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W167: Family and Work Identities During Times of Transition

Annual/Termination Reports (SAES-422): [03/14/2002] [12/13/2002] [12/01/2003] [12/27/2004]

Date of Annual Report: 03/14/2002

Report Information:
  • (STILL IN DRAFT VERSION)
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 10/26/01 to 10/27/01
  • Period the Report Covers: 10/1999 to 09/2001

    • Participants:
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:
    W-167 annual meeting was held in Seattle, Washington on October 26-27, 2001. Because our project did not have an Administrative Advisor assigned until late spring of this year, we were unable to meet as a group in 2000.

    Accomplishments:
    A very brief report was submitted last year; hence this report includes accomplishments for two years. During this time period most of the stations continued to disseminate findings from the previous iteration of this project (Family and Work Linkages). The W-167 website (under The Cooperative Extension System website: Cyfernet) was up-dated with one-page summaries of the work of each station (www.cyfernet.org). Further activities took the form of presenting papers, submitting and publishing articles, and sharing results in our communities. Relevant to the Family and Work Identities project, development of survey instruments is well underway or completed at all six stations. A brief description of some of the specific activities in the two years since our last meeting follows. California presented two papers at conferences and was on the radio. This station has been developing a research instrument to be used to collect longitudinal data through personal interviews with children and family members who participated in her previous rounds of data collection. Interviews will begin soon. Two graduate students associated with the Idaho station defended Master?s degrees, and Idaho presented a paper at a professional meeting. Relevant to the new round of data collection they have received Human Subjects approval and will soon conduct both qualitative and quantitative research in Sandpoint, Idaho. The Montana station made two presentations since our last meeting and submitted an article to a professional journal with the Oregon station. Montana recently mailed surveys to parents in Washington who attended a "Children Cope with Divorce" class and to parents in Montana who participated in a "Co-parenting after Divorce" class. She will evaluate the efficacy of these courses as part of her research. The Oregon station published two book chapters, has a paper in press at a journal, and another under consideration (with Montana). Oregon is in the middle of collecting data through personal interviews with women who travel for work (flight attendants, high tech support workers, and women who work for international nonprofit agency workers). New Mexico will be studying a sample of working class Mexican-Americans who are employed in the secretarial pool and the physical plant at NMSU. These workers will be compared with coal miners in Pennsylvania and fishing families in Prince Edward Island, Canada. Contacts have been made with colleagues in these states who will collaborate with New Mexico. Their research instrument has been approved by their Human Subject Committee. The Utah station presented four papers, published one paper and have four others under review by journals (one accepted for publication), and participated in a number of dissemination activities (panels, radio interviews, workshops, etc.). They are presently developing a survey to be used with the rapidly growing Latino population in Logan. Comparisons will be made between this population and the Anglo population on adjustment to work and family identities.

    Work Plans for 2001-2002: All stations expect to have data collected and analysis underway by our next meeting. To the extent feasible, data analysis will culminate in submissions of papers to professional conferences and journals. Oregon and Utah each have two papers accepted for presentation at the Persons, Processes and Places: Research on Families, Workplaces and Communities conference sponsored by the Sloan Foundation in February 2002.

    We have several plans regarding collaboration and extension activities for the next year. These include: update the Cyfernet web page through the webmaster at the University of Idaho; explore the possibility of participation in a refereed symposium in the 2002 meetings of the National Council for Family Relations and/or the Family Economics Conference; organize a presentation for CYFAR (New Mexico Station is reponsible); work on development of a monograph for practioners on children/youth and work through the University of California-Davis 4-H Development program (California station in the lead); explore the possibility of the project producing a special issue on work-family identity for a major academic journal (Utah station will check with editors); meet in San Francisco at the Sloan Foundation conference to further develop special issue idea (Oregon and Utah); stations will remain in contact to share measures and ideas.

