health

With covid-19 cases exploding around the country and widespread vaccination still months away, people have to make tough decisions about how to stay both safe and sane. Anyone walking down a grocery store aisle or scrolling through social media can observe  group differences in behaviors like mask-wearing and distancing . In their new article, Janani Umamaheswar and Catherine Tan find that men and women actually perceive the risks of contracting covid-19 similarly, but they respond to these risks differently because of differences in care responsibilities.

The authors conducted three waves of interviews among a diverse group of 45 college students between April and July 2020. They found that men and women in similar situations assessed their overall risk of contracting covid-19 similarly. For instance, men and women understood the risk of activities, such as working outside the home, and the influence of pre-existing medical conditions in similar ways. Overall, however, the men downplayed the risk of covid-19, suggesting that precautions such as wearing a mask were “annoying” and that the risk of covid-19 had been exaggerated. The women in the study expressed much higher levels of anxiety and concern, with one woman describing working outside the home as “terrifying.”

Umamheswar and Tan argue that men are less concerned about covid-19 because they have fewer care responsibilities. Women, in contrast, emphasized that they felt responsible for managing the risk for both themselves and others. For example, women asked their fathers to stay home from jobs and did the grocery shopping to prevent family members from being exposed. Although most of the men in the sample downplayed the risk of covid-19, those who had significant care responsibilities expressed similar levels of worry as the women in the sample. Although most of the men in the sample downplayed the risk of covid-19, those who had significant caring responsibilities expressed similar levels of worry as the women.

These findings suggest that assessments of risk and risk management are tied to unequal care responsibilities that are made worse  by the current pandemic rather than expectations about how different genders should express their emotions. This study finds  that women are more often left responsible for worrying about the health of their significant others. This unequal psychological burden of care is thus an important consideration for  both families and policy makers grappling with the consequences of the covid-19 pandemic for gendered inequality

The coronavirus pandemic has heightened the long-standing inequalities service sector employees face as they grapple with dangerous and potentially deadly working conditions. Yet new research shows that these inequalities have deep structural and interpersonal causes, which disproportionately impact workers of color and stand to endure beyond the current public health crisis. 

Using survey data from The Shift Project, sociologists Adam Storer, Daniel Schneider, and Kristen Harknett suggest racial and ethnic discrimination within and across service-sector firms shapes working conditions. The survey asked participants about scheduling practices, the amount of time off received, and various other human capital measures such as education and job tenure. Unlike other datasets on job quality, these data include matching responses from both hourly workers and their supervisors in more than 100 retail and food service firms. The big takeaway: the authors find non-white workers experience greater exposure to unpredictable and inflexible working conditions.The big takeaway: the authors find non-white workers experience greater exposure to unpredictable and inflexible working conditions.

The data reveal that non-white workers are concentrated in positions with low job quality indicators. For example, non-white workers are more likely to work consecutive closing and opening shifts, or “clopening” shifts. Additionally, authors find that racial and ethnic tensions between employees and supervisors diminish non-white employees’ job quality. Non-white employees with supervisors of a different race or ethnicity reported a 7% higher likelihood of canceled shifts, difficulty getting time off, and clopening shifts. Unsurprisingly, these data suggest work quality disparities are worse for women, even more so for women of color, a finding supported by past research on gendered differences in earnings. 

Storer and colleagues also illuminate the ways individual relationships maintain these job quality disparities. Tense and racialized interpersonal relations between supervisors and workers are one of those, suggesting job quality is increasingly stratified by “racial discordance” within the workplace. What is more, the inequalities service sector workers face — like unpredictable scheduling and meager fringe benefits — have real impacts on health outcomes, like poor sleep and psychological distress. While the coronavirus vaccine might alleviate some of the immediate health risks frontline service sector workers face, the inequalities embedded in the structure of their work itself may prove far more resistant to change.

