College of Behavioral & Social Sciences

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THE WORST OF TIMES? AGING WITH LIMITED FAMILY TIES IN THE UNITED STATES
(2024) Liu, Jingwen; Caudillo, Mónica L.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The drastic demographic and family transitions since the 1970s have raised ongoing discussions about whether older adults fare well socially and psychologically when they are increasingly likely to age alone in the U.S. Based on the social convoy model, the three studies of this dissertation answer this question by extending the focus from the proximal kinship ties to nonkin networks and broader social participation. Particular attention is paid to gender and racial/ethnic differences as demographic and family transitions are experienced unevenly by different social groups. The first study examines how family instability and the deviation from “normative” family trajectories are associated with older adults’ mental health. It found different levels of importance of the structure and instability of family for men and women of different racial/ethnic groups. Moving beyond family and households, the second study explores the substitution effect of extended family, friends, and neighborhoods in the absence of proximal relations. It reveals the “double plight” of Black and Hispanic older adults who may suffer from both a disproportionate exposure to the declining marriage and a lack of supportive distant relations serving as buffer zones in the absence of core kinship ties. The third study disentangles the population-level age and cohort trends of social connectedness, a more comprehensive indicator of individuals’ social wellbeing. It finds distinct intercohort changes in both the overall level of social connectedness and intracohort gender and racial/ethnic disparities. These trends can be partially explained by cohort differences in socioeconomic resources and health. However, societal changes that emphasize the significance of intergenerational solidarity, friendship ties, digital communication, non-religious social participation, and volunteering may play a more significant role. Taken together, this dissertation depicts a mixed picture of different populations who demonstrate varying levels of vulnerability and resilience against the quickly developing society. Therefore, it calls for both the enhancement of social welfare regimes and more positive narratives about unique resilience and strengths for women, racial/ethnic minorities, and socioeconomically disadvantaged older adults.
Gender-Specific Significance of Family Transitions on Well-being and Work Attitudes
(2022) Hara, Yuko; Chen, Feinian; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Marriage and parenthood are major life events for many individuals. Marriage is linked with improved health partly through spousal influence on health-related behaviors including diet. Previous theoretical and qualitative research suggests a link between family transitions and meal patterns. Yet empirical research using a nationally representative sample to examine the association is scarce. And the issues of whether spousal influence on health-related behaviors can be extended to other types of romantic relationships, such as cohabitation, as well as whether the transition to parenthood is linked with changes in meal patterns, have not been adequately researched. Additionally, research examining whether the health benefits that marriage brings can be universally found for both genders across countries is limited. Family life events carry other consequences, too. Prior research also suggests that family life often has a negative impact on attitudes toward paid work, particularly for women. Past research, however, primarily relied on small sample interview data or cross-sectional data, leaving unclear how work attitudes change during adulthood. This dissertation examines the impact of different family life events such as marriage, cohabitation, and parenthood on changes in subjective well-being, health-related behavior (meal patterns), and attitudes towards work by gender. I focus on adults in their prime work and family life stages in the U.S. and Japan. By using fixed effects models and panel data, I aimed to estimate the average effect of family life events within individuals over time. I found that entering a romantic union reduces meal skipping, but the type of union matters differently for men and women. I also found that the transition to parenthood discourages women’s regular meal patterns, suggesting family ties do not necessarily facilitate healthy behaviors. In the highly gendered social context of Japan, contrary to previous findings from Western industrialized countries, I found no evidence indicating that marriage is associated with self-rated health for women. Additionally, I found that the transition to parenthood is negatively linked with men’s self-rated health. In terms of work attitudes, even when controlling for various job characteristics, I found that both marriage and parenthood are negatively associated with enthusiasm toward work achievement, only for women in Japan. These findings highlight the importance of country context and reveal that entry into marriage triggers shifts in women’s work attitudes even before having children.
TOP MANAGEMENT TEAM GENDER DIVERSITY AND ITS EFFECT ON DIFFERENT TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONAL OFFENDING
(2022) Layana, Maria Cristina; Simpson, Sally S; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This study addresses a gap in the current corporate crime literature by giving special attention to the characteristics and role of the top management team (TMT) in facilitating or mitigating illegal conduct. I ask how changes in certain demographic characteristics of the TMT unit, particularly gender composition, affect various forms of corporate offending over time. Specifically, 1) In what ways are changes in TMT gender characteristics related to corporate illegality over time? 2) What is the nature of the relationship between TMT gender diversity, corporate offending, and other key characteristics of women executives? 3) What is the temporal order of these relationships? 4) How do other TMT and corporate characteristics influence the relationships between TMT gender diversity and firm offending? Stemming from the strategic leadership literature, Hambrick and Mason’s (1984) Upper Echelons (UE) perspective serves as the primary theoretical framework guiding this study. This dissertation focuses on two types of corporate illegality: environmental and financial (i.e., accounting fraud, bribery, and anticompetitive acts) using a universe of firms listed on the S&P 1500 from 1996 through 2013.