    Impact Statements:
    Last Modified: unknown

    Date of Annual Report: 12/13/2002

    Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 10/18/02 to 10/19/02
  • Period the Report Covers: 10/2001 to 09/2002

    • Participants:
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:
    Chair: Anisa Zvonkovic (OR)
    Secretary: Pam Riley (UT)
    Chair Elect: Cindy Schmiege (ID)

    October 18, 2002

    Meeting called to order at 9 am, introductions were made and the minutes of the last meeting approved as amended.

    Station Reports
    California. Developed literature review of childhood and adolescent developmental factors linked to development of vocational identity for W-167 monograph. Brenda recommends use of the Internet to locate follow-up participants for longitudinal study (Online Detective).

    Idaho. Currently collecting both quantitative and qualitative data on women in rural poverty; about one-fourth finished. Sue Traver will e-mail the committee a model to of what it requires of a community to nurture a child.

    Montana. Data collection (mail surveys) on post divorce parenting of people who participated in parenting classes completed. Now helping to evaluate Northwest Parenting program and sharing information with Extension agents. Sandy distributed Weaving Together Family and Work document she wrote for MSU Extension Service.

    New Mexico. Collected questionnaire data from employees of NMSU physical plant.

    Oregon. Analyzing personal interview data collected on women who travel frequently for work (flight attendants, high tech consultants and employees of nonprofit aid and adoption organizations). Primarily looking at occupational lives at this point- finding these women have very strong work identities, optimal levels of travel, and interesting gender differences. Rich text suggests book potential. Brenda will look into extension specialists at Davis participating once Anisa sends her the information. Sue and Cindy will invite Anisa to make a presentation at All College of Agriculture and Science Conference at Idaho.

    Utah. Data collection presently in process (80 of 100 couples have been surveyed). Pam will forward article describing their drop-off/pick-up procedure she and Gary published in The Rural Sociologist. Pam is retiring in July 2003 and Gary has been named Dean. The plan is for USU to have new participants in place by the next meeting.

    Administrative Advisor Report
    Dissemination: Linda Fox stated that the Station reports reflect a lot of synergy attesting to the importance of working as a group to share expertise. She recommends our group consider attending the Galaxy II Conference 21-25 September 2003 in Salt Lake. This constitutes the meeting of 4 Cooperative Extension professional associations together and our work would fit well.

    Progress report format: Reporting system is now all electronic and on the NIMSS web site. Linda shared the ?Format for Multistate Research Activity Accomplishments Report? she must submit. We should keep this in mind as we do our individual reports. We should focus on including impacts of our work. An example would be Anisa?s ?tip sheet? for use by employers. Anna-Mae pointed out it is useful to show how our findings are being used by others (e.g., for training, etc). Reports must be submitted 60 days after this meeting. If stations desire to revise Progress reports submitted at this meeting, send revised version to Linda electronically as soon as possible and no later than 1 November. Chair next year should send a reminder about formatting to folks before next meeting.

    Third-year review of Multistate Research Projects: In March of 2003 the Regional Coordination and Implementation Committee (RCIC), a subcommittee of Western Regional Director?s group will conduct an 3rd year evaluation of our project. Linda distributed Appendix I, showing components of the review to prepare us.

    CSREES Report
    Anna-Mae Kobbe reported she has a new appointment as Director of Family Consumer Science & Nutrition in CSREES so our Liaison will likely change in a couple of months.

    She had several suggestions for us:
    1. She is currently working on partnering with Health and Human Services- perhaps there might be funding streams available associated with TANIF, or other sources, for some of us.

    2. Multistate project: Psychology of Saving, may be doing some things of interest to us and vice-versa.
    3. We might consider a symposium at the Family and Consumer Sciences 2004 meetings in Nashville.
    4. Journal of Extension is a venue for people to consider publishing in.

    Linda mentioned ESCOP Social Science Research Committee, meeting in DC in February, might be a group that could use folks more family oriented; she will be going joining this committee and will check on how interested stations might become involved.


    Dissemination: Reports of on going projects
    Monograph
    Vital Engagement: Preparing Our children for Satisfying Employment Tomorrow, has been submitted for review to UC. Davis 4-H Center. This was a joint project with California, Idaho, Montana and Oregon participating. Linda will get mailing list of Western Regional Directors to Brenda for dissemination of the Monograph.