2020 has given us a lot to worry about from climate crisis, wildfires, superstorms, earthquakes, various elections near and far, to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. And, of course, we also worry as our daily lives seem ever so risky. But what about the kind of worry we experience for the people we love – our romantic partners, children, and close friends? While existing research has focused on individuals, a new study suggests we may in fact worry more about our loved ones. 

Social psychologists Mirjam Ghassemi, Katharina Bernecker, and Veronika Brandstätter ask whether people are more anxious when a loved one is about to do something risky than when they are about to engage in the same risk behavior themselves. Through a series of five experimental studies, the researchers presented participants with imagined scenarios of risks to health or safety to better understand the relationship between how individuals assess risk and the amount of anxiety they feel. These imagined scenarios ranged from everyday risks such as cycling without a helmet to the more dramatic risks such as boarding a plane with a recent history of mechanical failures.

The authors find that we worry more about our loved ones than we do about ourselves, even when they are taking the exact same risk as us. No matter who the person is to us (partner, child, or friend), the closer we are, the more we worry about them. It seems that we have a decent ability to manage worries about our own risk-taking, but our ability may be less refined when it comes to managing our worries about those who are close to us.The authors find that we worry more about our loved ones than we do about ourselves, even when they are taking the exact same risk as us.

Why is there a discrepancy in how much we worry? The authors suggest this could be due to our lack of control over our loved ones’ behaviors. Another possible explanation is that we can more easily imagine worse outcomes for other people than we can imagine for ourselves, which increases our worry for them. These findings show that our close relationships to others makes us worry. However, we also need these close relationships to help support us in challenging and uncertain times. 

In rural Coffeyville, Kansas, residents have a routine for handling the town’s public library’s waiting list for its WiFi hotspot lending program. “As soon as you turn it in,” one person said, “you put your name back on the waiting list.” With almost 50 people on the list, it might be another month before you can get a one-week hotspot rental again.

The Coffeyville library was one of 24 rural libraries that joined a New York Public Library pilot program for hotspot lending. A team of researchers gathered qualitative and quantitative data from 18 libraries in rural Kansas and six in rural Maine. All told, the research team interviewed more than 100 people, including school and government officials, librarians and other library officials and community members who participated in the lending program. This project focused on two research questions: (1) How do people experience hotspot connectivity in the context of their normal patterns of access and information seeking?; (2) How do hotspot adoption and use affect these communities? 

For the communities that participated, the researchers found that improved Internet connectivity was valuable for many reasons. Most frequently cited was the value of social connection, staying in touch with family and friends, via Facebook or Skype. Without the hotspots, participants said they miss out on important moments, gossip and news. Additionally, the hotspots provided assistance for childhood education, work and entertainment (music, Netflix, etc) and offered privacy to conduct personal tasks (banking, health services, finding work, shopping, etc). Ultimately, the authors find hotspot lending programs provide a much-needed and valuable community service. For the communities that participated, the researchers found that improved Internet connectivity was valuable for many reasons. Most frequently cited was the value of social connection, staying in touch with family and friends, via Facebook or Skype.

In fact, several of the libraries felt the pilot program, initially funded by the New York Public Library, was valuable enough for the libraries to find funding to continue the service. Almost 20% of the United States population lives in rural spaces, and around 36% of the rural population lacks access to fixed broadband, according to the researchers. Only 4% of the urban population lacks such standard connections. In many rural communities, the only reliable broadband access is at government centers or libraries, where residents can “check out” the Internet. 

Rural residents often face what the authors call a “vexing communication environment,” where broadband access is limited, cell phone signal is spotty (at best), and digital literacy is lacking because residents simply don’t have ready access to the Internet. These issues create inequalities, in education, economic development and community building, among others. This research suggests that a hotspot lending programs may be part of the solution to solve our nation’s growing digital divide. The findings demonstrate the value of the hotspot programs but also show they may still be insufficient. Said the Coffeyville, Kansas, participant of the month-long hotspot waiting list: “It’s worth it, just for that week of getting to stay connected.” 

