Family relationships beyond the household

This research project focuses on socio-demographic factors and the structure of family intergenerational transfers. It was used methods of descriptive statistic and modeles of binary choice to identify the features of the behavior of Russian households in the field of family intergenerational transfers, depending on the socio-demographic characteristics of people.

The myth that young South African fathers play little role in raising their children is quickly being dispelled. Using rich longitudinal data on children (n=1,209) from the Cape Town area, we show that while only 26% of young fathers live with their children, over 60% of non-residential fathers maintain regular contact and provide financial support. Fathers’ engagement, however, is mediated by their relationship with the child’s mother (conjugal ties) and the child’s grandparents (consanguineous bonds). Men’s relationship with the child’s mother at the time of pregnancy largely determines co-residence, but has little impact on his contact with non-residential children. Strong bonds between mothers and maternal grandmothers diminish rates of fathers’ co-residence, while close ties between fathers and paternal grandmothers increases contact with non-residential children. Lastly, neither conjugal nor consanguineous bonds affect financial contributions, which are primarily dependent on men’s current economic situation. These findings illustrate the importance of conjugal and consanguineous ties and also challenge stereotypes about fathers’ relationships with non-residential children.

The purpose of this study is to identify the socio-economic factors influencing depression among infertile women who received treatment of assisted reproduction technologies and provide the information of evidence-based heath care program for infertile women.

Method:
- Retrospective study involving self-report questionnaire and focus group
interviews from June to September, 2010.
- For the data analysis, technical statistics, χ2-test, multiple regression and logistic regression analysis using SPSS/WIN 14.0 program.

Result: Financial burden of medical treatment, duration since infertility diagnosis, relationship with husband and in-laws were significant factors, which explained 21.9% of the variance in depression among infertile women( p<.001). In logistic regression analysis, a severe level of depression was found among the infertile women who experienced the high degree of financial burden(OR=2.92), broken intimate relationship with husband and his family(OR=3.11, OR=2.01), were diagnosed infertility over two years ago(OR=3.15).

Conclusion: Emotional support from husband and in-laws was identified to relieve depression of infertile women. The depression care intervention should target first the infertile women who were in low economic classes and diagnosed infertility over two years ago.

International research on individual behaviour has shown the importance of the network of relationships that bind the individuals to the people who are close to them.
Mainly in those countries, such as Italy, where the welfare system and the national agencies are weak and unable to suitably support people facing difficulties, the network’s role can be substantial.
For the Italian scenario, the 2003 and 2009 Multipurpose survey, “Famiglia e Soggetti Sociali” (FSS), carried out by ISTAT offers some challenges to measure the ego-centered social support networks of Italian couples along the different phases of family formation.
Focusing on individuals aged between 18 to 44 years old living as couples, our research questions concern:
• the characteristics of partners’ ego-social support networks;
• the types of help couples receive from people outside the immediate family;
• the effect of network typologies on the probability of receiving help in the household life course.
First results show a narrow social support network. Slight differences in partners’ availability of resources also emerge. The couple’s network size or even only the female’s network size has a significant positive effect on the probability of receiving help. Nevertheless, relying on the male social support network reduces this probability.

Evidence suggests that kin presence may be correlated with fertility, but variation in how kin ‘presence’ is measured makes firm conclusions hard to draw. Using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey, we investigate how the measure of kin availability influences the effect of kin on fertility using three measures of kin ‘presence’: survivorship, co-residence, and proximity of a woman’s parents and parents-in-law. We find that co-residence with parents-in-law results in higher fertility, while living with parents does not, but that living in close proximity to parents increases fertility, while living near in-laws does not. The results may suggest that maternal and paternal kin influence fertility through different mechanisms. Paternal kin may increase the fertility of daughters-in-law by reducing their autonomy in the household, while maternal kin may help daughters who live nearby, allowing them to attain higher fertility than would be possible without help.

Households transfer substantial wealth between generations under various motives. Apart from life cycle consumption smoothing and old age security purposes, parents transfer wealth to children with motivations of altruism, exchange, strategic or risk sharing. Theoretically, altruism predicts a one to one correspondence between parental income and child income. Under exchange, transfer is positively related to the services provided by the child. When strategic motive is operative, the ex ante transfer is motivated by the services provided by each child. This paper empirically examines the transfer motives in India using a 2006-07 primary data from 315 urban households. The decision on transfer is estimated by Probit equation and the size of transfer is estimated by Tobit equation with parental and child characteristics. The estimated results show that the basic motivation for transfer is one of exchange. Indian households exchange wealth largely for the support and services provided by the children.