    NCFR Symposium
    Gary organized a symposium in the Work Family Focus Group section of the NCFR for W-167 members to participate in. The meeting will be held next month in Houston and papers will be presented by Utah, Idaho and Oregon Stations and Diana Del Campo (NM) will be one of the discussants.

    Workforce Development Conference
    Sandy, Cindy and Anisa submitted a proposal for a session in this conference titled: Both Sides of the Work Family Equation

    Dissemination: New Ideas
    Galaxy II
    RFPs are on the web (www.cnr.usu.edu/galaxy2). Anna-Mae suggests our work might be good for a pre-conference. Since it is in September, we will consider piggy-backing our Multistate Project meeting with Galaxy.

    Links with Extension
    Agreed to include discussion of how we connect with extension in our work in next report.

    Cyfernet
    We should update our work on the web through the editor of the Parent/Family section of Cyfernet. The editor is June Mead and she is at Cornell Cooperative Extension (jm62@cornell.edu). We need to put links to our research on and/or add to descriptions of our work and findings. Anna-Mae will contact her and ask her to e-mail us for information (of course you could e-mail her directly).

    Archival Format
    Brenda distributed a bibliography of cumulative publications of the Multistate group for 2000-2005. To aid Brenda, when writing the annual report use the following categories: Refereed Publications, Chapters in Books, Presentations at Professional Meetings, Theses and Dissertations, General Audience Presentations, Electronic Publications, and Mass Media
    .
    2003 Meeting
    Plan A: September 20, the day prior to the Galaxy meeting, Salt Lake City
    Plan B: October 24-25, San Francisco (or Davis)

    Officers for 2003 were elected: Chair: Cindy Schmiege; Chair Elect: Bob Del Campo (2004); Secretary: Sandy Bailey.

    Bob suggested the group recognize out-going project participants, Pam and Gary, for their contributions.

    Meeting adjourned at 4:45 pm.

    Saturday, October 19

    Participants met to discuss plans for the Galaxy II Conference in 2003. Sandy Bailey and Sue Traver are each going to submit a proposal which, together, will include 6 presenters. Part I will be on Children and Part II will be on Family. Also included in Part I will be a presentation describing the W-167 Regional Project and how one goes about joining. Each presenter is sending a 2 sentence description of their presentation to Sandy or Sue to help them write the 240 word description.

    Accomplishments:
    Brenda Bryant (California) reported she completed the literature review of childhood and adolescent developmental factors linked to development of vocational identity for W-167 monograph. Brenda recommends use of the Internet to locate follow-up participants for longitudinal study (Online Detective). Cindy Schmiege and Sue Traver (Idaho) reported they are currently collecting both quantitative and qualitative data on women in rural poverty; about one-fourth finished. They will e-mail the committee a model to of what it requires of a community to nurture a child. Sandra Bailey (Montana) reported she completed data collection (mail surveys) on post divorce parenting of people who participated in parenting classes completed. Now helping to evaluate Northwest Parenting program and sharing information with Extension educators. Sandy distributed Weaving Together Family and Work document she wrote for MSU Extension Service. Bob DelCampo and Diana DelCampo (New Mexico) reported they are preparing to analyze data collected via questionnaire data from employees of NMSU physical plant. Anisa Zvonkovic (Oregon) is analyzing personal interview data collected on women who travel frequently for work (flight attendants, high tech consultants and employees of nonprofit aid and adoption organizations). Primarily looking at occupational lives at this point- finding these women have very strong work identities, optimal levels of travel, and interesting gender differences. The richness of the interview data suggests book potential. Pam Riley and Gary Kiger (Utah) are presently collecting data (80 of 100 couples have been surveyed). Pam will forward article describing their door-to-to survey drop-off/pick-up procedure she and Gary published in The Rural Sociologist. Daphne Stevens worked on the project Spring semester 2002 and completed her dissertation using project data. Krista Lynn Preheim, also a doctoral student, worked on the project in the Fall of 2001 and continues this academic year. She is currently writing her dissertation using project data. During the 2002-03 academic year they added a new master‘s degree student, Heather Davis. Pam is retiring in July 2003 and Gary has been made a Dean, the plan is for Utah State University to have new participants in place by the next meeting.