THE ROLE OF ROMANTIC PARTNERS IN THE PROCESS OF WOMEN'S REENTRY IN CHILE
(2020) Larroulet Philippi, Pilar; Simpson, Sally S; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Despite the growth of reentry literature in recent decades, little is known regarding the role romantic partners play in the process of transition back into the community. There is a well-developed literature regarding the “good marriage” effect on desistance, but studies have been conducted mostly with male samples, in the United States, and in times and social contexts where being married is considered normative. For females, however, the feminist literature points to the romantic partner as a potential source of criminogenic influence. Whether being in a romantic relationship will have any positive impact on females’ reentry is still an open question, as is whether that impact would be conditional on the characteristics of those relationships and specific partners. Even more, until now, we know relatively little about who those partners are and how often women change partners after release. The present dissertation seeks to address these gaps using data from the study “Reinserción, Desistimiento y Reincidencia en Mujeres Privadas de Libertad en Chile” [Reintegration, Desistance, and Recidivism Among Female Inmates in Chile]. The study follows a cohort of 207 women released from prison in Santiago, Chile over one calendar year. The results confirm the prevalence of not-married relationships among female reentering society, and show a great deal of heterogeneity in the characteristics of those relationships and partners. The analyses also reflect an important level of change in partnership in the twelve months following release. Further, the type of partners to whom women have access varies significantly by different groups of female offenders, as defined by their pathways into prison. Regarding recidivism, the results show that being involved in a romantic relationship is not associated with the chances of recidivism. However, when the specific characteristics of the relationships and partners are considered, partners’ behaviors are a consistent correlate of recidivism. As a whole, the results challenge the generalizability of life course criminological theory and highlight the need to incorporate a feminist perspective into research on reentry and desistance.
GROWING UP IN RURAL MALAWI: GENDERED ASPIRATIONS, TIME USE, AND SOCIALIZATION
(2019) Zahra, Fatima; Madhavan, Sangeetha; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
My dissertation focuses on three understudied dimensions of challenges among youth in Malawi, and is structured as three separate papers. The first is, the relationship between aspired and actual timing of transitions out of school, and the extent of the gender gap in this relationship. The second dimension is gender disparity in acquired skills and learning outcomes in primary school, and how demands for labor at the household level help explain differences in dropout and student performance on Math and Chichewa tests. The third dimension focuses on girls’ relationship power, and the gender socialization experiences at school and individual characteristics that are correlated with it. Using the Malawi Schooling and Adolescent Study (MSAS), I find that 1) a higher desired age for marriage is associated with a lower likelihood of school dropout, and marriage related school dropout, with this association significant mainly among girls, 2) a high work burden is associated with a greater likelihood of school dropout in the subsequent year, but is not associated with performance on Math and Chichewa reading comprehension tests, and there is no significant gender difference in these relationships, 3) attitudes form an important dimension of the measurement of girls’ relationship power, and earlier experiences of physical violence in school, and individual characteristics including self-esteem and attitudes against spousal violent predict power in relationships in later adolescence and early adulthood. Together, the three papers in this dissertation provide critical insights into individual mechanisms that allow adolescents to stay in school longer, structural constraints like household labor allocation that limit their educational attainment, and the contribution of early socialization experiences to girls’ power in later relationships.
THE EFFECTS OF GENDER ON PHYSICAL CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT SENTENCING IN MARYLAND CIRCUIT COURTS
(2018) Lafferty, Jennifer Margaret Bewton; Simpson, Sally; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Researchers have identified child abuse as a major social problem in the United States, yet research on physical child abuse and neglect sentencing is limited. Prior to this study, sentencing research has mostly overlooked physical child abuse and neglect as a distinct crime. As physical child abuse and neglect are so contrary to traditional notions of femininity, studying the effects of gender on sentencing for these narrowly defined crimes presents an opportunity to focus on females as countertypes. The findings here imply that the effects of being female (a countertype) increases for the most serious crime, first degree child abuse, in both the decision to incarcerate and on the sentence length.
OPIOID ABUSE AMONG ADOLESCENTS WHO OFFEND: RISK FACTORS AND THE ROLE OF GENDER
(2018) Hickman, Shelby Nichole; Gottfredson, Denise; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In this paper, I explore risk factors for opioid use and abuse among juvenile justice system-involved adolescents convicted of a serious offense; a group known to experience high rates of substance abuse and dependence. Using the Pathways to Desistance dataset, I assess whether risk factors for substance use that includes opioids are distinct from the risk factors for other illicit substance use that does not including opioids (non-opioid substance use). I also explore how, if at all, the motives and patterns of opioid use are distinct for male and female adolescent offenders. I identify older age, white race, and clinically significant mental illness as significant risk factors for substance use including opioids relative to non-opioid substance use. I do not find any distinct risk factors for adolescent females’ opioid use relative to their male peers.
