Ethnic Differences in Returning Home: Explanations From a Life Course Perspective

Dislocated College Students and the Pandemic: Back Home Under Extraordinary Circumstances

OBJECTIVE

This research examines college students' experiences of dislocation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND

Due to governmental stay-at-home orders during the pandemic, families with "dislocated" (compelled to return home) college students would likely encounter unique stressors while also being limited in their normal ways of coping.

METHODS

Using an online survey, the current study sought to discover how diverse individual characteristics and family living situations of 323 dislocated students associated with varying homelife experiences (e.g., intrusive parenting, students making an extra effort to spend time with family), and how such experiences associated with relationship changes during the quarantine.

RESULTS

Analyses detected some differences in the students' homelife experiences based on background and living situations, especially related to being a first-year student, having been excited about returning home, and feeling accepted by parents about being home. Negative family relationship quality during the quarantine was most predicted by negative attitudes from students and parents about students being home, the student feeling less adultlike (based on treatment and own identity conception), and having low autonomy.

CONCLUSION

Returning home for quarantine was challenging for most students, and circumstances and attitudes appeared to contribute to how such challenges associated with family relationship changes.

IMPLICATIONS

Implications for practitioners and universities are discussed in regard to preparing college students and their families for similar conditions.

Facets of parent-child relations in adulthood and their role in transmitting economic deprivation across generations

Despite the well-documented effect of parent-child relations in childhood on the reproduction of social disadvantage, little is known about how relationships between parents and their grown-up children are associated with this process. The present study addresses this research gap by investigating whether structural, cognitive, and functional aspects of family social capital in adulthood are connected to the risk of relative income poverty and its intergenerational reproduction. Based on a longitudinal sample from data of the German Family Panel (pairfam), random effects regression models as well as mediation analysis (KHB method) reveal that affectual and structural facets of intergenerational relations in adulthood matter in two ways for understanding the intergenerational transmission of poverty. First, emotionally close intergenerational relations and living in proximity of the parental home in adulthood counterbalance the experience of economic deprivation in childhood by alleviating poverty risks. Second, emotionally and spatially distant relations between adult children and their parents partially mediate the social inheritance of poverty across generations and time. We additionally tested the possible moderating role of migration background but could not find considerable evidence that later-life family social capital matters differently for native and migrant families in predicting the risk of poverty.