Wage inequality in the United States has been increasing for four decades, and there are documented wage gaps by education, race, and gender. But new research shows that as big as wage inequality is in the United States today, benefit inequality is worse. And these gaps especially affect low-income Americans. 

The United States is unusual in that retirement benefits, health care, and paid leave are tied to employment rather than provided by the federal government. Employer-based benefits such as pension plans and employer-based health care therefore are not simply “extras,” but instead are the core of how Americans access health and other well-being resources. 

Just as some jobs pay much higher wages than others, some jobs come with much more extensive benefit packages. To examine the pattern within these benefit packages, Tali Kristal, Yinon Cohen, and Edo Navot examined the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s Employer Costs for Employee Compensation microdata. These data include the hourly cost of benefits for a nationally representative sample of jobs. The jobs are linked to employers, allowing researchers to track employer practices over time in a variety of sectors.Just as some jobs pay much higher wages than others, some jobs come with much more extensive benefit packages.

Looking at the time period between 1982-2015, inequality in benefits grew more than twice as fast as inequality in wages. Benefit inequality is larger than wage inequality both between and within workplaces (meaning both when comparing line workers at two different companies and when comparing a janitor to a CEO). Benefit inequality is only slightly higher than wage inequality within workplaces — largely because both are so high and have grown so much since the 1980s. But between-workplace inequality was almost six times higher in total benefits than in wages, indicating that the measure of a good job is more about benefits than the weekly paycheck. 

Why has benefit inequality grown? The authors have two answers: the decline of unions and the increase in nonstandard employment practices. Fewer and weaker unions mean less employee pressure for employers to provide strong benefits. Unions are especially effective at advocating for more equality in benefits, so the loss of union power is felt more in benefits than in wages. In addition, changes to employment practices including classifying more workers as independent contractors, temporary, or part-time mean that fewer workers qualify for generous benefit packages. A key part of these authors’ analysis is that workplaces have more control over the setting of benefits than the setting of wages, making benefits an easier place to decrease total compensation. Why has benefit inequality grown? The authors have two answers: the decline of unions and the increase in nonstandard employment practices.

While wage inequality is mostly a story of the richest Americans separating themselves from the middle-class, benefit inequality is largely a story of low-income jobs getting worse. For instance, while large firms can more easily provide a good package of benefits to all of their workers, these firms have increasingly subcontracted janitorial, food service, and delivery work. 

Benefit inequality is increasingly visible and increasingly life-or-death. These statistics represent the lives of workers who lack paid leave and health care during a global pandemic, and this article is a crucial addition to our understanding of how inequality matters today. 

As the United States enters a deep economic recession, more families will need to rely on the government for financial support. Many families have already received stimulus checks (though some are still waiting). But how much difference does cash assistance really make? According to a new study, direct assistance programs play a vital role in helping families with children avoid food and housing insecurity. 

H. Luke Shaefer, Kathryn Edin, Vincent Fusaro, and Pinghui Wu first examined state administrative data from 2001 to 2015 on the number of families relying on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)– a short-term cash assistance program to support families with children struggling financially. They found that as eligibility rules were tightened, fewer households qualified for TANF and caseloads declined from 2.26 to 1.50 million. At the same time, families in poverty increased from 5.31 to 6.48 million.

Because the researchers were interested in how declines in cash assistance programs affect families’ well-being, they then looked at data on homelesseness and food insecurity. Data on the number of homeless public school children came from the National Center for Homeless Education, and data on food insecurity came from the Current Population Survey (CPS). Households were considered food insecure when they did not have access to an adequate amount and quality of food. For instance, families might not have had enough money to afford balanced meals or they might have cut the size of their meals to save money.For all households with children, the decline in TANF caseloads led to increased food insecurity and student homelessness.

For all households with children, the decline in TANF caseloads led to increased food insecurity and student homelessness. The food security of single mothers with children were most affected by these declines. In addition, the relationship between cash assistance and homelessness was especially strong. This suggests that the decline in direct-assistance programs like TANF has increased the instability of children’s living situations. This is troubling because previous research shows that housing instability often leads to school instability and lower rates of graduation. 

