(Press-News.org) National work-family policies that give lower-income families more time together while allowing them paid time off are more effective for children's psychological health than cash transfers, according to a study of developed nations led by Baylor University.
In a study of about 200,000 children in 20 developed nations, the United States ranked lowest in overall policies aimed at helping parents support children.
The study, published in the journal Social Forces, supports the view of critics who say that the United States government does not do enough to mandate flexible hours and paid leave.
"Perhaps not surprisingly, the United States also shows some of the largest gaps in overall health between rich and poor children," said lead author Matthew A. Andersson, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology at Baylor University. "Our study argues that these two phenomena are connected across nations. And as national work-family policy improves, inequalities in children's health lessen between advantaged and disadvantaged families."
A significant gap exists between the well-being of children from richer and poorer families, and the research found that children's self-rated health improves as federally mandated work flexibility and paid leave become more generous.
Cash transfers such as policies subsidizing child care and providing income support are important in fighting hunger and homelessness in individual families, Andersson noted.
"But cash transfers only give money," he said. "Paid parental leave and work flexibility gives parents time plus money -- and that seems to be the key combination to combating inequalities in children's health across developed nations."
But parents at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum often work jobs which do not entitle them to schedule flexibility or time off to spend with their children, and they may not be able to negotiate those benefits with employers.
"Sadly, it's often not even a matter of negotiation," Andersson said. "Employers do not offer benefits -- or if they do, these benefits are quite limited. Not surprisingly, advantaged families tend to be attached to higher-quality jobs where benefits are available regardless of federal mandate."
Researchers analyzed data about work-family policies, cash transfer mandates and self-reported child well-being in countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an intergovernmental organization.
The data included how generous each country was with paid vacation and sick leave, vacation, work flexibility, maternity leave and child care, including cash transfers made to families with children.
Researchers also examined data from health surveys of school-aged children ages 11, 13 and 15 to determine whether there were links to psychological health complaints, life satisfaction levels and health. The information was gathered in the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children, a World Health Organization cross-national survey.
Children were asked whether they had their own bedroom, whether their family owned a vehicle, whether they owned a computer or computers and how many times, if any, they had traveled with their family on a holiday in the past year.
Children also answered questions about how often they had felt "low" or experienced "irritability or bad temper" within the past six months, how satisfied they were with their lives and how they rated their health.
"Traditionally, the U.S. has placed burdens for establishing work-family accommodation on employers and individual businesses," Andersson said. "If the U.S. could switch course by mandating work-family benefits regardless of employer, findings suggest that children in this country would show some of the largest health gains across all OECD countries."
He noted that the research also is significant for children's futures, as those starting off in disadvantaged circumstances are at a high risk of having socioeconomic setbacks over many years.
INFORMATION:
Co-authors of the study -- "Work-Family Reconciliation and Children's Well-Being Disparities across OECD Countries -- were Michael A. Garcia, doctoral student of sociology, and Jennifer Glass, Ph.D., professor of sociology, both at the University of Texas at Austin.
Repeatedly getting angry, hitting, shaking or yelling at children is linked with smaller brain structures in adolescence, according to a new study published in Development and Psychology. It was conducted by Sabrina Suffren, PhD, at Université de Montréal and the CHU Sainte?Justine Research Centre in partnership with researchers from Stanford University.
The harsh parenting practices covered by the study are common and even considered socially acceptable by most people in Canada and around the world.
"The implications go beyond changes in the brain. I think what's ...
Cancers are not only made of tumor cells. In fact, as they grow, they develop an entire cellular ecosystem within and around them. This "tumor microenvironment" is made up of multiple cell types, including cells of the immune system, like T lymphocytes and neutrophils.
The tumor microenvironment has predictably drawn a lot of interest from cancer researchers, who are constantly searching for potential therapeutic targets. When it comes to the immune cells, most research focuses on T lymphocytes, which have become primary targets of cancer immunotherapy ...
