Duration: 10/01/2000 to 09/30/2005

Administrative Advisor(s):

NIFA Reps:

Non-Technical Summary

Statement of Issues and Justification

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Communities and businesses are struggling to adapt to change in the workforce. These recent changes have resulted in individuals carrying more responsibilities both at home and at work. The ability of individuals and families to thrive, or merely to cope, is threatened. This project proposes to investigate how individuals regard themselves in their multiple roles, determining to what extent issues of identity and sense of self are key components of the well-being of individuals and families as they respond to social and economic changes.

JUSTIFICATION

Scope and Significance of Problem . Changing economic, demographic, and family characteristics are affecting individual well-being and workforce participation. The Western United States is an area experiencing a multitude of employment, community, and family transitions. Changing policies, such as welfare reform, farm bills, and increased regulation of natural resources, are affecting families ability to support themselves and individuals ability to obtain well-paying stable jobs, particularly in the rural communities of the West. Family transitions abound in the West. Divorce rates in the 11 Western states average 5.95 as compared to the national average of 4.4 per 1000 adults (U.S. Census Bureau, 1998). Communities in the Western United States experience relocation transitions to a greater extent than communities in other regions of the country, with 8 of the 11 Western states appearing in the list of 10 states with the greatest increases in population change (U.S. Census, 1998). Birth rates are also higher in the West (15.55) than the nation (14.6). This population change is characterized by a good deal of ethnic diversity, including Latinos, Native Americans and Eskimos, and Asian and Pacific Islanders (U.S. Census, 1998). In sum, the demographic profile of the Western United States is a profile of change, marked by family transitions, employment transitions, and community transitions. This shifting context is played out in the work opportunities and challenges of Western communities, and in how individuals and families create and respond to job opportunities. Many problems occur in changing communities; economic, social, political, cultural, and environmental aspects of communities are affected by population change (Cook, 1993). A specific example can be drawn from the experience of rural communities in recent economic downturns. In such cases, public policies are set in place which encourage relocation toward metropolitan areas where jobs exist. Yet, most community members choose not to relocate (Cook, 1993). Their commitments to family, friendship, and work networks take precedence over new and uncertain economic opportunities. Individuals responses to economic downturns and changes, hence, do not match with policies. This mismatch creates problems for communities and individuals.

One reason this mismatch occurs relates to how individuals making such decisions view themselves. Individuals who are strongly motivated to reside in rural communities when jobs have left often report that they stay because they view themselves as family members or friends in a meaningful network or as farmers, fishers, loggers, or other resource-dependent workers (Mederer, 1988). It is very difficult for them to make changes because transitions alter their views of themselves (their identities). Policies which recognize this difficulty could be helpful. A research project that undertakes to examine how individuals in their families construct work and family-based identities would illuminate how employment decisions are made, as well as how individuals manage conflicts in their work and family identities in their daily lives. This project will provide practical, accessible information that families can use to support them in work and family transitions. Professionals who work with families (e.g., employers, community administrators, social service administrators) are also audiences for the information, since they support families as they experience work and family transitions. The results of this project will be useful in planning for population changes as communities adapt to changes due to employment opportunities. Community professionals working with families experiencing structural changes such as working families who are first-time parents or those experiencing divorce could use the information to assist families through the transition. Results will also be useful in terms of establishing programs related to employment which are sensitive to the identities of individuals in their families (Cook, 1993).

