Maureen Perry-Jenkins

Men's Provider-Role Attitudes Implications for Household Work and Marital Satisfaction

The aim of the current investigation was to link mens provider-role attitudes with their involvement in household tasks. This study examines not only the objective division of work both inside and outside of the home, but also emphasizes the importance of examining the cognitions and affect that men attach to their work and family roles. It was proposed that men holding more traditional attitudes about their duty to provide economically for the family would perform fewer household tasks than men with more egalitarian attitudes. The study involved 43 dual-earner couples who participated in home interviews and in a series of telephone interviews. Results revealed that mens provider-role attitudes were related to their involvement in family work. Furthermore, the congruence of role beliefs and the enactment of role behaviors within the home were related to higher levels of marital satisfaction for men.

Divergent Worlds: The Daily Emotional Experience of Mothers and Fathers in the Domestic and Public Spheres

This study compared the emotional states experienced by mothers and fathers during daily activities in the domestic and public spheres. Participants carried pagers for 1 week and reported their states when signaled at random times. Patterns for mothers and fathers differed markedly. Mothers reported more positive states in activities away from home, including during work at a job. These states were related to the perceived friendliness of co-workers. Fathers reported more positive states in the home sphere, partly because they spent more of this time n personal and recreational activities and partly because they experienced more choice, even during family work.

Division of labor and working-class women's well-being across the transition to parenthood.

This study examines the degree to which the division of household and child-care tasks predicts working-class womens well-being across the transition to parenthood. Women completed questionnaires about the division of labor and their well-being before the birth of their first child and upon returning to work. Results showed that violated expectations regarding the division of child care were associated with increased distress postnatally, and there was some evidence that this relationship was moderated by gender ideology. Traditional women whose husbands did more child care than they expected them to do were more distressed. Work status also moderated the relationship between violated expectations and distress. The results suggest that the division of child care is more salient in predicting distress than the division of housework, for working-class women, at this time point.

Sense of Control Predicts Depressive and Anxious Symptoms Across the Transition to Parenthood

In this study, the authors examined the relationship between sense of control and depressive and anxious symptoms for mothers and fathers during the 1st year of parenthood. Participants were 153 dual-earner, working-class couples who were recruited during the 3rd trimester of pregnancy at prenatal education courses. Data were collected 1 month antenatally and 1, 4, 6, and 12 months postnatally. Sense of control was decomposed into 2 distinct parts: an enduring component and a malleable component that changes with context. Consistent with a cognitive theory of emotional problems, results demonstrated that a sense of control served a protective function for mental health outcomes. A higher sense of enduring control predicted lower levels of psychological distress for new parents, and increases in control over time predicted decreases in depression and anxiety. Findings hold implications for interventions with expectant parents, such as expanding prenatal education courses to include strategies for enhancing and maintaining a sense of personal control.

LINKAGES BETWEEN WOMEN'S PROVIDER-ROLE ATTITUDES, PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING, AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

The primary aim of this investigation was to examine the extent to which the meanings women attach to their provider-role responsibilities are differentially related to their psychological well-being and family relationships and to the division of labor in the home. The sample included 43 dual-earner and 50 single-earner families. In home interviews, wives reported on role overload, depression, satisfaction with the marriage, and attitudes regarding womens and mens roles. Their children completed two measures assessing daily hassles and their relationship with their mother. Reports of daily involvement in household work were obtained from wives and husbands during four telephone interviews. Discriminant function analyses indicated that aspects of womens psychological well-being and marital and parent-child relationships and of the division of labor discriminated women in four different provider groups: main/secondary providers, ambivalent coproviders, coproviders, and homemakers. Wives who were ambivalent about their provider responsibilities tended to report higher levels of depression and overload and significantly lower marital satisfaction. Wives who saw their employment as secondary to that of their husbands reported relatively higher levels of depression and overload but also the highest levels of marital satisfaction.

