Working Mothers and Stress, 1980

Transcription

1 H A R V A R D U N I V E R S I T Y R A D C L I F F E I N S T I T U T E F O R A D V A N C E D S T U D Y M U R R A Y R E S E A R C H C E N T E R Working Mothers and Stress, 1980 Michelson, William (MRC Log #0638) Measures Henry A. Murray Research Center 10 Garden Street Cambridge, MA Phone Fax

2 Data Set: Working Mothers and Stress, 1980 (Log# 638) Researcher: William Michelson Date of Acquisition: June 1984 Summary: This research was designed to assess, from the level of the individual family, the daily conditions and experiences of employed and single mothers. The data were also collected to assess the implications of these findings for children and for policies and practices relating to employment, families, and women. The sample consists of 545 families in metropolitan Toronto, stratified to include adequate numbers of single mothers, age representation of children, and use of various child-care arrangements. The main instrument of the survey was a time budget completed by each member of the family above age 10. (Mothers completed surveys for all children under 10.) The time budget required respondents to list in detail what they did on the day in question, activity by activity. Each entry includes mention of the time, nature of the activity, location, other people present, simultaneous activities also performed, and a subjective evaluation consisting of seven-point scales describing the degree of voluntariness and stress entailed by the activity. The participants also completed a mental health and happiness scale. The interviewer observed interactions in the family while the budgets were being completed. After the completion of the time budgets, the mother was administered a structured interview covering factual information about child care arrangements and employment, and subjective questions covering time pressures, dilemmas of working mothers, sources of pressures, suggested solutions, and family responsibilities. Computer-accessible data are available. Sample: The sample was drawn in several stages utilizing geographic clusters, stratification on important variables, and random selection of families for contact. This sampling process was intended to select, without interpersonal bias on the part of interviewers, families for study who are representative of families in metropolitan Toronto but yet who represent sufficient numbers having various characteristics and experiences as to enable suitable analyses of subgroups. First, a random sample of 40 census tracts in metropolitan Toronto was selected and found to be representative to all families in metropolitan Toronto on major socioeconomic and demographic variables, such as income, ethnicity, and percentage of single parent families. Results were similar using 20 of these tracts (5%of the total population). Inasmuch as it was more economical to concentrate on fewer clusters, the 5 percent sample was retained. The next step involved random sampling of addresses for contact within each of the 20 tracts selected. Insofar as there was no access to a reliable source listing the names and addresses of families relevant for study, screening in the field was conducted as a basis for finding eligible families. As a prelude to the field screening, every household address within each of the tracts selected was listed from appropriate directories and then serially numbered. The order in which addresses would be visited for the purpose of screening for eligibility was selected through use of a random numbers table. Interviewers were then sent out to concentrate on individual neighborhoods and, in the preselected

3 638 order, to assess, first, if the family at any given address had any children up to and including the age of 14 years living there. The total number of interviews required within a given census tract was proportionate to the population of the tract. There were, nonetheless, other requirements placed on the interviewers in the sampling process. So as to get a sufficiently large and diverse subcategory of single-parent families, interviewers had to interview minimum numbers of single families within each tract, representing the percentage of single-parent families in the population (approximately 20 percent). Interviewers could exceed such a minimum if sufficient numbers of single-parent families appeared naturally in the preselected order of addresses visited. If, on the other hand, the requisite number within a tract did not appear normally within the flow of screening interviews, they were required to cease accepting two-parent families into the sample at the point when their acceptance would preclude the minimum number of single-parent families within the target sample for the tract. There would hence be "oversampling" to achieve sufficient numbers of diverse single-parent families for analysis. Such a procedure resulted in the inclusion of 103 families headed by single mothers, 19 percent of the sample analyzed. An additional six families were headed by single fathers; although these interviews were held and analyzed anecdotally, the number of families headed by single fathers was too small to analyze formally. However, the data are available. The interviewers were instructed to stratify selection for a range of children s ages and for types of child care utilized by families. Approximately equal numbers of families were chosen having at least one child within the ages of 0-3, 4-6, and This was for the purpose of assuring that the implications of outside employment and single parenthood for various ages of children could be explored. A family could potentially satisfy more than one category of children's age, and an equitable distribution of children by age was easily assured. Beyond that, small quotas were established within each tract to ensure that a sufficient number of families utilizing at least one of six different child care alternatives would be interviewed, so that a comparison among users of these services over the whole sample could be made. As a result, at least 20 children, usually more, were cared for by (a) a parent at home; (b) day-care centers; (c) home day-care; (d) siblings, grandparents, or other relatives; (e) before or after school programs; and/or (f) no one at all (i.e., so called latch-key children). No stratification was made for the employment situation of the mothers because this was expected to be well distributed throughout the population. Such an assumption was upheld in the resultant sample. Among two-parent families 247 of the wives were employed and 188 were not, while 68 of the single mothers had outside employment and 35 did not. Data Collection: The main instrument of the survey was divided into sections. The first section was applied to every member of the eligible household. The appointment was geared to a time in the day when the maximum number of persons could be present, ideally everybody. Every available member of the family 10 years of age or older completed, under the guidance of the interviewer but independent of one another, a time budget protocol for the previous weekday. All interviews were held on Tuesdays through Saturdays so that Mondays through Fridays were sampled in approximately equal numbers. The time budget asked each person to detail what they did, activity by activity, on the day in question. One starts from the time he or she arises, specifying the time, place, other person or persons present, and then proceeds to reconstruct the rest of the day. Each activity includes mention of the clock time for beginning and end, nature of the activity, the location, the other persons present, simultaneous activities also performed (e.g., listening to the radio), and a subjective evaluation 2

