Tethered lives: A couple-based perspective on the consequences of parenthood for time use, occupation, and wages.

Prior research on parenthood effects has typically used single-sex models and estimated average effects. By contrast, we estimate population-level variability in partners' changes in housework hours, paid work hours, occupation traits, and wages after becoming parents, and we explore whether one partner's adjustment offsets or supplements the other's. We find tradeoffs between spouses on paid work adjustments to parenthood, but complementarity in adjustments to housework hours, occupation traits, and wages. The effect of parenthood on wives' behaviors is larger and more variable than on husbands' behaviors in every domain. The modest variation between husbands in work responses to parenthood explains little of the variation in the motherhood penalty, while variation in wives' own behaviors plays a larger role. We refer to this pattern as tethered autonomy: variation across American couples in work responses to parenthood is shaped primarily by variation in wives' adjustments, while husbands' work acts largely as a fixed point.

Opting Out and Leaning In: The Life Course Employment Profiles of Early Baby Boom Women in the United States.

Most literature on female employment focuses on the intersection between women's labor supply and family events such as marriage, divorce, or childbearing. Even when using longitudinal data and methods, most studies estimate average net effects over time and assume homogeneity among women. Less is known about diversity in women's cumulative work patterns over the long run. Using group-based trajectory analysis, I model the employment trajectories of early Baby Boom women in the United States from ages 20 to 54. I find that women in this cohort can be classified in four ideal-type groups: those who were consistently detached from the labor force (21 %), those who gradually increased their market attachment (27 %), those who worked intensely in young adulthood but dropped out of the workforce after midlife (13 %), and those who were steadily employed across midlife (40 %). I then explore a variety of traits associated with membership in each of these groups. I find that (1) the timing of family events (marriage, fertility) helps to distinguish between groups with weak or strong attachment to the labor force in early adulthood; (2) external constraints (workplace discrimination, husband's opposition to wife's work, ill health) explain membership in groups that experienced work trajectory reversals; and (3) individual preferences influence labor supply across women's life course. This analysis reveals a high degree of complexity in women's lifetime working patterns, highlighting the need to understand women's labor supply as a fluid process.

A Path Analysis Model of Self- vs. Educational-Context- Regulation as Combined Predictors of Well-Being in Spanish College Students.

Previous literature has established the importance of personal and contextual factors in college students' trajectories. Following the Self- vs. External-Regulation Behavior Theory (2021) and the 3P Biggs Model, the present study aimed at analyzing a structural linear model that validates the joint effect of self-regulation, educational context, age, and gender (as personal and contextual presage variables) with other meta-abilities, such as coping strategies, resilience, and positivity (process variables), and specific well-being outcomes, such as flourishing and health (product variables). A sample of 1310 Spanish college students was analyzed, aged 17 to 25, and a cross-sectional study with an ex post facto design was performed. Association and structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed using SPSS software (v.26) and AMOS (v.23). Results show that individual and contextual factors have an important role in the acquisition of psychological competencies in young adults. Self-regulation was proven to be an important meta-ability that predicts personal well-being and behavioral health outcomes. Complementarily, educational context was shown to be an external predictor of other skills, such as problem-focused strategies, and positive outcomes such as flourishing and behavioral health. Practical implications and limitations are discussed.

Self-Esteem, Happiness, and Flourishing in Times of COVID-19: A Study During the Lockdown Period in Ecuador.

Objective: Several studies have investigated the negative toll the pandemic has had on people's mental health. However, there is limited research on the pandemic's effect on positive mental health variables. This article reports on the levels of self-esteem and well-being (flourishing and happiness) in a sample of adults living in Ecuador and their relationships with the characteristics of their personal situation and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic had on their personal lives. Methods: A total of 766 adults completed an anonymous online survey between March and August 2020. Results: Participants reported average scores in the flourishing scale, the majority considered themselves to be happy or very happy people, and more than half presented high levels of self-esteem. Age, education, socioeconomic status, time spent using mobile phones and on hobbies, among others, explained self-esteem, happiness, and flourishing. Conclusion: The relationships between sociodemographic and situational variables of confinement during the pandemic are discussed, as well as the possible predictors of happiness, flourishing, and self-esteem.

Polarization of beliefs as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of Spain.

Spain was, together with Italy, the first European country severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. After one month of strict lockdown and eight weeks of partial restrictions, Spanish residents are expected to have revised some of their beliefs. We conducted a survey one year before the pandemic, at its outbreak and during de-escalation (N = 1706). Despite the lockdown, most respondents tolerated being controlled by authorities, and acknowledged the importance of group necessities over individual rights. However, de-escalation resulted in a belief change towards the intrusiveness of authorities and the preeminence of individual rights. Besides, transcendental beliefs-God answering prayers and the existence of an afterlife-declined after the outbreak, but were strengthened in the de-escalation. Results were strongly influenced by political ideology: the proportion of left-sided voters who saw authorities as intrusive greatly decreased, and transcendental beliefs prevailed among right-sided voters. Our results point to a polarization of beliefs based on political ideology as a consequence of the pandemic.