Need For Cooperation . The W-167 group is uniquely situated to examine multiple identities within the context of work and family. Historically, this group has collaborated successfully for many years on research related to work and family. We have published together and presented colloquia as a unit at conferences such as the National Council for Family Relations, the American Home Economics Association and most recently at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Our group was represented in special issues of the journals:

Lifestyle:

Family and Economic Issues, The Family and Consumer Science Research Journal, and Family Relations. We have expertise in the field and can build in a cooperative manner on our previous contributions to this arena. Members of the group represent related but different disciplines and research interests. This complementarity is an important advantage to working as a group and brings considerable strength to a broader understanding of the issues that we can then share with our respective communities. Our members include: marriage and family therapists, licensed family and developmental psychologists, rural and family sociologists, family scientists, human developmentalists, specialists in family resource management, family life educators, and extension professionals. Members have research interests in couple relationships, parent-child relationships, married couples, post-divorce non-residential parents, children, adolescents, and single-parent families. This variety provides an opportunity for the W-167 to conduct identity research in relationship to work and family within a broad context of family structures.

Further, the opportunity for comparative study is enhanced with our cooperative interdisciplinary team, that is composed of members from Western states. The West is a region unique in its family, ethnic, and community diversity, so it provides an excellent locale for examining work and family identities within a backdrop of change. Beyond doing comparative studies in the West, we will collaborate with other research scientists from non-land-grant institutions. Scientists from the University of Prince Edward Island and Indiana University of Pennsylvania will be involved in data collection, analysis and dissemination. We also expect to work with Maureen Perry-Jenkins at University of Massachusetts. She is directing an NIMH funded study on the transitions of working class, new parents into paid work. Summary of Benefits . This project will provide practical, accessible information that families can use to support them in work and family transitions. Professionals who work with families (e.g., employers, school administrators, social service administrators, family therapists, extension specialists) are also audiences for the information, because they support families as they experience work and family transitions. Thus, following the tradition of action-oriented research (Settles, 1999), families and the professionals who work with them are viewed as collaborators in the research process.

Action-oriented researchers are urged to study phenomena that are within families abilities to change. This project embarks with a definition and conceptualization of identities as changeable, and thus within families power to change, in order to benefit themselves and their communities (Settles, 1999). Families are resilient and can change to modify their identities and their lives to enable them to experience well-being. Through work with extension professionals and community development professionals, the results of the project that relate to economic opportunities in Western communities will be not only disseminated but actually applied to assist communities and families.

As with previous W-167 projects, extension professionals will serve as facilitators with the researchers in dissemination and application of the research findings. During the 1995-2000 project, a web site was developed. This site contains research results and applications for the general public. This web site is part of the CYFERNET and will be updated under the new project. This website, as an outreach tool, provides coherence to the work of the different stations and provides citizens with awareness and access to the work of this multi-state project throughout the country.

Other forms of dissemination to be utilized include the news media and public lectures. Findings will be shared with academic colleagues through the presentation of papers in professional forums and the publication of articles in scholarly journals.

Related, Current and Previous Work

Our research questions relate to understanding how the multiple identities individuals hold are related to the family and work transitions they have experienced, and ultimately to the well-being of individuals and their families. Our proposed research centers on an understanding of identity as constructed actively by individuals through life experience, and on identity as multiplex. The review of literature discusses identity first, then considers the connections between identity and life transitions, and between identity, transitions, and well-being.

Identities in Multiple Contexts. Identity is the meaning attached to the self by oneself and others (Michener & Delamater, 1999). The multiple roles that individuals play, such as spouse, student, and worker, are primary sources of identity. A second source of identity is ones membership in social categories, such as political, religious, racial or ethnic groups (Michener and Delamater, 1999). Individuals have identities holistically, in terms of who they are as people and how they feel about themselves as a whole. Individuals also have identities as intimate partners (e.g., spouse, mother), and as workers. Identities also come through the social statuses people hold; in other words, we think of ourselves as women or as members of a professional class (Kroska, 1997).

Identities influence behavior and motivate individuals to act in ways that reinforce their identities. Furthermore, identities assume different priorities or may even conflict with one another. Identities are important not only because they provide an individual with a sense of self, but also because they link the individual to the larger society. Identities also shape our actions, providing continuity and unity to our behavior.