    Impact Statements:
    1. Twenty-two County Extension Educators in Montana received research information and ideas to present programming on balancing work and family in their counties with the potential to reach families across the state. Bailey, S. J. "Balancing Work and Family." Workshop presented at the MSU Extension Family and Consumer Science Agent Update, Bozeman, MT, May, 2001.
    2. Nineteen city and county employees in eastern Montana gained information on work and family spillover, plus practical ideas on how to manage spillover. Bailey, S. J. "Spilling Over: Family to Work and Work to Family." Workshop presented to the Fallon County City/County employees.
    3. Extension educators and other course facilitators in Montana will use this information to make any necessary changes to their class. They have documentation that parents taking the course assists them in the parenting process following divorce. Bailey, S. J. (June, 2002). An Evaluation of the Washington "Children Cope with Divorce" Class. Unpublished technical report to Chelan/Douglas County Extension.
    4. The Extension educators and other course facilitators in Montana will use this information to make any necessary changes to their class. They have documentation that parents taking the course assists them in the parenting process following divorce. Bailey, S. J. (September, 2002). An Evaluation of the Montana "Co-Parenting Through Divorce?" Class. Unpublished technical report to Cascade County Extension.
    Last Modified: unknown

    Date of Annual Report: 12/01/2003

    Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 10/24/03 to 10/25/03
  • Period the Report Covers: 10/2002 to 09/2003

    • Participants:
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:
    Please see attachment.


    URL: Copy of minutes

    Accomplishments:
    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;

    Sandra Bailey (MT) disseminated results at National Council for Family Relations (NCFR) and at the workforce conference (with ID and OR). Sandra continued dissemination of the MSU Extension Montguide on work and family (967 paper copies and 3,847 hits on website). Brenda Bryant (CA) reported she used Online Detective to identify 16 public websites for locating subjects who were first studied as children and who now are adults in her longitudinal study. In the past year she revised the monograph developed last year by W-167 researchers (CA, OR, MT, ID). Brenda wrote a chapter for a book aimed at child therapists to help families make decisions about their teens seeking employment. Bob and Diana Del Campo (NW) reported completion of data collection from NMSU facility services plant employees and are in progress of collecting data at the Zuni Pueblo. Also data gathered from Canada and Mississippi through collaborating with other researchers in those locations. Last year a student thesis was completed on the data and journal article published from thesis. Susan Mannon (UT) will be joining the W-167 project, replacing two previous members. She reported the Spanish language survey has been translated and back translated but there will be a delay in administering the survey. Cindy Schmiege (ID) reported on dissemination of results from sample of university staff and faulty. She plans to continue collection of qualitative data next year. Randy Weigel (WY) will join the W-167 project. He reported on related research regarding rural and farm/ranch families in the West.

    Impact Statements:
    1. County Extension Educators in Montana received research information and ideas to present programming on balancing work and family in their counties with the potential to reach families across the state.
    2. Extension educators and other course facilitators in Montana will use this information to make any necessary changes to their class.
    3. Oregon developed a newsletter for all respondents in the study. The newsletter covers topics related to communicating between women travelers and their families.
    4. A grant proposal was submitted to NIH on job travel and personal and family well being.
    Last Modified: unknown

    Date of Annual Report: 12/27/2004

    Report Information:
  • Annual Meeting Dates: 11/05/04 to 11/06/04
  • Period the Report Covers: 10/2003 to 09/2004

    • Participants:
    Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting:
    Approval of minutes: Motion to approve the minutes from the October 24-24, 2003 Technical Committee meeting was approved.

    Introductions: Robert G. Del Campo was introduced as a new member of the project. Dr. Del Campo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Organization Studies at the University of New Mexico. He brings a valuable business perspective to the group.

