Suchergebnisse

The study of parent-child relationships has long been of interest to behavioral scientists, both for its theoretical importance and for its practice and policy implications. There are, however, certain limitations to the knowledge in this area. First, research on parents and children is spread throughout a number of disciplines and as a consequence is not well integrated. Further, there has been little dialogue among researchers concerned with parents of young children and those interested in middle-aged and elderly parents and their offspring. The present volume predicates the notion that the

Interest in intergenerational relationships between adults has grown dramatically in recent years, both among social scientists, and in the general public. There has been a tendency to interpret these relationships within a framework that emphasizes intergenerational "solidarity". In contrast, we propose that a more useful conceptual framework for understanding intergenerational relations is that of ambivalence. We use sociological and anthropological theory, as well as selected evidence from family history, to argue that relationships between the generations in families are structured such that they generate various types of ambivalence. A number of exemplary studies from the contemporary sociological literature are then presented that support this orientation. The implications of this new conceptualization of intergenerational relations for both theoretical and empirical efforts are discussed.

Employee turnover is of broad interest, and we focus on turnover in an occupational group that is appropriate for our theoretical approach: Nursing home staff. Using a large and representative sample, we apply conceptual work in the area of social exchange by Lawler and colleagues to examine the role of affect toward the organization on employee turnover as well as antecedents of that affect. We use previous research and survey data to demonstrate that nursing home staff work in the conditions under which Lawler's theories of social exchange apply. We use longitudinal survey data to test whether nursing home staff turnover can be predicted by the level of affective attachment of the individual staff members to the nursing home, controlling for factors related to nursing home turnover. We find that lower nursing home staff turnover at Time 2 is predicted by affective attachment to the nursing home at Time 1.

'In der zweiten Lebenshälfte ist die räumliche Entfernung zwischen Eltern und einem ihrer erwachsenen Kinder von entscheidender Bedeutung für die Erbringung von alltagspraktischen Hilfeleistungen. Der vorliegende Aufsatz widmet sich der Frage, in welcher Entfernung vom Haushalt der Eltern das nächstwohnende erwachsene Kind lebt. Wir betrachten diese Frage für die USA und für Deutschland. Nur durch einen Ländervergleich wird ersichtlich, ob sich vergleichbare Mobilitätsfaktoren unterschiedlich auf die Wohnentfernung auswirken. Mit Hilfe der Daten des Sozioökonomischen Panels und des National Survey of Families and Households zeigen wir, dass die Entfernung zu den Eltern maßgeblich durch die Bildungsqualifikation und den beruflichen Status der Kinder beeinflusst wird. Ebenso durch Lebenslaufeffekte und kritische Familienereignisse etwa eine Scheidung oder eine Verwitwung. Unterschiedlich nahe leben Söhne und Töchter. Letztere leben meist näher und bei familialen Krisen wird die Entfernung vornehmlich zwischen ihnen und ihren Eltern geringer.' (Autorenreferat)

This article uses quantitative and qualitative data from 424 mothers' relationships with 1,494 adult children to explore gender differences in mothers' choices of children as sources of support and closeness. Despite strong theoretical arguments regarding the priority of the mother– daughter tie, empirical research has not provided consistent support for this pattern. This article explores whether inconsistent findings regarding the priority of mother–daughter relationships result from the way in which intergenerational affect is generally measured. In contrast to traditional measures that ask parents to rate their closeness to each child, the measures used here ask mothers to choose among their children. This method revealed a consistent pattern of preference for daughters over sons as sources of emotional and instrumental support, primarily on the basis of shared values and gender-specific similarities.