Wikipedia page views could be used to monitor global awareness of biodiversity, proposes a research team from UCL, ZSL, and the RSPB.
Using their new metric, the research team found that awareness of biodiversity is marginally increasing, but the rate of change varies greatly between different groups of animals, as they report in a paper included in an upcoming special section of Conversation Biology.
Lead author, PhD student Joe Millard (UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research, UCL Biosciences and Institute of Zoology, ZSL) said: "As extinctions and biodiversity losses ramp up worldwide, largely due to climate change and other human actions, it's vital that ...
A study by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund shows that gorilla families come together to support young gorillas that lose their mothers.
The findings, published in the journal eLife, use the Fossey Fund's more than 50-year dataset to discover how maternal loss influences young gorillas' social relationships, survival and future reproduction. The study shows when young mountain gorillas lose their mothers, the rest of the group helps buffer the loss by strengthening their relationships with the orphans.
"Mothers are incredibly important for survival early in life--this is something that is shared across all mammals," said lead author Dr. Robin Morrison. "But in social mammals, like ourselves, mothers often continue to provide vital support up to adulthood and even beyond."
"In ...
Osaka, Japan - Researchers from the Graduate School of Engineering and Symbiotic Intelligent Systems Research Center at Osaka University used motion capture cameras to compare the expressions of android and human faces. They found that the mechanical facial movements of the robots, especially in the upper regions, did not fully reproduce the curved flow lines seen in the faces of actual people. This research may lead to more lifelike and expressive artificial faces.
The field of robotics has advanced a great deal over the past decades. However, while current androids can appear very humanlike at first, their active facial expressions may still be unnatural and slightly unsettling to us. The exact reasons ...
Although cancers that occur in the gallbladder or bile ducts are rare, their rates are increasing. A recent study provides details on the burden of gallbladder and biliary tract cancer (GBTC) across 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2017. The findings are published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
Determining GBTC estimates and trends in different global regions can help to guide research priorities and policies for prevention and treatment. With this in mind, a team of scientists examined publicly available information ...
Patient care by a single primary care physician is associated with many health benefits, including increased treatment adherence and decreased hospital admissions and mortality risk. But can the relationship built between doctor and patient also lead to unnecessary care?
A new University of Florida study finds that male patients who have a single general physician were more likely to receive a prostate cancer screening test during a period when the test was not recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force. The study, which appears in END ...
When power stations burn coal, a class of compounds called Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, or PAHs, form part of the resulting air pollution. Researchers have found that PAHs toxins degrade in sunlight into 'children' compounds and by-products.
Some 'children' compounds can be more toxic than the 'parent' PAHs. Rivers and dams affected by PAHs are likely contaminated by a much larger number of toxins than are emitted by major polluters, researchers show in Chemosphere.
A coal-fired power station and a cigarette have more in common than one might think. So do the exhaust pipes from cars and burning crop residues. The same is true for an aeroplane passing high over a wildfire ...
Human actions are threatening the resilience and stability of Earth's biosphere - the wafer-thin veil around Earth where life thrives. This has profound implications for the development of civilizations, say an international group of researchers in a report published for the first Nobel Prize Summit, a digital gathering to be held in April to discuss the state of the planet in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Humanity is now the dominant force of change on planet Earth," according to the analysis published in Ambio, a journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
"The risks we are taking are astounding," says co-author Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-author of the analysis. "We are at the dawn of what must be a transformative ...
Study taken throughout the pandemic shows those who feel government should be less controlling believe COVID-19 poses less risk, which in turn was associated with the adoption of fewer protective behaviours
"A fearful population is not necessarily desirable... people may be underestimating or overestimating the actual risk at different times."
People's politics and values are exerting a bigger influence on how much of a threat they feel from COVID-19 compared to objective indicators such as the number of confirmed cases.
That's the finding of a new University of Cambridge survey which measured how attitudes to the coronavirus have varied over the course of 10 months of the pandemic for more ...