    Announcements: The following committee members will not be participating in the project after this year: Brenda Bryant (California), Susan Mannon (Utah), Cynthia Schmiege (Idaho), and Susan Traver (Idaho).

    Annual Report and Station Reports: Electronic copies of all station reports were distributed via email before the Technical Committee Meeting. Hard copies were provided at the meeting for those missing station reports.

    Brenda Bryant led a discussion of the critical review, the first draft of which she was responsible for putting together. Brenda expressed difficulty in writing up the critical review and making it cohesive since it was unclear how certain stations addressed various objectives of the project. For example, some stations measured specific types of transitions, while others did not. Sandy Bailey pointed out that the original proposal set out to use two common measures: role balance (Marks and MacDermitt) and identity (Callero). Anisa Zvonkovic, however, noted that not all stations followed this procedure. Sandy concurred and added that different stations interpreted identity and transitions differently.

    Anisa agreed to finish up the critical review. Edits and/or additions to the critical review should be sent to Anisa using track changes by November 24, 2004. Anisa will complete and disseminate a second draft of the critical review by December 8, 2004. Sandy agreed to take over the running publications list. Edits and/or additions to this list are due to Sandy by November 24, 2004.

    Administrative Advisor Report: Linda Fox distributed updated guidelines for multi-state projects, which everyone should have on file. These updated guidelines are also available on-line.

    Linda responded to a question about who makes up the review committee for multi-state proposals. Each committee consists of representatives from agricultural extension, agricultural experiment stations, and human and agricultural sciences. Three members of the committee are assigned to read each proposal. These assignments are not made until late in the process. The group submitting the proposal is also responsible for providing names of four external reviewers. Suggestions for possible external reviewers should be sent to Linda by November 24. Include the name, phone number, and email of the person. The current list of possible reviewers includes:

    * Bonnie Braun (University of Maryland)-Linda;

    * Angela Wiley (Illinois)-Anna Mae;

    * Caroline Crocell (CSREES)-Anna Mae;

    * Ramona Marotz-Baden (Montana State)-Sandy;

    * Deb Gentry (Illinois)-Sandy;

    Report from USDA: Anna Mae Kobbe reported on new staff people at the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service. First is Dr. Mary McPhail Gray (mgray@csrees.usda.gov), who is the new Deputy Administrator for Families, 4-H, and Nutrition. As such, she works closely with Anna Mae in acting as a liaison between various institutions and the federal government.

    Other new staff people include:

    * Dr. Caroline Crocoll (ccrocoll@csrees.usda.gov), the new National Program Leader for Family Life and Human Development;

    * Dr. Suzanne LeMenestrel (slemenestrel@csrees.usda.gov), the new National Program Leader for Youth Development Research;

    * Dr. Barbara Stone (bstone@csrees.usda.gov), the new National Program Leader for Professional Development and Youth Development;

    CSREES is also currently interviewing for two positions in maternal health and nutrition research.

    Obesity research continues to be a key priority for the federal government. Human development is a critical part of this issue, but is perhaps not getting enough attention. For example, the relationship between work intensification and food consumption is not being adequately addressed. We may want to contact Dr. Caroline Crocell to have our research on work-family issues highlighted on the CSREES website in this regard.

    The marriage initiative also continues to be a priority area. Other important issues include the war, Medicare, social security, debt, and job outsourcing. The administration will continue to emphasize performance-based budgeting, in which impacts of research will need to be shown (e.g. pounds lost for obesity research).

    Anna Mae suggested collaborating with other multi-state teams working on related issues. Projects in the north central and southern regions, for example, are working on welfare reform. Another group is looking at family economic issues. We may want to do a CRIS search to see if there are any possibilities for collaboration with these groups.

    Proposal Update: Brenda Bryant introduced the new project proposal developed by a sub-committee at a summer weekend retreat in Lake Tahoe. The committee consisted of Brenda Bryant, Susan Mannon, Randy Weigel, and Anisa Zvonkovic. Brenda remarked that the collaborative process worked really well at this meeting. In particular, the group began by discussing research ideas and topics that were meaningful to each member. As such, each member became very invested in the project. To achieve this kind of collaboration in the future, Brenda suggested that we change the meeting time from the fall to the summer.

