Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox
Associate Professor
3353 Turlington Hall
352-392.0265 x251
tkcox@ufl.edu
Office hours:
Monday 1:50 - 3:50 p.m.
Wednesday 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Feel free to email me at tkcox@ufl.edu with any questions or to schedule an appointment.
Research
Attitudes
about Childlessness and Family Issues
Dr. Koropeckyj-Cox is currently conducting research on attitudes
about childlessness and how they relate to contemporary fertility
trends and
work-family dilemmas. She has published articles based on national survey
data (NSFH, MIDUS, GSS), analyzing the gender gap in attitudes (Journal
of Marriage
and Family, November 2007) and
other correlates of attitudes
about childlessness in the United States (Journal of
Family Issues, August 2007).
Similar comparisons among
European and other countries are now underway using data from the World
Values Survey (with Alin Ceobanu, UF, and Zeynep Copur, Hacettepe
University).
She is also conducting a survey of college students' attitudes
about gender, childlessness, and family issues. An article on students'
attitudes about childless individuals and couples appeared in the
journal Sex Roles (2007). A
parallel survey, conducted among Turkish university students by Dr.
Zeynep Copur of Hacettepe University, has allowed for cross-national
comparisons of attitudes (Journal of Family Issues, 2010).
Implications of Childlessness over the Life
Course
Dr. Koropeckyj-Cox has examined the implications of
childlessness for later life psychological well-being. Using
U.S. national data, she has compared
depression and loneliness of childless adults and parents over 50 (Journals of
Gerontology: Social Sciences, 1998). She has also examined how
attitudes about childlessness and quality of parent-child
relationships are linked to psychological well-being (Journal of Marriage and Family,
2002).
She has examined the implications of
fertility timing for women's well-being in late midlife (with Dr.
Amy Pienta, University of Michigan, and Tyson H. Brown, University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill). Among the "women of the 1950s" -- the
cohort that experienced strong
pro-family and pro-natalist pressures during the Baby Boom -- unmarried
mothers in their 50s reported consistently more
depression and loneliness and lower satisfaction than childless women
or
married mothers (regardless of timing). Lower well-being among
early mothers was related to socio-economic status (International Journal of Aging and Human
Development, 2007).
Childlessness
in Mid life
Analyzing data from the Survey of Midlife in the United States, Dr.
Koropeckyj-Cox is examining factors that influence the
experience of childlessness and psychological well-being among men and
women (funded by the MIDUS Small Grants Program).
Singlehood in Midlife and Older Adulthood
With funding from the Anthony Marchionne Foundation, Dr.
Koropeckyj-Cox has examined the demographic characteristics and
psychological well-being of never-married and long-term single older
adults. Collaborating with psychologist Dr. Susan Bluck, this
study has included in-depth interviews with older, single men and women
in Florida. Drawing on this research, Dr. Koropeckyj-Cox
contributed a commentary on the social stigma of singlehood, published
in Psychological Inquiry
(July 2005), and is currently examing the pros
and cons and experiences of social stigma related to lifelong
singlehood.