Difficulties in Establishing "Truth" Conditions in the Assessment of Addictive Smartphone Use in Young Adults.

The smartphone revolution has placed powerful, multipurpose devices in the hands of youth across the globe, prompting worries about the potential negative consequences of these technologies on mental health. Many assessment tools have been created, seeking to classify individuals into problematic and non-problematic smartphone users. These are identified using a cutoff value: a threshold, within the scale range, at which higher scores are expected to be associated with negative outcomes. Lacking a clinical assessment of individuals, the establishment of this threshold is challenging. We illustrate this difficulty by calculating cutoff values for the Short Version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS-SV) in 13 Spanish-speaking samples in 11 countries, using common procedures (i.e., reliability, validity, ROC methodology). After showing that results can be very heterogeneous (i.e., they lead to diverse cutoff points and rates of addiction) depending on the decisions made by the researchers, we call for caution in the use of these classifications, particularly when researchers lack a clinical definition of true addiction-as is the case with most available scales in the field of behavioral addictions-which can cause an unnecessary public health alert.

The Role of Gender and Age in the Emotional Well-Being Outcomes of Young Adults.

Young adults face different stressors in their transition to college. Negative emotions such as stress can emerge from the demands they face. This study aimed at gaining an improved understanding of the role that gender and age play in the well-being of young adults. Coping strategies, resilience, self-regulation, and positivity were selected as indicators of well-being. Descriptive and inferential analysis have been conducted. Results show that well-being varies significantly with age and gender. Gender was predominantly involved in the acquisition of the well-being outcomes, highly predicting problem-focused coping strategies. No interaction effects were found between gender and age. An improved understanding of the developmental factors involved in well-being outcomes will enlighten future interventions aimed at improving young people's resources to face adversity.

Psychological Factors, Leisure Activities, and Satisfaction during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study in Eleven Spanish-Speaking Countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the lives of millions of people worldwide. This study aimed to analyze the effects of several psychological factors (self-esteem, self-control, and emotional stability) over lifestyle-related variables (time spent on leisure activities) and the levels of satisfaction (family, friends, work, and leisure satisfaction) experienced during the COVID-19 outbreak. Data for this article were retrieved as part of a cross-sectional international study conducted in eleven Spanish-speaking countries between March and September 2020. The analyses were conducted using the responses of 9500 persons (65.95% women, 34.05% men). Structural equation modeling was used to test the direct and indirect effects of the psychological variables on satisfaction variables mediated by the time engaged in leisure activities. Our model indicated that psychological factors significantly predicted the amount of time spent in leisure activities and satisfaction. Overall, results indicate that self-esteem is a relevant psychological factor to consider in the development of psychological interventions directed at promoting healthy lifestyles. Nevertheless, further research is needed to validate the direction of the associations found in this study.

The Motherhood Penalty at Midlife: Long-Term Effects of Children on Women's Careers.

The authors build on prior research on the motherhood wage penalty to examine whether the career penalties faced by mothers change over the life course. They broaden the focus beyond wages to also consider labor force participation and occupational status and use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women to model the changing impact of motherhood as women age from their 20s to their 50s (n = 4,730). They found that motherhood is "costly" to women's careers, but the effects on all 3 labor force outcomes attenuate at older ages. Children reduce women's labor force participation, but this effect is strongest when women are younger, and is eliminated by the 40s and 50s. Mothers also seem able to regain ground in terms of occupational status. The wage penalty for having children varies by parity, persisting across the life course only for women who have 3 or more children.

Growing parental economic power in parent-adult child households: coresidence and financial dependency in the United States, 1960-2010.

Research on coresidence between parents and their adult children in the United States has challenged the myth that elders are the primary beneficiaries, instead showing that intergenerationally extended households generally benefit the younger generation more than their parents. Nevertheless, the economic fortunes of those at the older and younger ends of the adult life course have shifted in the second half of the twentieth century, with increasing financial well-being among older adults and greater financial strain among younger adults. This article uses U.S. census and American Community Survey (ACS) data to examine the extent to which changes in generational financial well-being over the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been reflected in the likelihood of coresidence and financial dependency in parent-adult child U.S. households between 1960 and 2010. We find that younger adults have become more financially dependent on their parents and that while older adults have become more financially independent of their adult children, they nevertheless coreside with their needy adult children. We also find that the effect of economic considerations in decisions about coresidence became increasingly salient for younger adults, but decreasingly so for older adults.