Both individuals and society contribute to defining role identities. In the past, theoretical models of identity development have suggested that identity is formed in early adulthood (Erikson, 1980; Levinson, 1978). Critiques of these age-stage models suggest that identity formation is an on-going process across adulthood, and that adults rearrange, repeat, and often reinvent their self-views based on experiences in the contexts of family, work, education, and relationships (Anderson & Hayes, 1996). The implication of this perspective is that identities can change as a result of recent life experiences and transitions. This multi-state project will consider both models of continuity and discontuity of development to better understand the nature of change as people manage their personal and vocational development.

Identity theory suggests commitment connects an individual to an identity, and identities in turn produce consistent lines of action (Burke and Reitzes, 1991). Commitment to work and family roles, in particular, has been studied by Bielby and Bielby (1989) . They found that performing behaviors that fulfill work and family roles results in these identities becoming a source of meaning and contributing to a persons sense of self. Kroska (1997) found that people select how they will enact work and family activities in a way that affirms their identities. ONeil and Greenberger (1994) also found that commitment to a role strengthens feelings of identity and in turn identity strengthens role relevant actions, relationships, and organizational ties.

Identities are also subject to social messages and constraints. These social messages may impinge upon ones perceived choices in work and family identities. For women, if they stay home they lose status and self-esteem and if they combine mothering and work then they are judged as selfish (Anderson & Hayes, 1996). Social messages and constraints may influence identity development over time.

Commitment to identity affects the actions individuals take when they are faced with decisions and transitions in their lives. If constraints force individuals to enact roles or behaviors inconsistent with their identities, then distress may follow (Kroska, 1997). To lower this distress, individuals may react by changing the meaning of some element of work or family life. Kroska argues commitment to identities may determine the focus of this change. When highly committed to an identity, one may focus on redefining actions or changing the meaning of actions to fit the identity. In contrast, weakly committed identities may be subject to change in response to distress resulting from identity discrepant work patterns. While some theorists propose that commitment to identities is hierarchically arranged, Marks (1977) argues against this position, proposing that human resources of energy and time are flexible and expand and contract depending on systems of commitment. Marks suggested that role strain occurs only when individuals are under- or over-commitment to identities in their lives.

Reciprocal Effects of Transitions and Identity. A prime challenge to individuals sense of identity occurs when individuals are faced with family transitions, such as divorcing or becoming a parent, or work transitions, such as entering the labor force or changing jobs. Couples involved in the family transition of new marriage experienced identity change as intimate partners and holistically as their sense of self (Burke and Cast, 1997). Their research indicated that soon after marriage men became more feminine in their identity and women became more masculine in identity.

Gender, as a social identity, is a crucial variable in influencing how people regard and modify their identities through life transitions (Gerson, 1985; 1993; Kroska, 1997). As early as adolescence, girls differed from boys in their tendency to consider alternatives beyond traditional family roles (Archer, 1985). Archer concluded that females have a more complex identity to establish, because of the greater number of identities they try to incorporate to define themselves.

In marriage relationships, Gerson (1985; 1993) and Bielby and Bielby (1989) examined identities related to work and family. Working women who elect to balance motherhood with strong career identities adopted coping strategies such as limiting family size and inducing male partners to help with child care and with domestic labor (Gerson, 1985). These strategies involved controlling the transition and negotiating other relevant identities. Men, on the other hand, are faced with different options, and may decide to downplay any identity through intimate relationships, fleeing from making commitments to marital partners or children. Other men develop more involved parenting identities, nurturing children at a level not seen in previous generations (Gerson, 1993). In sum, for men, Gerson (1993) and others (Anderson & Hayes, 1996) argue that there is no longer a cultural consensus about the meaning of manhood or mans involvement in family, so that men search and define their own identities. Because of transitions in the 1980s and 1990s, women control reproduction and have greater financial independence. These transitions have diminished mens power within the family. As a result, mens self-esteem may be low and their adult identity confused.

