New Parents' Mental Health in Socio-Cultural Context

描述（由申请人提供）：鉴于在过去的半个世纪里女性就业人数的急剧增加，对于大多数新妈妈来说，在过渡到为人父母之后，她们很快就会回到有薪工作中去。与父母的工作和照顾孩子有关的压力已经成为新父母越来越关注的问题。研究强调，对父母过早就业对父母和孩子的短期和长期影响缺乏共识。对于种族、阶级和家庭结构等社会文化因素如何在这些多重转变中影响父母和儿童的心理健康，人们所知的就更少了。本研究的主要目标是探索过渡到为人父母，再加上早期重返有薪工作，如何在短期（1年）和长期（6年）内影响工人阶级父母和孩子的心理健康和家庭关系，目的是探索这些过程如何因种族和家庭结构而有所不同。第一个目的是探索父母身份的转变和父母早期就业对父母和孩子五年后心理健康的长期影响。153对夫妇在1996年至2001年间经历了为人父母的转变，当他们的第一个孩子进入幼儿园时，他们将重新接受采访，这将提供一个独特的机会来研究在为人父母的第一年建立的模式如何与家庭成员的心理健康和五年后的关系有关。第二个目的是研究种族和家庭结构如何调节新父母在成为新父母和管理全职工作时的表现。最初的过渡到为人父母的研究将被复制到三个新的子样本中，包括非裔美国人、单亲母亲和双亲家庭以及欧美单身母亲。复制的目标是：(1)研究新晋父母在成为新晋父母和重返全职工作后的心理健康和亲密关系的变化；(2)确定工作条件、社会支持、性别意识形态、为人父母期望以及孩子和父母的特征如何调节多重转变对父母心理健康的影响；(3)研究在为人父母的第一年，家庭角色和行为的变化。(4)确定家庭友好型工作场所政策对父母心理健康的影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Given the dramatic increase in women's employment over the past half century, the transition to parenthood is now followed by the early transition back to paid work for the majority of new mothers. Pressures associated with parental employment and childcare have become growing concerns for new parents. Research highlights the lack of consensus about the short- and long-term consequences of early parental employment for both parents and children. Even less is known about how socio-cultural factors, such as race, class, and family structure, affect parents' and children's mental health across these multiple transitions. The primary goal of the proposed research is to explore how the transition to parenthood, coupled with the early return to paid employment affects the mental health and family relationships of working-class parents and children over the short- (1-year) and long-term (6 years), with the aim of exploring how these processes differ as a function of race and family structure. The first aim is to explore the long-term effects of the transition to parenthood and early parental employment on parents' and children's mental health five years later. A sample of 153 couples, who experienced the transition to parenthood between 1996 and 2001, will be re-interviewed as their first child enters kindergarten, affording the unique opportunity to examine how patterns established in the first year of parenthood are related to family members' mental health and relationships five years later. The second aim is to examine how race and family structure moderate how new parents fare as they become new parents and manage full-time employment. The original transition to parenthood study will be replicated with three new sub-samples including, African-American, single-mother and two-parent families and European-American single mothers. The objectives of the replication are: (1) to examine change in new parents' mental health and intimate relationships as they become new parents and soon thereafter return to full-time work, (2) to identify how work conditions, social support, gender ideology, expectations about parenthood, and characteristics of the child and parents mediate the effects of the multiple transitions on parents' mental health, (3) to examine change in family roles and behaviors across the first year of parenthood, and (4) to determine the effects of family-friendly workplace policies on parents' mental health across the transition to parenthood.