This research shows how cash assistance programs play an important role in easing hardship for families struggling financially. As governments consider how to mitigate the effects of the coming recession, cash assistance is a proven way to help keep children housed and fed. 

Everyone is stuck inside, so we will see a baby boom in nine months . . . right? There’s actually not a lot of evidence that interruptions to normal life cause baby booms, but there is evidence that the decision to have kids spreads through personal networks. In a recent article, four researchers found new evidence that both siblings and co-workers affect individuals’ fertility decisions. 

Zafer Buyukkececi, Thomas Leopold, Ruben van Gaalen, and Henriette Engelhardt used detailed statistical data from the Netherlands to identify how two networks, siblings and co-workers, affect whether or not an individual decides to have a baby. The longitudinal data covers the entire Dutch population and allows researchers to link individuals to families and workplaces. 

Demographers have long known that siblings and coworkers make similar decisions about fertility. Those similarities could be because siblings and coworkers share contexts and experiences, or because the choices of those around us actually help us make our own choices. In this study, the researchers found evidence that the actions of individuals we know does change decision-making, at least for women. Women were more likely to become mothers after others in their sibling and colleague networks became parents.

Women were more likely to become mothers after others in their sibling and colleague networks became parents. The sibling effect was stronger, but because most people have more colleagues than siblings, more births in colleague networks might make up for the strength difference. Colleague effects were only significant for women with other female colleagues. 

Networks affect fertility decisions in part because individuals learn what to expect from others. So, rather than a universal baby boom, expect potential mothers to be watching the experiences of their siblings and coworkers during this pandemic.

We know that children’s health depends on their parents in many ways, from genetics to life experiences. New research shows that the reverse is also true: children’s experiences impact their parents’ health. Specifically, this research shows that children’s experiences of discrimination influence their mothers’ health. 

Cynthia G. Colen, Qi Li, Corinne Reczek, and David R. Williams used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, a survey following women and their children. They looked at mothers’ self-rated health assessments from the mid 2000s, when mothers were 40 and 50 years old, to determine how their health changed. The sample of mothers’ health assessments varied significantly by race. By age 50, only 17% of white mothers reported poor health, while 31% of Black and 26% of Hispanic mothers reported poor health. 

The researchers also looked at data on children’s experiences of unfair treatment when the children were young adults. Unfair treatment fell in two categories: major experiences or “acute discrimination,” and everyday or “chronic discrimination.” Acute discrimination included specific incidences like being unfairly fired or denied promotion and being unfairly searched or abused by police. Chronic discrimination highlighted the frequency of unfair treatment, like how often respondents had been treated with less respect than others, called names or harassed, or how often other people had treated respondents as if they were not smart.  Overall, children’s exposure to discrimination — both acute and chronic —  was associated with significant declines in their mothers’ health at midlife

Overall, children’s exposure to discrimination — both acute and chronic —  was associated with significant declines in their mothers’ health at midlife (from age 40 to 50). This is an important finding because most research on intergenerational health focuses on how parents affect their children’s health. Studies like these can help us to understand how disadvantage is reproduced through generations.

The researchers wondered whether Black and Hispanic mothers’ poor health was a result of their children experiencing more discrimination than children of white mothers. They found this to be true for Black mothers, but not for Hispanic mothers. Specifically, children’s experiences of discrimination explained about 10% of the Black-white health gap, but very little of the Hispanic-white health gap for mothers. Stressors, like unfair treatment, can have “spillover effects” — in this case, leading to declines in the health of family members.

In addition, Black mothers’ health declined at a slower rate compared to white mothers’ health, even when their children experienced high levels of discrimination. One explanation for this finding is that Black mothers spend a lifetime preparing to and dealing with discrimination, whereas white mothers may not and thus have fewer coping skills to deal with feelings of helplessness when their children experience discrimination.

