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Primary Data: In-Depth
Interviews
With support from the Canadian
Institute for Advanced Research, we examined the challenges that families
face in meeting their caregiving and employment responsibilities in several
locations throughout North America, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa,
and Asia. We have conducted and analyzed
more than one-thousand in-depth interviews in Mexico, Botswana,
Vietnam, the United States,
Honduras, and Russia.
Many developing countries are
urbanizing much more rapidly than those in North America and Europe did. The workforce is shifting rapidly from
agriculture to industry and commerce, but labor protections and supports lag
far behind changes in the labor market. Moreover, public and private services
are inadequate to replace weakening extended family and community networks.
Moreover, in transitioning nations,
profound social, economic, and political transformations have reshaped
individual and family lives while simultaneously altering systems of medical,
educational, and social provisions that families depended on in the past.
In this series of studies, working
families, employers, teachers, child-care providers, and health-care
providers were interviewed in a wide variety of global settings in order to
examine the differences and commonalities among the experiences of working
adults across national borders, social class, occupation, ethnicity, and
economic and public policy contexts. Semi-structured, open-ended interview
instruments were used to analyze the complex mechanisms by which
families’ work and social conditions affect health.
For more information about the findings
of this initiative, please see:
Heymann
SJ. Forgotten Families: Ending the Growing Crisis Confronting Children
and Working Parents in the Global Economy. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2006.
Heymann SJ, Fischer A, and Engelman M. Labor
Conditions and the Health of Children, Elderly and Disabled Family Members.
In: Heymann SJ, ed. Global
Inequalities at Work: Work’s Impact on the Health of Individuals,
Families, and Societies. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2003.
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