This pilot project uses data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey (WLS) and the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) to examine the relationships between work, family, and social support, and health. Most of the work in the pilot project will use the WLS, but the project will carry out some preliminary analyses with the HRS. The project has two specific aims. First, the project will examine the effect of work and family experiences over the life course on the amount of social support available to individuals as they approach retirement. Although the domain of work affects material and social support networks in many ways, the pilot project will focus on two of these--the connection between work and geographical mobility, and the perceived conflict between work and family. Geographical mobility is sometimes necessary to seek employment or as part of career advancement, and it can disrupt the networks of family and friends that provide social support. Conflicts between family and work commitments may also influence the social support available to an individual. Work can provide forms of social support, but it can also impede the development of strong family relationships, just as family commitments can limit one's commitment to, an involvement in, work. The major features of family experiences that the pilot project will focus on are family disruptions during childhood or as an adult. Family disruptions may not only influence an individuals' relationships with his or her former spouse, but also with his or her parents, siblings, and/or children. The disruption of an individual's family or origin, for example may affect his or her relationships with siblings as well as parents. A disruption of an individual's family of procreation may affect his or her relationships with children. Thus, individuals with differing experiences of family stability may have different kinds of family social support networks.
The second aims of the project is to look at the effects of work, family, and social support on health. Most previous research on the relationship between social support and health has relied on fairly simple measures of social support, and has not examined the variety of information on social support that is available in the WLS and the HRS. Although the WLS and HRS data contain a number of measures of health, the pilot project will focus primarily on one of these, a widely used measure of self-reported health.
