized control trial of a treatment intervention designed to increase parent involvement and prevent deterioration of adolescent diabetes disease care. Single-parent status was determined by parental report of a sole caregiving adult in a youth’s household. A family density ratio was calculated via parental report of the number of youths to adults in a home. A youth: adult ratio greater than two was considered “high family density” (Liaw & Brooks-Gun, 1994). Diabetes-related risk and protective factors of parental monitoring, youth adherence to disease care behaviors, parental stress, and diabetes-related conflict were measured using parent and youth report questionnaires. Glycemic control was determined via a DCA2000 analyzer with results abstracted from medical chart review. Consistent with the literature, single-parent status was correlated with higher HbA1c (r = .19, p = .01) or poorer glycemic control. Similarly, higher family density also was related to higher HbA1c (r = .32, p < .001). An overall multiple regression model including family structure constructs (single-parent status and density), socioeconomic status, and ethnicity accounted for 18% of the variance in glycemic control. However, family density, β = .22, and SES, β = -.29, were the only significant correlates of glycemic control in the model when considered simultaneously with single-parent status and ethnicity. Although single-parent families have youths in poorer metabolic control, higher family density appears to be a more potent correlate of youth glycemic control perhaps because it might be a more sensitive indicator of available parental time and resources. Family density is significantly related to poorer adherence and greater diabetes-related conflict. Further, poorer adherence and more diabetes-related conflict partially explained the relation between high family density and poorer glycemic control. Family density appears to be an important family structure factor for adolescents with T1D and the identification of risk factors for poorer glycemic control has both clinical and research implications.

Gender ideologies, which are constantly changing, are important for many outcomes in life, but the majority of gender ideology research focuses mainly on adults. Past research studying adult gender ideologies finds that adults' current relationship status affects their ideologies. For instance, divorced adults hold egalitarian ideologies more than stable married adults do (Davis, Greenstein and Marks 2007). Researchers attribute this finding to the types of gender behaviors adults perform with their partner or alone. What about youth? Understanding how these ideologies develop earlier in life is important, yet research rarely focuses on youth gender ideologies or their development. My research looks at the effects of family structure on youth gender ideology in Germany (Germany National Educational Panel Study (NEPS); Cohort One N=4,181; Cohort Two N=9,913). I argue it is through doing gender that family structures operate to influence the development of youth gender ideology, since parents' doing gender behaviors performed with their children vary by family structure. My findings suggest family structure does not matter for doing gender behaviors that parents perform with their children, thereby affecting their gender ideologies. As a result, it is more about other ways adults do gender outside of the home or about the youth themselves. I also find significant effects for females, suggesting females may invest more in the outcomes egalitarian gender ideologies produce. Future research should look at shifts in family structure and duration in various family structures in order to understand family structure's impact on gender ideology for youth.

The significance of this research study is to identify if an adolescences family structure impacts their developmental behaviors. The research design for this study was a quantitative design. The data analysis includes the independent variable (IV) and dependent variable (DV). For this study the IV was family structure and the DV in this study was delinquent behaviors. The findings suggest that during the pre-assessment tool researchers found there was no significance between family structure and delinquent behaviors. However, during the post assessment researchers found that there was significance between family structure and delinquent behavior. Although this study did not find significance during the pre-assessment, there were significant findings in the post-assessment that demonstrated that social workers should continue to consider family dynamics when assessing adolescents’ developmental behaviors.

Every year, about 1 million children are abused in the United States and an average of 4.5 of those children die daily at the hands of caretakers, parents, relatives, or friends. Using the ecological model as a guide, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between family structure and specific types of child maltreatment utilizing cases from an agency in Montgomery, Alabama, in 2012-2013. Approximately 727 cases of child maltreatment were reviewed. Logistic regression results indicate married and common law families' children are 1.83 times more likely to experience sexual abuse than the reference category (single) (OR= 1.834, 95% CI:1.19, 2.81). As it relates to relationship to the offender, children are 2.1 times more likely to experience sexual abuse from an acquaintance; someone who is known by the child but is a non-family member, compared to the reference level (stranger) (OR= 2.1, 95% CI:1.20, 3.65). This research can promote positive social change by providing awareness to the local community about child maltreatment; the findings provide policymakers, public health departments, healthcare officials, health advocates, and communities needed information on the child maltreatment and the specific family structures that are associated.