Bielby and Bielby (1989) examined the process by which married men and women form and balance work and family identities. They found that engagement in work and family roles leads to identification with these roles. Husbands with unemployed wives possess stronger work identities than those with employed wives. Wives with unemployed husbands have weaker family identities than those with employed husbands. Married women gave priority to family identities and adjusted work identities to accommodate family identities. For men in this sample, work and family identities operated independently of one another.

In a study of social identity, Deutsch and Saxon (1998) examined blue collar couples who work alternate work shifts and share care of children. They found these couples adjust their traditional gender identities by adhering to beliefs that allow them to continue their commitments to the identities which are the most important to them. In their sample, the employment identities of women were minimized and the employment and breadwinning identities of the men were emphasized. Experience in a work or a family role, hence, ushers in a period in which individuals revise their sense of who they are. Individuals in work roles may have differing perceptions of the meaning of that role in terms of their identity, depending on their gender and social class, their belief systems, and how they feel about other roles in their lives.

Identity, Transitions, and Well-Being . A body of research has found that having multiple identities to which a person is committed and in which a person is experiencing rewards is helpful to individual and family well-being. Identities should positively influence psychological well-being, in part because they provide meaning and guidance for behavior. Another reason multiple identities are found to be helpful is that they can cushion the effects of stress in any one role. Thoits (1983) hypothesized that the more identities a person possesses, the less psychological distress they will have. She found that socially integrated individuals benefit more from identity gain and suffer more from identity loss than isolated individuals. She discovered that multiple identities do not necessarily result in role strain or role conflict. Marks and MacDermid (1996) found that people who maintain balance across their roles score lower on measures of role strain and depression and higher on scores of self-esteem, role ease, and well-being.

The quality of a persons experience in an identity and how that experience relates to other aspects of their lives is important in understanding well-being. For men, for example, the quality of work and family roles contributed equally to psychological health (Barnett, Marshall, & Pleck, 1992). Higher quality marital and parental roles cushioned men from negative mental health affects associated with negative job experiences. Fathers of preschoolers in dual earner marriages with low work and high parent commitment had the least amount of role strain (ONeil & Greenberger, 1994). This result involved dual earner couples at a phase in their parenting with high demands. An intimate partners role commitments and identities affect how the other partner experiences their roles, identities, and ultimately, well-being.

For women in the late 20th century, McKenna (1997) asserted that work has become a primary source of identity. Nonetheless, after years in the workforce, they often find that success in their strongly held employment identity is determined by values created by men. According to McKenna (1997), women find that to succeed they need to engage in self-promotion and intense competition, behaviors that may not be compatible with their holistic sense of themselves. Most women who choose to be mothers must make tradeoffs to maintain employment and maternal identities. McKenna (1997) documents the identity crisis that can occur when womens passion for their work decreases among a group of women with strong employment identities.

Reitzes and Mutran (1994) explored the influences of roles and identities on peoples feelings about their own worth. For both men and women, commitment to work, spouse, and parental identities was related to self-esteem. For women, commitment to the parent role was strongly related to self-esteem. Role accumulation and specific combinations of roles did not influence feelings of self-worth; rather, individuals commitment to the roles they fulfilled and their identities within their roles related to well-being.

How people act in various roles that reflect their identities is vital in understanding the connection between identities and well-being. Burke (1991) contends that it is not necessarily the number of identities that contribute to social stress, but rather the degree to which they interrupt one another. A person may become over-committed to one identity and pull away from others, or certain identities may contain time constraints or conflict with other identities (Burke, 1991; Marks, 1977). In a transition involving providing caregiving and work family conflicts, Marks (1998) found that social organizations place conflicting demands on the role identities of employee, caregiver, and parent. If conflicts between these roles were eliminated, then the caregiving role would lead to positive effects on well-being.