    Following Brenda's introduction, the issue was raised whether the topic was interesting enough given federal priorities. The general consensus was that lifestyle issues figure prominently among federal government priorities. As a result, the topic was deemed timely and important. There were some suggestions that we include a paragraph at the very beginning of the proposal that tied in the issue of healthy lifestyles, but it was agreed that we would just tweak some of the sentences to convey this connection.

    Randy Weigel commented that we may want to tweak the target audiences since two people on the proposal sub-committee have backed out of the project. To this end, Bob Del Campo suggested we broaden female immigrants to include Latinas in general. The other two target populations "female professionals and female ranchers/farmers" were deemed acceptable as is. The group agreed that these target audiences need to be defined in the proposal. Randy will obtain the specific definition of female farmer/rancher from the Census of Agriculture. Anisa will obtain the occupational categories that will help specify female professionals. Latinas will be defined as foreign-born women from Latin America, as well as self-identified first and second-generation Latin American immigrants. The following stations will focus on Latinas and female professionals: New Mexico and Oregon. The following stations will focus on female ranchers and farmers: Montana and Wyoming. Each station will attempt to recruit women for the focus groups from diverse class backgrounds and family structures.

    Other suggestions for the proposal included:

    * Model 1, developed by Brenda and Anisa, will be added to the proposal just after the figure depicting Griswold's (1994) cultural diamond model. Sandy and Anisa accepted the responsibility for inserting Model 1 into the proposal.

    * The introduction of the Methods section should feature a short paragraph that specifies the details of focus group and content analysis research. Again, Sandy and Anisa accepted responsibility for making this addition.

    * The plans for Year 5 should be changed such that reaching out to magazine editors is no longer an objective. The group agreed that the focus should be on discovering the central issues of the target populations, determining if these issues are being addressed in the media, and (if not) addressing the needs of the target populations.

    The title agreed on by the group was The Changing Landscape of Women in Rural America: Understanding Work, Family, and Personal Issues.

    A key issue raised by several people was the importance of close collaboration in this next project. Given the need to distinguish ourselves as a multi-state research project, and not a coordinating committee, we need to stress common measures/methods and collaborative research. This will involve creating a shared data set. Anisa voiced concern about issues of authorship, data ownership, and station resources for coding. These will need to be worked out at the next Technical Committee meeting.

    Linda suggested that we make efforts to increase membership in the multi-state project both to account for the people dropping out and to improve the quality of our proposal. Anisa suggested we think about the current proposal and invite people to join the group based on where there are expertise gaps, such as media analysis. Bob voiced some concern that efforts to recruit new members were unsuccessful in years past. He also pointed out that just two stations are necessary for a multi-state project, and that having fewer people might be better for collaboration purposes. Suggestions for recruitment included:

    * Ag communications person -Anna Mae and Sandy;

    * Email listserves -Anna Mae and Randy;

    * Scholar in Pennsylvania -Anisa;

    * Shawn Brotherson (rural couples) -Anisa, Anna Mae, and Randy;

    * Stacey Hedrick (South Dakota) -Randy ;

    * Barbara Petty (County educator, Idaho) -Anna Mae;

    * Kelly Brownell (Yale-environmental influences affecting health)-Anna Mae;

    * Angela Wiley -Anna Mae;

    Susan will send the second draft of the proposal to everyone alongside the meeting minutes. Edits/additions assigned in these minutes should be provided to Sandy by December 1, 2004. Sandy will send the third draft out on December 3. Responses to this third draft should be made to Sandy by December 15. Bob and Randy are responsible for completing Appendix E of the proposal. The deadline for the proposal is January 15. Any necessary revisions will be requested around the end of March, and will be due by May 15. Acceptance/rejection of the proposal should be made by mid-July.

    Officers for 2005: In 2005, Randy Weigel will be chair and Anisa Zvonkovic will be secretary. For the sake of the proposal, Randy will now serve as the point person. Next year, the meeting will be in Portland, Oregon, with Bozeman, Montana as a back-up location. The meeting will take place from October 7-8, with October 6 as a travel day.