According to Chinese traditions, patrilocal residence is believed to be linked with early and high marital fertility. However, despite the rapid fertility decline and the enormous social and economic changes that have occurred in recent years in China, research still shows that family structure in China is relatively stable compared to western countries. This dissertation investigates the effects of family structure on fertility in contemporary China. This dissertation had two main objectives: first, to examine the effects of family structure on the marital fertility of married women; and second, to better understand the effects of family structure on the premarital fertility by examining the effects of family structure on premarital sex of never-married women. This dissertation utilizes data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey and the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey. Logistic regression model and Cox proportional hazards model are used to to estimate the the effects of family structure on marital fertility and premarital sex. The major finding in this dissertation shows that patrilocal residence has been well preserved in contemporary china. After controlling for relevant factors, co-residence or quasi-coresidence with parents-in-law significantly accelerates the transition from marriage to first birth, and promotes a desire for more children. However, second births are significantly impacted by factors associated with socioeconomic status and family planning policy other than family structure. This dissertation also confirmed the effects of family structure on premarital sex in terms of behavior, but not in terms of attitudes. After controlling for relevant factors, co-residence with parents significantly decreased the odds of engaging in premarital sex.

The Relationships between Gender, Birth Order, Family Structure, Emotion, Creative Personalities and Technological Creativity of Fifth Graders Pei-jen Chang Abstract The main purposes of this study were (a) to investigate the differences of fifth graders¡¦ performances on technological creativity in different induced moods; and (b) to explore the relationships between gender, birth order, family structure, emotional straits, creative personalities and the fifth graders¡¦ performances on technological creativity. An unequal group pretest-posttest design was employed in this study. The participants consisted of 3 classes of fifth graders, randomly distributed into 3 groups: the experimental group A (n = 42) which received positive mood induction, the experimental group B (n = 33) which received negative mood induction, and the controlled group (n = 38) which didn¡¦t received any treatment. The employed instruments were The Questionnaire of Emotional Traits, The Questionnaire of Emotional States, The Inventory of Personal Traits to The Development of Technological Creativity, and The Test of Technological Creativity. The applied analysis methods were Descriptives, Multiple Analysis of Variance, Multivariate Analysis of Covariance, and Canonical Correlation. The findings and conclusions of this study were as follows: 1.Induced positive moods were a better facilitator for the fifth graders¡¦ performance on technological creativity than induced negative moods as well as neutral moods. 2.Positive emotional traits were able to promote the fifth graders¡¦ performance on the invention of creative products. 3.Gender differences in the fifth graders¡¦ technological creative performance were evident. While the boys¡¦ abilities to combine technological concepts were better than the girls¡¦, but their abilities to invent creative products were worse than the girls¡¦. 4.Birth order and family structure had no significant effects on the fifth graders¡¦ technological creative performance. 5.Personal traits had significant effects on the fifth graders¡¦ performance on the invention of creative products. Among all personal traits, ¡§knowledge¡¨ had the most significant effect on the fifth graders¡¦ technological creative performance. 6.Gender, birth order, family structure, mood, emotional traits, and creative personalities had significant correlations, and gender had the highest correlation with technological creativity of the fifth graders. Finally, some suggestions were proposed for teachers, relative educational institutions, parents and further study.

This study investigates the influence of family structure during adolescent on college entry and success using the more recently available Postsecondary Education Transcript Study (PETS) data of the High School and Beyond (HS&B) sophomore cohort to predict college entry, baccalaureate degree completion, and persistence in the science, math, technology, and engineering pipeline at the collegiate level. I propose that family structure not only influences adolescents' preparation for higher education, but also their ability to commit to and persevere within higher education. While traditional studies of student achievement and persistence have focused on socioeconomic status or academic ability, I explore family dynamics in attempting to explain the disadvantage adolescents from non-intact families experience within higher education. While controlling for family income and parents education, this study specifically explores parental involvement, parent's educational aspirations, and family disruption as potential mechanisms that might account for the disadvantage adolescents from non-intact families experience in terms of higher education. The findings in this study indicate that single parent families and stepparent families should be analyzed as distinct groups for greater accuracy and understanding. Moreover, parental involvement, turbulence, and parental expectations as measured in high school influence the life course of young adults in their postsecondary pursuits. The present study contributes significantly to our understanding of families, family processes and higher education conceptually, and its findings have implications for education policy. / text

