UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
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Item Heterogeneous Effects of Grandchild Care on Employment, Working Time, and Work-Family Conflict(2023) Min, Jisun; Sayer, Liana; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A substantial number of adult children, both in dual-earner and single-parent families, are increasingly relying on grandchild care to bridge childcare gaps. Despite the growing trends of grandchild care and the prolonged participation of older Americans in the workforce, prior evidence over how time spent on grandchild care is associated with grandparents’ employment outcomes remains inconclusive. Considering unobserved (time-constant) heterogeneity is important for a better understanding of the association between grandchild care time and employment/work hours, because mixed findings in prior research may be attributed to omitted variables, such as preferences related to grandchild caregiving and work. Empirical research has not yet examined how grandchild care time influences family-to-work conflict and work-to-family conflict over time among employed grandparents. To examine these questions, this dissertation uses the Health and Retirement Study between 2004 and 2014 and employs fixed effects models to take into account unobserved heterogeneity and to address selection issues, and use a random effects model for family-to-work conflict. Chapter two illustrates that considering class and employment informs us with further understanding of grandchild care time, while the effects of gender and race/ethnicity on the time allocated to grandchild care largely remain. Particularly, non-employed NH Black men with a high school diploma or less provide substantial grandchild care (500 hours or more over the two years; approximately 4.9 to 96 weekly hours), matching the level of care provided by non-employed NH Black women with the same education. Class is only linked to the time spent on grandchild care for employed NH White and Hispanic men. College-educated employed NH White men engage in a low level of grandchild care (1-99 hours over the two years; about 1 weekly hour), which is greater than that of employed NH White men with a high school diploma or less. Employed Hispanic men with some college education or more tend to provide an intermediate level of grandchild care more (100-499 hours over the two years; roughly 1 to 4.8 weekly hours), whereas devoting to substantial care less, compared to employed Hispanic men with a high school diploma or lower education. Employment status exclusively influences the time that NH White grandparents dedicate to grandchild care: Non-employed NH White women and men are more involved in substantial grandchild care compared to their employed counterparts. In contrast, no employment variations in grandchild care among NH Blacks and Hispanics may suggest that racial minority groups prioritize grandchild care regardless of their employment status. Chapter three shows that an increase in time spent on grandchild care is link to a decrease in work hours over time among both grandmothers and grandfathers. Although the direction of providing each additional hour of grandchild care on employment status appears similar to the effect on work hours, it is not significant. No gender differences are found in the effect of grandchild care hours on both work hours and employment status. Chapter four demonstrates that employed grandfathers who provide a low level of grandchild care experience a decrease in family-to-work conflict and an increase in work-to-family conflict over time compared to employed grandfathers who do not engage in grandchild care. No significant associations are found among employed grandmothers. However, employed grandfathers who engage in a low level of grandchild care are more likely to experience an increase in work-to-family conflict compared to employed grandmothers who do the same level of care. No significant evidence for gender differences in the association between grandchild care time and family-to-work conflict is found. Results in chapter three and four collectively provide insight into both negative and positive aspects of grandchild care. Results in Chapter three indicate that an increase in time spent on grandchild care is linked to reduce grandparents’ work hours regardless of gender and may potentially produce economic repercussions, especially among grandparents who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. Results in Chapter four demonstrate the buffering effect of minimal grandchild care on family-to-work conflict and its adverse effect on work-to-family conflict among employed grandfathers. In conclusion, my dissertation sheds light on both different aspects of grandchild caregiving, with outcomes potentially depending on the level of caregiving engagement and gender.Item ONE FOOT IN, ONE FOOT OUT: TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING THE LEGAL AND ILLEGAL WORK OVERLAP(2015) Nguyen, Holly; Loughran, Thomas A; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Extant literature investigating the relationship between legal and illegal work is expansive, spanning various disciplines using a wide array of methodological specifications. Despite this expansiveness legal and illegal work has traditionally been viewed as tradeoffs whereby legal work is seen as a catalyst to moving away from illegal work. However, bifurcation of legal and illegal work captures only one facet of the relationship between the two. For example, participating in legal and illegal work contemporaneously has been discussed by a number of scholars and has been observed in empirical studies. But detailed investigation into the legal and illegal overlap has been scant. By using the Pathways to Desistance Study, there were three main goals of the current study. The first goal was to document the heterogeneous patterns of legal and illegal work and how they overlap over time. Second, I examined if legal economic opportunities were associated with membership in illegal work trajectories, conditional on membership in legal work trajectories. The third goal was to consider