This research helps us to understand how discrimination is more than just an individual experience. Stressors, like unfair treatment, can have “spillover effects” — in this case, leading to declines in the health of family members.

The anti-vaccine movement has persisted for some time, perplexing scholars and medical practitioners alike. Based upon anti-vaxxers’ strong sentiments, one would expect these same parents to reject other pharmaceutical interventions. In a recent study, however, Jennifer Reich finds that parents often have contradictory views on their children’s health care. These parents use pharmaceutical interventions for some illnesses while simultaneously refusing to vaccinate their children for others.

Reich interviewed 34 parents from 2007 to 2014 in Colorado (the state with the lowest rates of vaccination). These parents had challenged or rejected expert recommendations on vaccines but consented to other forms of medical intervention for their children in the cases of ADHD medication, seizure disorder medication, and cancer treatments. 

Reich finds that anti-vaxxers “call the shots,” but they don’t make these decisions alone. Parents’ decisions regarding medication use for their children results from individual, interactional, and institutional contexts. Thus, the refusal to vaccinate is not a categorical rejection of pharmaceutical intervention. The refusal to vaccinate is not a categorical rejection of pharmaceutical intervention.

Reich finds that some parents used individual strategies in which they differentiated between necessary treatments to protect their children from harm, such as ADHD medicine, and unnecessary medications, such as vaccinations. Alternatively, for some parents, negotiations with healthcare providers led to the use of medication. For example, one family shopped for healthcare providers they liked and felt respected by, and paid more for medications that they believed were safer.

Parental consent to medication may also result from institutional insistence. For example, one family was convinced to let their child receive medical treatment for cancer through the threat of legal coercion and the hospital requirement for all patients to receive the flu vaccine. 

Finally, Reich finds that privileged parents are both more likely to challenge expert advice regarding vaccines, and more likely to receive respect from healthcare providers and have their views taken seriously.

There’s a big audience for the Big Dance. Although the NCAA Tournament has been canceled due to COVID-19 in 2020, an average audience of 10.5 million people tuned in to each 2019 game of the NCAA Division I College Basketball Tournament. But between screaming at the television and obsessively checking their brackets, some fans might not have noticed the subtle ways that broadcast announcers talk differently about lighter and darker-skinned players on the court. 

According to colorism theory, darker skinned people are seen as more brutish and lighter skinned people are viewed as more intelligent. Curious how colorism operates within college sport coverage, Steven Foy and Rashawn Ray used video broadcasts of the NCAA Tournament (years 2000-2010) to analyze the types of comments made by broadcast announcers across player skin tone. Athletes’ skin tones were categorized on a scale of lighter to darker skin by Amazon Mechanical Turk respondents. The research team then coded announcer commentary into three different types of discourse: remarks about players’ physical performance (basketball skills like ball-handling ability, rebounding ability, etc), physicality (athleticism, size/height, jumping ability, etc), and mental ability (aggression, cleverness, coordination, etc). Colorism theory helps us understand how NCAA broadcast announcers talk differently about the physical performance, physicality, and mental ability of lighter and darker-skinned players.

Foy and Ray found that announcers do talk about lighter skinned players differently than darker skinned players. First, announcers are more likely to make comments about player performance, such as shooting ability, with lighter skin tones. Second, announcers are more likely to discuss the physical characteristics, such as athleticism, of players with darker skin tones. And third, announcers are more likely to remark on the mental characteristics, such as cleverness, of players with lighter skin tones. Foy and Ray ultimately argue that color is “not a proxy for race,” and that they are independent social constructs with different features. 

This research illustrates how sport is a racialized institution, and that stereotypes based on skin color affect how players are evaluated. Although a lighter and a darker skinned player may be equally good at basketball, a darker skinned player’s abilities are more likely to be attributed to his physical characteristics, whereas a lighter skinned player’s abilities are more likely to be attributed to his skills or intelligence. College basketball fans should keep screaming at the television–but they may want to be mindful of the language they use to cheer on their favorite player.