In this thesis, I examine the relationships between changes in the structure of Australian families, trends in gender attitudes and trends in the housework hours of men and women in couple families. I examine how changing patterns of family formation and labour force participation are affecting patterns of time allocated to housework. Women’s responsibility for housework affects their ability to compete on equal terms with men in the labour market. Using data collected by three national surveys conducted in 1986, 1993 and 2005 I examine whether there is any evidence of convergence in the type of housework that men and women do (task convergence) and in the amount of time men and women spend doing housework (time convergence). I am primarily interested in whether Australian men are spending more time doing core housework tasks, namely cooking, cleaning and laundry. Tracking change over time in the US and the UK, researchers have found that there has been an increase in the amount of time men spent doing core housework tasks, however, there has been no evidence of a similar trend here in Australia. I review the key theoretical perspectives underpinning research into the gender division of labour: time availability, exchange of economic resources, gender and socialisation, before employing measures of the first three of these perspectives to examine change over time in the housework hours of men and women. The data analysed for this study do not include adequate measures of socialisation, therefore, I do not examine the association between socialisation and housework hours. Although previous researchers have examined the division of domestic labour within couple families, I focus on within gender comparisons examining the housework hours of men and women in various family types. By examining the absolute housework hours rather than the relative housework hours of men and women, I can determine whether men and women are spending a similar proportion of their housework hours doing particular tasks and whether the amount of time men and women spend doing particular tasks has become more similar. The division of housework into female tasks and male tasks is a major barrier to a more equal division of labour. Tasks traditionally regarded as female tasks- meal preparation, doing the dishes, cleaning the house, doing the laundry and shopping for groceries- account for the bulk of household labour and need to be completed on a regular, sometimes daily, basis. On the other hand, tasks traditionally regarded as male tasks- taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn, gardening and home repairs and maintenance- are more discretionary and can be completed on a more flexible schedule. Unless the division of tasks into male tasks and female tasks becomes less rigid, women will continue to spend more time doing housework than men. Overall, I find evidence of convergence in both housework tasks and housework hours. In 2005, men spent a larger proportion and women spent a smaller proportion of their housework time doing the core housework tasks compared to their counterparts in 1986. There is also evidence that the amount of time men spent doing housework increased and the amount of time women spent doing housework decreased. Men spent more time doing both female and male housework tasks and women spent less time doing female housework tasks and more time doing male housework tasks. These findings suggest that housework tasks have become more gender neutral. I also find evidence of a general trend towards a more equal division of labour with men in couple families increasing their housework hours by one and a half hours per week regardless of the employment status of their female partners and women in couple families spending less time doing housework regardless of their own employment status.

This dissertation consists of three chapters that study issues related to workers and families, and the intersection of these two topics. The first chapter examines domestic outsourcing of labor services in Germany. This chapter uses a novel method to identify outsourcing in administrative data, and finds that outsourcing leads to a 10-15% drop in wages that is persistent, lasting at least 10 years. There is evidence that these wage losses are associated with the loss of firm-specific rents, suggesting that labor costs savings are an important consideration in outsourcing. Finally, the increase in outsourcing activity is tied to broader changes in the German wage structure, particularly increases in wage dispersion and occupational sorting. The second chapter analyzes the relationship between state abortion restrictions and the living circumstances of children living in these states. It uses data on 15 years of abortion laws in the US connected to individual level data on children and their family structure from the Census and American Community Survey, and finds evidence that low-income children who are born in states with more restrictive abortion laws are more likely to live with a single mother than similar children born in more permissive states. To address the endogeneity of these laws, data on nullified laws is incorporated; nullified laws have no impact, indicating that it is likely the hurdles faced by women seeking abortions in stricter states that impacts family structure. The third chapter develops a new method to identify married couples in administrative worker data that do not include a household identifier. Couples are identified using information on their geo-coded location, name, gender and age; using German social security records, about 3.3 million couples are identified. Consistency checks are provided using a subsample of the data for which marriage information is available, as well as a comparison to a known sample of married couples from the German Microcensus. These identified couples are then used to analyze patterns of relative income within households, where strikingly different patterns are found for couples who work in the same establishment and those who do not.