    Accomplishments:
    Objectives:

    1. To determine the effects of work and family transitions on identity;

    2. To examine the impact of identities of 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;

    Objective 1 Oregon studied women who travel extensively in their work as project managers, programmers, etc. and enhanced the sample size. It was found that these women work hard in advance of trips to buffer their families from having to take on her normal work at home. Women expressed frustration in that they could not be more available to their children. In contrast to what happens when men have travel demands in their employment, women compiled plans, posting lists of their children's extra school activities, made special arrangements, limiting the need for fathers to take on these responsibilities. Wyoming reports that ranch/farm family stress impacts producers and their families. It prevents producers and their families from seeking help for personal or family challenges.

    Montana found that after divorce, the perception of co-workers, friends, and family members is important in how divorced persons view competence in parenting and the work component of their lives. Overall, work and family transitions of individuals affect how they view themselves in relation to others and remain dependent upon how others view their transitions. Employers and family members can be important in helping individuals manage their transitions constructively.

    Objective 2

    Utah found that maintaining informal relationships in the community appears to contribute to overload at work and home. New Mexico found that the less acculturated the Mexican-Americans in the sample were, the more commitment they had for their work. This suggests that recent immigrants have an unusual commitment for work that needs to be recognized. Following divorce, Montana found that non-custodial parents seem to throw themselves into work more than custodial parents, perhaps to counter the loss of time with their children. Wyoming reports that the impact of an agricultural crisis, including agra-terrorism threatens ranchers and farmers. This can lead to considerable stress for first responders in an agricultural crisis. In general, stations are finding that the impact of identities on work and family transition outcomes is related to the nature of the identities. One application of this finding could be that employers capitalize on this knowledge by providing individual recognition for the heightened commitment during times of transition.

    Objective 3

    California reported that among youth working more than 15-20 hours per week, most can tolerate this schedule without an undesirable toll on their psychological well-being. California also found an increase in substance abuse (i.e. marijuana and alcohol) to be associated with exposure to work stress. Working long hours at a young age may be promoting a lifestyle that promotes health risks among adolescents whose mothers enter full-time employment. Maintaining access to emotional availability of a parent, not physical availability was critical for youth to maintain a feeling of well-being. Oregon found that traveling for work and reaching a travel saturation (an average of 46 nights away per year) was more characteristic of employees with seniority. Upon return home there was a back log of work both at home and the office. It was reported that most women struggled to get back into the office routine. In Montana depression, self-esteem and positive affect were closely linked to life satisfaction of custodial parents following divorce. This was not found to be true for non-custodial parents. Generally, transitions tend to require a shift of focus but still require stability in having emotional needs met for self and family.

    Objective 4

    New Mexico found that among Anglo-Americans having a strong sense of who they were as individuals was positively related to experiencing their marriage as one of quality and being satisfied with family relationships. New Mexico also found that there was no apparent need for Mexican-Americans regardless of level of acculturation to have a strong sense of individuality to experience well-being in their marriage and family relationships. There appear to be some differences in how identity affects family relationships depending on ethnicity.

    Impact Statements:
    1. Data from this project are being utilized by graduate students to develop master‘s thesis projects.
    2. Data have been shared with selected state task force and legislative groups to make policy recommendations.
    3. Plans are underway to integrate findings from this project with healthcare clinics and regional healthcare facilities in an effort to train paraprofessionals in behavioral services to agricultural and rural families.
    4. Plans are underway to share data with youth development programs (e.g. 4-H) to foster quality citizenship development program for American youth.
    5. Extension personnel have been given a longitudinal evaluation tool that was developed as a result of this project.
    6. Thousands of people received information through Extension Publications in the participating states on issues related to balancing work and family.
    7. Information based upon the results of this project were disseminated through television and radio appearances by participants in this project. The information reached tens of thousands of people.
    8. Information related to marital dissatisfaction has been disseminated online.
    Last Modified: unknown
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