Thoits (1991) recommends merging identity theory with stress research. She calls attention to identity relevant experiences, which either threaten or enhance an identity an individual values highly. In contrast, identity irrelevant experiences occur in roles individuals do not value highly. Because of differential resources, lower status individuals encounter more identity threatening experiences and higher status individuals more identity enhancing experiences. Variation in exposure to identity relevant experiences explains part of the difference in psychological distress between lower and higher status individuals (Thoits, 1991). Reitzes and Mutran (1994) propose that identity and role commitments provide people with a sense of purpose and direction, and hence contribute to positive self-esteem.

Well-being is related to how people act in the identities that are important to them, how the identities may conflict or support each other, how committed they feel to the identities in their lives, and how others in their lives experience their identities and commitments. Understanding and optimizing individuals experiences in work and family-related identities will come from an examination of these concepts and their interconnections, rather than enumerating the number and type of roles people hold. Furthermore, times of transition in work and in family provide excellent opportunities for illuminating how change in identities occurs. Studying how family members construct their identities and experience commitment in identities in various contexts will answer to the conundrum of work and family conflict.

CRIS search . A CRIS search using the key words, GENDER AND IDENTITY, IDENTITY AND COMMITMENT, FAMILY AND IDENTITY, FAMILY AND WELL-BEING, IDENTITY AND WELL-BEING, WORK AND WELL-BEING, WORK AND FAMILY, TRANSITIONS AND GENDER, TRANSITIONS AND FAMILY, and TRANSITIONS AND WORK produced 71 reports. Of these reports, 12 were reports on the work of this technical committee, W-167 Family and Work Linkages. Of the remaining 59 reports none had objectives closely related to this proposed project.

Some studies looked at identity in the context of adolescence, racial group, parenting, or family rituals, but not in the context of work and family. Several studied transitions to midlife, old age, and retirement but again, not in the context of work and family. Several studied family and well-being in the context of welfare reform, parenting processes, community, and economic changes. None of these studies address the importance of identity in the work and family. Several studies explored work and well-being in the context of labor markets, but do not address concerns of work, family, and identity.

It can be concluded from the CRIS search that this proposed project contributes a new dimension to research on work, family, and identity by examining how these factors relate to one another. In contrast to previous work the proposed project will investigate the effects of work and family transitions on identity, the effects of work and family transitions on well-being, and the association between identity and well-being.

Objectives

1. To determine the effects of work and family transitions on identity
   
2. To examine the impact of identities on work and family transition outcomes
   
3. To determine the effects of work and family transitions on well-being
   
4. To examine the association between identity and well-being
   
5. 
   

Methods

Measurement of Progress and Results

Outputs

Outcomes or Projected Impacts

Milestones

(0):0

Projected Participation

View Appendix E: Participation

Outreach Plan

Organization/Governance

The organization of the technical Committee will be in accordance with the Manual for Cooperative Regional Research SEA-CR/OD-1082. The Technical Committee will consist of an Administrative advisor, a CSREES Representative and designated representatives from each participating experiment station. Annual meetings of the Technical Committee will be held where the progress of the project will be discussed and problems in facilitating this research will be addressed. At all meetings dissemination strategies, such as publications and presentations will be addressed as well.


Officers . All voting members of the Technical Committee are eligible for office, regardless of sponsoring agency affiliation. The officers shall consist of a Chair and a Secretary. The Chair, in consultation with the Administrative Advisor, will notify the Technical Committee members of the time and place of meetings, prepare agenda and preside over meetings. The Chair and the secretary are responsible for the preparation of the annual report of the project. The secretary also records the minutes of Technical Committee meetings and performs other duties assigned by the Technical Committee.


Subcommittees . An executive committee consisting of the Chair and other members of the Technical Committee may be designated to conduct the business of the committee between meetings and perform other duties as assigned by the technical committee. Other subcommittees may be named by the Chair as needed for specific assignments. These subcommittees may develop methods and procedures, review work assignments, prepare publications etc.

Literature Cited

Attachments

Land Grant Participating States/Institutions

CA, UT

Non Land Grant Participating States/Institutions

Texas Tech University