MAUREEN PERRY-JENKINS, Ph.D.

Director, Work and Family Transitions Project

Department Chair, Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

RESEARCH

The primary aim of my research is to examine how two of the most important spheres in individuals’ lives, family and work, intersect to influence the well-being and development of parents and children. I am also very interested in how economic inequalities shape the mental health and family relationships of working-class and low-income families. Finally, my research also focuses on ways in which socio-cultural factors such as race, gender, and social class shape the mental health and family relationships of parents and their children. Over the past 20 years, we have garnered over 2 million dollars in funding from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct our longitudinal research that examines how work conditions and policies affect the well-being of new parents transitioning to parenthood.

Our longitudinal study examines how couples and single mothers cope with becoming new parents and the return to paid employment. We are examining how conditions of low-income jobs—such as flexibility, parental leave, and sick time—predict the mental health outcomes of both mothers and fathers as well as their children’s social and cognitive outcomes.

Some of the research questions we explore include:

How do workplace policies of low-income families predict maternal and paternal mental health?
How do work conditions, such as supervisor support and job autonomy, predict parental well-being and, in turn, children’s developmental outcomes?
How are prenatal depression and stress related to health outcomes during birth for both mothers and infants?
How is the division of household tasks and childcare in dual-earner, working-class families related to new parents’ mental health and relationship quality?
How do socio-contextual factors (i.e., social class, race, & ethnicity) influence the physical and psychological well-being of new mothers and their families?
How are work conditions related to mothers’ and fathers’ abilities to be sensitive caregivers to their infants?
How is work-family spillover related to parents’ relationship quality across the transition to parenthood?
Are family rituals, such as dinnertime routines, protective for children’s developmental processes?
How do children of dual-income, working-class couples experience gender socialization?
What types of contextual challenges do low-income mothers face with regard to breastfeeding their infants?

NEW RESEARCH INITIATIVES

The Work and Family Transitions Project has started a new endeavor! With funding from the UMass Medical School Clinical Translational Science Program, we tested out a new prenatal intervention pilot program, PREParing for Parenthood (PREP). This intervention was designed specifically for low-income new mothers and their coparents. Currently, there is a great disparity in rates of pre- and post-natal depression among low-income and middle-class mothers, with low-income mothers experiencing significantly poorer mental health. Reasons for this disparity in well-being include both economic and social stressors, such as financial insecurity, poor health care, and lack of social support; which are all risk factors for mothers’ and fathers’ mental health and the healthy development of their children. The goal of this community-based study is to adapt and test the feasibility of a group-based intervention aimed at reducing depression and stress (both perceived and physiological stress) among low-income new mothers and their partners early in pregnancy.

We partnered with the two community agencies, Square One and the Children’s Trust, who lead parent education programs in the state for low-income parents. This intervention is aimed at supporting low-income couples through the transition to parenthood by reducing prenatal stress and strengthening the coparenting relationship. An innovative aspect of this work is the focus on the early prenatal period as a critical time to reduce stress and depression not only for new parents but for the developing fetus. High levels of stress early in pregnancy have been linked to negative health outcomes for infants – thus, the aim of our intervention is to reduce stress in the second trimester of pregnancy to enhance parental well-being and child outcomes.

Our initial pilot data holds promising results! The PREP intervention successfully reduced perinatal stress levels in mothers, as well as symptoms of depression. The next step for this project is to complete a larger-scale intervention study.

GRADUATE STUDENTS

My graduate students and alumni play a critical role in this research study. Rachel Herman, a former graduate student and current Assistant Professor at Brown University, designed the intervention based on evidenced programming that two of our collaborators have used with postpartum mothers. Rachel’s dissertation found that the intervention reduced stress and depression in young parents while strengthening their co-parenting relationship. Alexandrea Craft, now a post-doctoral research assistant at Brown University, assisted with recruitment, family interviews, data collection, and analyses. Christina Rowly, now a fifth-year graduate student, also collaborated with family interviews, data collection, and analyses. We are a busy, inspired, and committed team. Diego Barcala-Delgado, a third-year graduate student, has helped with data analyses. We work with many undergraduates and community partners in our work and have a goal of developing effective, sustainable, and exciting programs that support new parents.

I have had the honor of working with some of the most creative, intelligent, and committed graduate students on the planet. Their research has included topics such as the division of labor and new parents’ mental health, parents’ sense of control across the transition to parenthood, the role of sibling relationships in families, parenting processes, social class and mental health, the development of gender ideology in children, and maternal and paternal sensitivity.

CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON FAMILIES

I was formerly the Director of the Center for Research on Families (CRF) at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. My role as director allowed me to broaden my work to consider multiple levels of influence on families, from the micro-level of genes, hormones, and temperaments of individuals to the role of economics, neighborhoods, and workplaces on family functioning.

Work Matters: How Parents’ Jobs Shape Children’s Well-being

Buy my new book based on conclusions from the Work and Family Transitions Project. Available here.