The Transition to Parenthood in Obstetrics: Enhancing Prenatal Care for Two Generation Impact

Obstetrics, the specialty overseeing infant and parent health before birth, could be expanded to address the inter-related areas of parents' prenatal impact on children's brain development and their own psychosocial needs during a time of immense change and neuroplasticity. Obstetrics is primed for the shift that is happening in pediatrics, which is moving from its traditional focus on physical health to a coordinated, whole child, two or multi-generation approach. Pediatric care now includes developmental screening, parenting education, parent coaching, access to developmental specialists, brain-building caregiving skills, linkages to community resources, and tiered interventions with psychologists. Drawing on decades of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease research highlighting the prenatal beginnings of future health and new studies on the transition to parenthood describing adult development from pregnancy to early postpartum, we propose that, similar to pediatrics, the integration of education and intervention strategies into the prenatal care ecosystem should be tested for its potential to improve child cognitive and social-emotional development and parental mental health. Pediatric care programs can serve as models of change for the systematic development, testing and, incorporation of new content into prenatal care as universal, first-tier treatment as well as evidenced-based, triaged interventions according to level of need. To promote optimal beginnings for the whole family, we propose an augmented prenatal care ecosystem that aligns with, and could build on, current major efforts to enhance perinatal care individualization through consideration of medical, social, and structural determinants of health.

Parent Provision of Choice Is a Key Component of Autonomy Support in Predicting Child Executive Function Skills

Although previous work has linked parent autonomy support to the development of children's executive function (EF) skills, the role of specific autonomy-supportive behaviors has not been thoroughly investigated. We compiled data from four preschool-age samples in the Midwestern United States (N = 366; M age = 44.26 months; 72% non-Hispanic White, 19% Black/African American, 5% Multiracial) to examine three relevant autonomy-supportive behaviors (supporting competence, positive verbalizations, and offering choice) and their associations with child EF. We coded parent autonomy-supportive behaviors from a 10-min interaction between parent and child dyads working on challenging jigsaw puzzles together. Children completed a battery of EF. Overall, child EF was most consistently correlated with the offering choice subscale. Additionally, only the offering choice subscale predicted child EF while controlling for the other autonomy support subscales and child age. These results suggest that parent provision of choice is an especially relevant aspect of autonomy-supportive parenting and may be important to the development of EF in early childhood. Future research should directly measure children's experience with choice and how it relates to emerging EF.

Gender, Job and Family Conditions, and Psychological Symptoms

This study examined the hypothesis that gender differences in psychological distress are mediated by job and family role conditions. Previous research has failed to directly test such mediational hypotheses but rather has inferred effects of role conditions from simple role-occupancy variables. The sample consisted of full-time employed married respondents including 161 women with full-time employed spouses, 142 men with nonemployed spouses, and 126 men with full-time employed spouses. Although the sample reported low psychological symptomatology overall, the women in dual-earner families reported more psychological symptomatology than did either group of men. Hierarchical regression equations indicated that work and family conditions fully attenuated this gender differential. Women in dual-earner families also reported less job enrichment, less time at work, and more household labor inequity than did either group of men. They also reported more childcare difficulty than did men with nonemployed spouses. Work-family interference predicted psychological symptomatology and partially accounted for its relationship with some job and family conditions. We discuss processes through which gender affects psychological distress.

Workplace flexibility: from research to action

Ellen Galinsky, Kelly Sakai, and Tyler Wigton explore the "time famine" among American workers-the continuing sense among employees of not having enough time to manage the multiple responsibilities of work and personal and family life. Noting that large shares of U.S. employees report feeling the need for greater workplace flexibility to enable them to take better care of family responsibilities, the authors examine a large-scale community-engagement initiative to increase workplace flexibility voluntarily. Using the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce as a primary source of data, the authors begin with an overview of the prevalence of flexibility in today's American workplace. They track which categories of employees have access to various flexibility options, as well as the extent to which employees with access to various types of flexibility use those options. Findings from the study indicate that the majority of employees want flexibility but that access to it varies, with more advantaged employees--those who are well educated, have high salaries, and work full time, for example--being doubly advantaged in having greater access to flexibility. A number of employers, say the authors, tend to be skeptical of the value of workplace flexibility and to fear that employees will abuse it if it is offered. But the study data reveal that most employees use flexibility quite conservatively. When the authors use their nationally representative data set to investigate correlations between access to workplace flexibility and a range of workplace outcomes especially valued by employers--employee engagement, job satisfaction, retention, and health--they find that employers as well as employees can benefit from flexibility. Finally, the authors discuss When Work Works, a large, national community-based initiative under way since 2003 to increase voluntary adoption of workplace flexibility. The authors detail the conceptual basis of the project's design, noting its emphasis on flexibility as one component of effective workplaces that can benefit employers, employees, and communities alike. Galinsky, Sakai, and Wigton conclude by drawing lessons learned from the project and briefly discussing the implications of using research to bring about workplace change.

Working in Retirement

Despite the relatively large number of working retirees, very little research has focused specifically on their job experiences. This brief report aims to address this gap in the literature by examining what facets of workplace environment affect job satisfaction and engagement for people who are working in retirement. Data from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce, a sample representative of United States workers, are used to compare workers aged 50 and above who consider themselves retired ( N = 203) to those in the same age group who do not consider themselves retired ( N = 936). Results suggest that although the economic security offered by the job is less important to job satisfaction and engagement among those who are working in retirement than it is for other older workers, their relationship with their supervisor may be more important. Implications of these findings are considered along with potential directions for future research.