Predictors of paternal participation in childcare and housework are examined. A longitudinal sample of 66 couples expecting their 1st child completed extensive questionnaires during the wives' last trimester of pregnancy and 3-8 months after birth. Regressions were conducted in which paternal participation in childcare and housework were regressed on variables pertaining to each of 4 models of paternal participation: relative economic resource, structural, family systems, and sex role attitude. Composite models of paternal participation in housework and childcare were then developed. Fathers' involvement in childcare is best explained by mothers' work hours and fathers' feminism. Fathers' contribution to housework seems best explained by discrepancies in income between spouses, wives' occupational prestige, and dynamics in the marriage. Differences in the determinants of fathers' contributions to childcare and housework are discussed.The benefits of increased paternal involvement in childcare for fathers, children, and mothers have been identified in previous studies. Fathers who are highly involved in childcare report increased closeness with their children (Hood & Golden, 1979;Russell, 1982), greater feelings of competence as fathers (Baruch & Barnett, 1986), more positive attitudes toward child rearing, and greater satisfaction with parenting (Easterbrooks & Goldberg, 1984). Moreover, children with highly involved fathers adopt fewer sex role stereotypes (Carlson, 1984), demonstrate more productive problem-solving behavior (Easterbrooks

This short-term longitudinal study expands on previous theoretical approaches, as we examined how women's assertiveness and the strategies they use to elicit more household labor from husbands help to explain the division of labor and how it changes. Participants included 81 married women with 3-and 4-year-old children who completed two telephone interviews, approximately 2 months apart. Results based on quantitative and qualitative analyses show that (a) relative resource, structural, and gender ideology variables predicted the division of housework, but not childcare; (b) assertive women were closer to their ideal division of childcare than nonassertive women; (c) women who made a larger proportion of family income were less assertive about household labor than other women, but when they were assertive, they had a more equal division of childcare; (d) women who earned the majority of their household's income showed the least change; and (e) the nature of women's attempts to elicit change may be critical to their success.

This study examined the effects of China's one-child policy on two traditional aspects of Chinese family life: filial piety and patrilineality. Eighty-four graduating university seniors, who were part of the first cohort born under the onechild policy, were interviewed about their life plans. Comparisons between only children and those with siblings showed that only children were as likely to plan on helping their parents as were those with siblings and were more likely to intend to reside in the same city. The only children seemed to feel especially responsible for their parents' happiness because of their singleton status. Among only children and those with siblings, patrilineal norms seemed weak. Students'mentions of family structure to explain their decisions suggest that the one-child policy is undermining patrilineal norms.

A selective review of various conceptual positions within a historic framework is used to address four issues: whether an empathic response is an understanding or sharing of affect; whether an empathic response is a response to an object, another’s affect, and/or circumstance; which mechanisms explain empathy, and is self-other differentiation required by various definitions. This discussion is related to an examination of representative, predictive and situational measures. Comments are made regarding the reliability and construct validity of certain measures. The implications of this evidence for the use and the development of measures are advanced. A cognitive theoretical perspective is applied, in which variables that influence empathic learning are discussed with several applications of data, to assist in our understanding of empathy.

Conventional images of motherhood and fatherhood, social interactions, and genderbased job pressures push couples toward unequal parenting. Equally sharing parents resist those pressures, and construct equality through everyday negotiations and ongoing decisions about family and work. They do not believe that mothers are more responsible for children, or more suited to care for them, than fathers. They avoid gender-based decisions about jobs that reinforce a gender-based division of labor at home. Qualitative research is necessary to unravel the complex interactions between work and family arrangements, and to show how economic, social, and ideological factors constrain family arrangements, but are also transformed in their creation.

No abstract

Women have been observed to smile more than men in a variety of social contexts. In order to investigate the consequences of this sex difference for the way men and women are perceived, male and female college students rated the characteristics of men and women depicted in verbal descriptions accompanied by photographs in which they either smiled or did not smile. In control conditions these targets were rated without accompanying photographs. The findings showed that the absence of smiles had a greater impact on perceptions of women than on perceptions of men. When not smiling, women were perceived as less happy, less carefree and less relaxed than were men. Moreover, nonsmiling women were rated less happv, less warm, less relaxed and less carefree than the average woman, whereas smiling men were rated more favorably on those traits than the average man. These results suggest that different standards are applied to men and women. If women fail to perform expressive and warm nonverbal behavior, they will be evaluated more harshly than men.

Praise and criticism reported by parents was examined to investigate the double standard of parenting for men and women. Transcripts from interviews with parents were coded for the types of praise and criticism reported. Repeated-measures categorical analyses confirmed double standards of both praise and criticism. Mothers reported being criticized more than fathers did for too little involvement at home or too much involvement in paid work. Fathers reported being criticized more than mothers were, for too much involvement at home or too little in paid work. Fathers, particularly equal sharers, reported more praise than mothers for involvement in parenting, whereas mothers reported more praise than fathers for successfully combining family and work. Women also reported receiving both more praise and more criticism about their husbands than their husbands reported about them. Double standards of both praise and criticism were discussed in terms of their potential to discourage nontraditional family life.