PARENTAL WORK, FAMILY DYNAMICS, & ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT

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The proposed research uses a within-family design to explore how characteristics mothers' and fathers' work and adolescents' personal characteristics are linked to differential family socialization experiences of adolescent siblings. We focus on characteristics of both parents' work (job autonomy, job stress, and work-related resources and demands) and how these are linked to two aspects of family dynamics: (1) parents' childrearing strategies (time spent with children, discipline, monitoring of youths' activities, maturity demands, and emotional support); and (2) family roles and relationships (sex roles, marital conflict, sibling relationship). To begin to disentangle the roles of parent characteristics and parental style from "child effects" we compare the experiences and psychosocial functioning of two adolescent siblings in each family. The sample will include 200 dual-earner families with two adolescent siblings. Data will be collected at three timepoints: when firstborn siblings are approximately 15 years of age and secondborns, approximately 13 years of age, and twice again at annual intervals. This design allows us to address three longitudinal issues: (1) the extent of continuity and change in siblings' differential family experiences; (2) the extent to which families exhibit differential treatment (via comparisons of siblings experiences at the same point in time) versus consistent treatment (via comparisons of siblings' experiences when they are roughly the same age); (3) the work/family conditions underlying different trajectories in adolescent siblings' psychosocial functioning. Data collection will involve home interviews in which parents and adolescents report separately about parents' work, family experiences and relationships, parent and adolescent personal characteristics and adolescent psychosoclal functioning and a series of 7 telephone interviews in which adolescents and parents report on their daily family activities (chores, parent-child shared activities, parental monitoring). The proposed five-year study will illuminate the roles of parental work and family dynamics in adolescent socialization. In addition, using multivariate family profile analysis (a within-family approach), we will examine similarities and differences in the experiences and outcomes of adolescent siblings in contrasting family ecologies.