4 638 on 7-point scales to register the degree of voluntariness and stress entailed by the activity. Each person also completed a scale taken from the Canada Health Survey focusing on mental health self-characterizations and on happiness. The mother completed a somewhat more simplified time budget for each child under 10, in consultation where necessary with the child or children in question. While members of the family worked on their time budgets, the interviewer circulated to help ensure the quality and completeness of the work done and to answer questions. Somewhat more active applications of the time budgets by the interviewer was necessary in cases of respondents unable to read English. Once the time budgets were completed, the interviews continued with a more detailed survey of the female head of household, hopefully but not always separated from other members of the family. In these interviews, factual material of a less detailed nature profiling how each member of the family spent the previous weekend was gathered. Some of the non-time budget questions in the interview were objective and factual, covering family circumstances, socioeconomic characteristics, employment and travel patterns, child care and other supportive arrangements, and information about how the family deals with such situations as illness and vacations. Other information gathered was subjective, dealing with time pressures and their perceived sources, the degree of severity perceived, and other problems facing the mother. Some of these questions focused directly on some of the common dilemmas facing young mothers who do and do not choose outside employment, including evaluations of their general life satisfaction. Other questions gave respondents a chance to explain what they saw as the source of pressures and problems they have and to elaborate on solutions they themselves employ or that they would advise or urge others to implement. Other questions addressed certain aspects of behavior within the family: for example, who does what job and with what degree of responsibility and how family members alter their behaviors under pressure. Finally, the mothers were asked to make some evaluations of their children, according to several criteria. The time budgets were intended to cover the activities and subjective reactions to them of all the members of the family unit, while the succeeding questioning was intended to detail a wide variety of factual information about responsibilities within the family, with special emphasis on the implications for the mother and the children. The typical family and mother interview took close to three hours; a few lasted as many as five to seven hours. Respondent families were paid $10 each for their participation, as an acknowledgment of the time and effort involved. A much shorter follow-up was conducted during the months of July and August 1980, to ascertain differences in daily logistics and child care during a period in which school was not in session. This reflected the belief that for those with school-age children the year is divided into two parts, with different activities and concerns reflecting school time and vacation time. A substudy of approximately 75 respondent families selected randomly from the major survey provided time budget data which could be compared with that gained during the school term from the same persons. A small number of additional questions dealing with changes in children's and parent's activities from the school-to-holidays periods also was asked. Families were initially contacted during field screening. At the first contact the researcher determined the family's eligibility to participate. If the requirements were met, the researcher made an appointment to return at a time when the entire family could be present. The families were told that the purpose of the study 3

5 638 was to collect information that would help public or private agencies determine policy affecting the facilities and services that are available to families. The subjects were guaranteed anonymity and were given $10.00 (per family) for their participation. Consent forms were obtained. Questions/Scales Used by Others: Questions 2 and 3 are from the Canada Health Survey and questions 50 and 51 were obtained from Dr. Deborah Belle of Boston University. Researchers are welcome to use items from the instrument without the contributor's prior permission but with the customary acknowledgments. Funding: The project was sponsored by the Ministry of National Health and Welfare (Government of Canada), National Welfare Grants Programme. Additional financial support came from the U.S. Urban Mass Transit Administration, Department of Transportation #CA ; and the U.M.T.A. grant from the Institute for Transportation Studies, University of California at Irvine. Acknowledgment: The following acknowledgment of the use of these data must be included in any publication or presentation reporting analysis of the data: This research used the Working Mothers and Stress, 1980 data set [made accessible in 1984, computer data files]. These data were collected by William Michelson and are available through the archive of the Henry A. Murray Research Center of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (Producer and Distributor). Special Restrictions for Use: During the lifetime of the contributor, use of the data for secondary analysis must be by mutual agreement between the contributor (Michelson) and the researcher proposing to use the data. No follow-up of the sample is allowed. Publications: Michelson, W. From Sun to Sun: Daily Obligations and Community Structure in the Lives of Employed Women and Their Families, Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, Michelson, W. "The logistics of maternal employment: Implications for women and their families. Child in the City Report No. 18. Final report to the Ministry of National Health and Welfare on the Child care under Constraint project conducted under the auspices of the Child in the City Programme, University of Toronto. October, Michelson, W. "Spatial and temporal dimensions of child care. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 1980, 5 (3). 4

6 A Note About Image Quality Michelson, William, Working Mothers and Stress, 1980 (Log #0638) Some original pages of the Codebook and Measures are printed in light ink and do not scan well. If you would like a more readable copy of any of the pages, please contact the Murray Research Center, Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study ( ).

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