Understanding Graduate Student Parents: Influence of Parental Status, Gender, and Major on Graduate Students’ Motivation, Stress, and Satisfaction

Graduate student parents are a unique subpopulation in higher education that accounts for a large proportion of graduate students. While student parents struggle to balance multiple roles, female students in STEM fields may face more significant barriers in balancing family and academic responsibilities compared to male graduate student parents or female students in non-STEM fields. Despite the urgent need to support this special population, little attention has been paid to how parental status, major, and gender affect graduate students. In this quantitative study of 545 graduate students, we examined the influence of parental status, major, and gender on motivation, stress, and satisfaction. A series of factorial ANOVAs found significant differences in motivation and mental health between graduate student parents and non-parents. Our findings highlight the importance of providing adequate resources to graduate students according to their status.

Career satisfaction of German human genetics residents

Objectives The aim of this survey was to investigate the career satisfaction of human genetics residents in Germany and to analyse the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Methods We developed an online survey for the evaluation of a broad range of factors concerning the situation of human genetics residents in Germany using validated questionnaires and adding human genetics specific items to them. Human genetics residents working at institutions with an authorization for specialist training were asked to participate in the online survey. To analyse the situation of specialist training in human genetics and the influence of multiple factors on career satisfaction, descriptive statistics, mean descriptive statistics and comparisons of mean values as well as multiple linear regression analyses were carried out. Results Of the 71 institutions contacted, 41 (58 %) provided feedback and reported the number of 114 residents in human genetics. In total, 58 residents completed the questionnaire (50.9 %). Overall career satisfaction was high with a mean score of 30.8 (scale ranging from 8–40). Factors significantly influencing career satisfaction were general life satisfaction, occupational self-efficacy expectations and content with the doctors entitled to the specialty training. Except for the reduced perception to achieve their professional goals expressed by women with children, career satisfaction was influenced by neither gender nor parental status, other sociodemographic factors, variables concerning the personal professional life and the residency in general, the subjective perceived workload nor the site of specialist training. Participation in research activities differed significantly between male and female residents. The residents’ assessment of their own professional prospects and the prospects of the subject were consistently positive, even though residents consider the current requirement planning by the GB-A for human geneticists as inappropriate and believe that human genetics is not yet firmly anchored as a specialist discipline in the consciousness of other medical colleagues and the general public. Conclusions Career satisfaction of German human genetics residents is generally high and mainly influenced by life satisfaction, occupational self-efficacy expectations and quality of the specialist training. In contrast to other specialties career satisfaction seems to be independent from gender or parental status even though male residents were significantly more often involved in research activities. In order to keep human genetics residents in the specialty, measures that enable balanced professional and care work as well as continuous improvement of specialist education, e. g. through the implementation of structured curricula and continuing education of the doctors entitled to specialist training, is of great importance.

Perceptions of Image-Based Sexual Abuse Among the American Public

Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) involves the sharing or distribution of erotic material without the consent of the subject in the material. A common scenario of IBSA revolves around an individual sharing erotic material of their former intimate partner following the dissolution of the relationship in order to humiliate or harass that former partner for a perceived wrongdoing. This scenario has caused IBSA to be referred to as “revenge porn” in the past, but that phrase does not capture the full breadth of IBSA behaviors and motivations. IBSA is a relatively new phenomenon, having emerged in the last decade, and few studies have examined public perceptions of the activity. In the present study, the attitudes of a national sample (_n_ = 1,023) of Americans were examined on IBSA-related issues. Results of this study showed that the general public largely disapproves of IBSA and supports its criminalization; however, the public also attributes blame to the victims of IBSA. Several factors influence these perceptions including sex, race, age, parental status, political orientation, and sexting history.

DCPS or Sidwell Friends? How Politician Schooling Choices Affect Voter Evaluations

Voters often rely on informational shortcuts, such as the background traits of politicians, to decide which candidates to support at the ballot box. One such background trait is family composition, particularly parental status. Research, however, has mostly overlooked whether the value-laden choices that politicians make regarding their families—like what neighborhoods they live in, where they worship, and what schools they send their children to—affect how constituents view them. We conduct a survey experiment in the U.S. that presents respondents with hypothetical biographies of politicians that randomly vary one of the most important decisions that politicians make regarding their families: whether to send them to public or private school. We find that: (1) voters are more inclined to vote for politicians with children in public school; and (2) this preference may be due to voters perceiving these politicians as both warmer and more committed to public services.

Prevalence and characteristics of childfree adults in Michigan (USA)

Childfree individuals choose not to have children, which makes them a distinctive group from parents who have had children, not-yet-parents who plan to have children, and childless indivduals who would have liked to have children. Most research on parental status and psychosocial characteristics has not effectively distinguished childfree individuals from other non-parents or has relied on non-representative samples. In this study, we use a representative sample of 981 Michigan adults to estimate the prevalence of childfree individuals, to examine how childfree individuals differ from parents and other types of non-parents in life satisfaction, political ideology, and personality, and to examine whether childfree individuals are viewed as an outgroup. We find that over a quarter of Michigan adults identified as childfree. After controlling for demographic characteristics, we find no differences in life satisfaction and limited differences in personality traits between childfree individuals and parents, not-yet-parents, or childless individuals. However, childfree individuals were more liberal than parents, and those who have or want(ed) children felt substantially less warm toward childfree individuals than childfree individuals felt toward each other. Given the prevalence of childfree individuals, the risks of their outgroup status, and their potential role in politics as a uniquely liberal group, it is important for demographic research to distinguish the childfree from others and to better understand these individuals.

Who Returns? Understanding Varieties of Longitudinal Participation in MIDUS

Objectives: This study describes a major effort to reinstate dropouts from the MIDUS longitudinal study and compare baseline characteristics among subgroups of participants to better understand predictors of retention, attrition, and reinstatement. Methods: All living dropouts were contacted, and 651 reinstated participants were interviewed in person (31.4% response rate). Age, gender, education, marital status, parental status, and physical and mental health were compared among the following groups: longitudinal sample, reinstated sample, those fielded for reinstatement who did not return, and those who dropped out at the 2nd or 3rd wave. Results: Multivariate analyses revealed that reinstated participants were younger, male, unmarried, and less educated and had children at baseline compared to longitudinal participants. Reinstatement was unsuccessful among those with poorer mental health at baseline compared to longitudinal participants. Discussion: This study informs reinstatement efforts, adjustment for attrition bias, and use of post-baseline data to examine aging consequents of early life vulnerability.