if the legal and illegal overlap was associated with key criminal career dimensions: frequency of offending and offending variety. Results showed that there are heterogeneous patterns in both legal work and illegal work and the way in which they were linked. There was some support for the relationship between legal economic opportunities and membership in a higher illegal work group. The legal and illegal overlap was associated with a lower frequency of offending and endorsement of fewer types of instrumental crimes. Results were discussed in terms of implications for theory and future research.Item The Changing Nature of the Retirement Transition for Dual Earning Couples(2015) Jackson, Jonathan; Kahn, Joan R; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)My dissertation examines how dual-earning couples navigate the retirement transition differently now that women's and men's work lives have become more similar. As the retirement transition has become more complex, understanding how and when people retire requires researchers and policymakers to be attuned to the family lives in which individuals are embedded. The decision to retire is an individual choice but one's family circumstances, particularly one's spouse, can influence the process. Couples must often factor in spouses' age, health, pension assets, and health insurance coverage, especially since the work lives of many women have become much more similar to men. Whereas men's retirement decisions were seen to depend on their employment situation and women's' on their husband's, women's rising attachment to the labor force means their work lives should be increasingly important in understanding the retirement transition of couples. This dissertation fills a gap in retirement research by utilizing a life course perspective to systematically study change across cohorts in how marital partners manage the retirement transition amidst rapid structural changes in the economy. Analyses use multiple waves of data from the Health and Retirement Study, applying a variety of modeling techniques to investigate the way that couples move from employment to retirement. Specifically, I focus on retirement expectations and timing, looking at whether dual earning couples influence and synchronize each other's retirement and how this may change across cohorts. Results suggest that coordination between couples may be declining, as both husbands and wives influence their respective partners' retirement expectations less in later cohorts. Analysis of the degree to which dual-earning couples synchronize their retirement expectations show that such couples expect to retire together when they both have the pension resources to do so. Results from event history models further indicate that the retirement trajectories have changed for the leading baby boom cohort, as evidence implies they are delaying retirement longer than previous cohorts. The findings provide mixed support for the notion that wives are influencing their husbands' retirement timing more in later cohorts or that the influence of husbands on wives' retirement timing has declined across cohorts.Item A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF COLLEGE-EDUCATED QATARI WOMEN: FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE BOARDROOM(2015) Jacobson, Claire; Croninger, Robert; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In Qatar, a small Middle Eastern Country, bordered by Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, over 75% of college students are female but only 34% of the workforce is female. This qualitative study explores the paradox of highly educated and underemployed Qatari women through interviews with six college-educated Qatari women. To date, the majority of the research about the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) focuses on national- regional- and institution-level issues and not on individual experiences. There is a particular void in understanding the individual experience of Qatari women, even though there has been energy at the national level to create policies that expand educational opportunities, and to a more limited extent, workforce opportunities for women. Given this context, this study focuses on college-educated Qatari women's motivation for and experiences with higher education and workforce opportunities. This study found that this group of highly motivated and highly educated young Qatari women were entering the workforce, challenging the existing paradox; however, it was easier for some women to take advantage of educational opportunities than professional opportunities. Women faced challenges in negotiating professional and personal identities within Qatar's rapidly changing social structure, especially in terms of shifting gender norms. They experienced points of stress, especially in the workforce and in family relationships though they remained highly motivated to acquire additional education and succeed in the workplace. This study calls for further examination of these issues and of existing paradigms of women and work in MENA.Item The Impact of Career and Technical Education on Post-school Employment Outcomes among Youth with Disabilities(2011) Hunter, Cherise Janelle; McLaughlin, Margaret J; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Given the college- and career-readiness national education agenda and the demands of the 21st century labor market, the purpose of this study was to describe and compare the relationship between post-school employment outcomes and the completion of a secondary education career and technical education concentration among youth with disabilities. Specifically, this study examined the labor force participation, employment, wages, and receipt of fringe benefits up to 11 years after exiting high school among youth with disabilities who completed a CTE concentration as part of their overall high school course of study. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 which includes a nationally representative sample of youth who attended high school in the late 1990's and beginning of the 21st century was used. A subsample of this data containing youth with disabilities was utilized and their 2006 post-school outcomes were analyzed using logistic regression and ordinary least squares regression analyses. The results suggest that youth with disabilities who complete a CTE concentration in high school have a higher likelihood of participating in the labor force, being employed, and earning higher wages up to 11 years beyond exiting high school controlling for household income, race, ethnicity, gender, location, and marital status. However, the likelihood that youth would have a job that provided fringe benefits was reduced for youth who concentrated in secondary CTE. Academic achievement, academic course-taking, and postsecondary degree attainment mitigated the effects of CTE on post-school employment outcomes. These findings emphasize the importance of CTE being utilized as a course of study option for youth with disabilities, especially for youth with disabilities who choose not to obtain a postsecondary degree. The findings also support the need for secondary CTE programs to integrate standards-based academic curricula and increase the facilitation of youth with disabilities into postsecondary education.Item Navigating New Norms of Involved Fatherhood: Employment, Gender Attitudes, and Father Involvement in American Families(2011) McGill, Brittany; Kahn, Joan; Goldscheider, Frances; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In recent decades, gender roles have shifted toward greater overlap of men's and women's roles: women have entered the labor force in record numbers, while new norms of fatherhood emphasize men's involvement with their children in addition to their traditional role of financial provider. These "new fathers" are expected to be more equal partners in parenting, spending time nurturing children and performing both interactive and physical caregiving. However, men may face tension and conflict in attempting to fulfill their roles as both provider and involved father. The primary tension lies in the conflict of time and place: while the "new father" role requires spending time with children, the "provider" and "good worker" roles require a commitment to spending time on the job. How do men navigate these contradictory roles? To what extent does employment impact men's involvement with their children? Are men with more egalitarian attitudes trading off longer work hours for more time with their children? This dissertation examines these questions using two waves of the Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID-CDS), which offer rich measures of father involvement, employment, and gender attitudes. Specifically, it examines the relationship between employment and father involvement, and whether and how gender attitudes moderate that relationship. Statistical methods include cross-sectional and fixed effects OLS regressions. Results indicate that nontraditional attitudes toward the father's role, "new father" attitudes, are associated with both engagement with children and responsibility for their care, particularly engagement in physical care. Attitudes toward public and private roles of women, on the other hand, are not related to father involvement. Results further suggest that the "provider"/"good worker" role prevails for men, much the way the nurturer role tends to prevail for women. Despite inelastic work hours, however, there may in fact be a cohort of "new fathers" whose behavior matches their attitudes, in that they are 1) more involved with their children than more traditional fathers, and 2) they are able to preserve time with children, likely by cutting back on leisure time or incorporating their children into their leisure time.Item Organizational Characteristics as a Justification of Employment Discrimination(2010) Siegel, Eric Forrest; Stangor, Charles; Hanges, Paul J.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research explores the processes behind discrimination within organizations using the Justification-Suppression (JS) model. According to the JS model, internal cognitions, called justifications, can disinhibit prejudice and cause discrimination. The policies and characteristics of an organization can be a source of the justifications that lead to discrimination within organizations. To explore this hypothesis, participants completed a hiring simulation task. In this experiment, the racial makeup of the company was manipulated so that the company was either homogeneously White or racially diverse. In addition, company communications, in the form of e-mails, were manipulated to change the company's tolerance for discrimination. Both the demographics and communications manipulations led the participants to discriminate in their hiring decisions. When both demographics and communications indicated discrimination was acceptable, the degree of discrimination was greater than when there was a single source of justification. This implies that an organization's characteristics can lead to increased discrimination.Item Labor Adjustment in an Evolving Marketplace(2005-07-31) Singh, Manisha G.; Haltiwanger, John C.; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis is about the process of employment adjustment. It studies adjustment costs and their impact on employment and labor demand. It starts by describing key characteristics of India's labor market; documents legal, economic, and social framework; investigates the impact and finds magnitudes of worker adjustment costs. Then, it estimates econometrically parameters of labor adjustment based on ASI industry data from 1973 to 1997. Specifically effects of the job security regime in India on employment are estimated while accounting for the concurrent impact of product markets' liberalization. It establishes that adjustment costs are substantial, adjustment is slow, and competition mitigates only some of the adverse impact of adjustment costs. Third, it investigates retrenchment programs across countries. This one-time or episode form of adjustment is a preferred mechanism in the presence of excess labor. Multi-dimensional program designs are found to be more successful. These analyses can be better conducted using a panel dataset based on the unit level data of the ASI.