GENDERED INVESTMENTS IN CAREER AND FAMILY: VALIDATING A MEASURE OF MOTHERHOOD SCHEMAS AMONG UNDERGRADUATE WOMEN
(2016) Savela, Alexandra; O'Brien, Karen M; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
One persistent trend characterizing many work-family arrangements is the tendency for women to invest more heavily in the family sphere compared to men and to compromise career pursuits for their children or partner. Discovering which factors perpetuate these gender-stratified investments in work and family is necessary because, along with investing more in the family, women tend to be concentrated in low-paid, low-prestige occupations. Improving the ability to measure how young women perceive the motherhood role will allow researchers to advance the study of women’s career development. Accordingly, the present study tested, among undergraduate women, the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Meaning of Motherhood Scale, which assesses the ways in which mothers are expected to think, feel, and behave to be seen as “good” mothers. The study found that the Meaning of Motherhood Scale, originally developed with a sample of mothers, did not have the same structure in a sample of undergraduate women, non-mothers. Implications of this finding are discussed. Post-hoc analyses were implemented to explore the factor structure of the Meaning of Motherhood Scale with undergraduate women and a three-factor structure measuring Involvement, Flourishing, and Traditional expectations of mothers was found. Tentative implications of these post-hoc findings, future directions for research, and clinical implications are discussed.
Health Associations with Interracial and Inter-ethnic Marital, Cohabiting, and Dating Relationships in the United States
(2017) Lykke, Lucia Christine; Rendall, Michael S; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Research consistently finds that health is stratified by race, ethnicity, and gender, and that romantic relationships, particularly marriage, are protective of health. Despite increasing prevalence of interracial and inter-ethnic relationships, few studies have investigated the association between partnership exogamy and health. In this dissertation, I examine whether and how heterosexual exogamy is associated with self-rated health, being overweight and obese, and depression. I additionally examine evidence for health selection into exogamous versus endogamous relationships and the evidence for health change over time in relationships. First, I use data from four panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, representing the adult population aged 18-59 in the US, to investigate partnership exogamy and self-rated health among Whites and nonwhites. I find that having a White partner is associated with better self-rated health for nonwhites, and that having a nonwhite partner is associated with worse health for White women. I find evidence that people in better health select into partnerships with Whites, and that having a White partner is associated with better self-rated health over time. Second, I use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, representing young adults who came of age in the 1990s, to look at associations of partner race and ethnicity with being overweight and obese, and with depression. I find that overweight and obese White women select into new relationships with Black men, and also that having a Black partner is associated with weight gain over time for White women. Finally, I find that White young men and women who are more depressed are more likely to partner with nonwhite partners, and this effect is particularly strong for White women who have Black dating partners. I find evidence for depression increase over time among White women with Black partners, though the findings suggest a weaker causal impact of interracial relationships on depression than suggested by prior studies. To interpret the results throughout, I draw on gendered theories of interracial relationship formation including status exchange theory, and gendered theories of relationships and health that focus on stress and social status.
The Economy and the American Presidency in a Polarized Era: Changes to Income and Unemployment by Class, Race, and Gender
(2017) Mugglestone, Konrad Peter; Morris, Irwin L; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
For decades, political scientists have debated, with little consensus, whether Democratic and Republican presidents have contrasting macroeconomic records. While some scholars have argued that presidents can (and do) target economic benefits to constituents, existing research on party differences in macroeconomic politics has assumed that the two major parties have constituencies distinguished by class and that each party managed the macroeconomy to benefit these class-based constituencies. However, political and economic conditions have changed over the past thirty years. Scholars have been concerned about the effects of increasing political polarization, which has caused unusually contentious and slow-paced policymaking. High debt levels have made major budgetary changes more difficult, and monetary policy has been checked by the zero lower bound. In light of these new political and economic challenges, this dissertation utilizes a unique dataset to examine presidential administrations from 1970 to 2014. Using this data, this project seeks to answer several key questions: Do modern presidents of opposing parties have contrasting macroeconomic records? In light of changing political and economic conditions, have these differences grown or decreased from the differences observed in the past? Finally, do modern presidents reflect the identity politics of the polarized, modern era by focusing not only on class constituencies, but on race and gender constituencies as well? Some of the findings are predictable, but others are surprising. In terms of the macroeconomy, Democratic presidents demonstrate economic records superior to their Republican counterparts. However, the party of the president rarely has any meaningful impact on income growth for specific class, race, and gender groups. Even so, the party of the president does have a consistently meaningful effect on unemployment rates. On average, Democratic presidents have greater impacts than Republicans on the overall unemployment rate and the unemployment rates of some of their constituent groups: the working class, and racial minorities. Moreover, evidence suggests that other political factors sometimes matter – both divided government and an election year variable capturing the Political Business Cycle have statistical relevance, especially in unemployment models. Finally, this study finds little statistical evidence that polarization is having a meaningful impact on presidential economic policymaking.

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