Fathers’ Involvement in Child Care and Perceptions of Parenting Skill Over the Transition to Parenthood:

This study explored first-time fathers’ perceived child care skill over the transition to parenthood, based on face-to-face interviews of 152 working-class, dual-earner couples. Analyses examined the associations among fathers’ perceived skill and prenatal perception of skill, child care involvement, mothers’ breastfeeding, maternal gatekeeping, mothers’ work hours, fathers’ depressive symptoms, and fathers’ beliefs about responding to a crying child. Involvement was also examined as a potential mediator between some predictors and perceived skill. Findings suggest that breastfeeding and depressive symptoms were not related to involvement or perceived skill. Maternal gatekeeping was unrelated to skill yet had a negative relationship with involvement, if only at 1-month postpartum. Early father involvement mediated the relationship between perceived skill before and after the birth only for fathers who supported prompt response to a crying child. Finally, involvement at 1 year mediated the positive relationship between mothers’ work hours and perceived skill at the same age.

Work and Family Through Time and Space: Revisiting Old Themes and Charting New Directions

As we began work on this chapter we were acutely aware of the current state of the economy in the United States as the backdrop for our review. With the highest unemployment rates since the early 1990s, record numbers of families facing foreclosures on their homes, and the demise of some of the countries’ most stable industries, citizens of the United States are facing economic challenges never before seen in our lifetimes. According to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that monitors economic issues, “This recession has become the longest and deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression” (Mishel & Shierholz, 2009). We begin our chapter describing this economic and social context because it highlights a primary theme of our comments, a theme highlighted long ago by Urie Bronfenbrenner in his Ecological Model, namely that the social contexts from the broadest level, a national recession, to the most proximal level, one’s parent losing their job, shape the path of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). As we consider how economic and work factors influence workers and their families we must also remain cognizant of a second premise of the ecological model, individuals can also shape their environments. It is with these two key notions in mind, that contexts can shape individual development and individuals can shape contexts, that we tackle the work and family literature from the 1960s through the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Division of Household and Childcare Labor and Relationship Conflict Among Low-Income New Parents

We examine the relationships among the division of housework and childcare labor, perceptions of its fairness for two types of family labor (housework and childcare), and parents’ relationship conflict across the transition to parenthood. Perceived fairness is examined as a mediator of the relationships between change in the division of housework and childcare and relationship conflict. Working-class, dual-earner couples (n = 108) in the U.S Northeast were interviewed at five time points from the third trimester of pregnancy and across the first year of parenthood. Research questions addressed whether change in the division of housework and childcare across the transition to parenthood predicted mothers’ and fathers’ relationship conflict, with attention to the mediating role of perceived fairness of these chores. Findings for housework indicated that perceived fairness was related to relationship conflict for mothers and fathers, such that when spouses perceived the change in the division of household tasks to be unfair to either partner, they reported more conflict, However, fairness did not significantly mediate relations between changes in division of household tasks and later relationship conflict. For childcare, fairness mediated relations between mothers’ violated expectations concerning the division of childcare and later conflict such that mothers reported less conflict when they perceived the division of childcare as less unfair to themselves; there was no relationship for fathers. Findings highlight the importance of considering both childcare and household tasks independently in our models and suggest that the division of housework and childcare holds different implications for mothers’ and fathers’ assessments of relationship conflict.

Future Directions for Research on Dual-Earner Families: A Young Professional's Perspective.

Demographic statistics indicate that more than half of todays families are in dual-earner situations. In an effort to examine the issues being faced by these families 2 avenues for future research are proposed. 1st research must begin to focus on the working couple as opposed to the individual and how their work lives affect the family. 2nd new attempts must be made to distinguish between role responsibility and role enactment to understand the consequences for family life. It appears that the dual-earner family is here to stay and researchers must be sensitive to the influence and interaction of 2 work worlds as they affect family life. Constructive attempts must be made by family educators and researchers alike to understand the potential effects of this life style for the family rather than simply comparing this life style to more traditional family patterns. Policy makers can propose changes at governmental and corporate levels which assist dual-earner families including such potential supports as flextime cafeteria-style benefits parental leave and assistance with child care.

Marriage in Whose America? What the Suffocation Model Misses

In the target article, Finkel, Hui, Carswell, and Larson suggest that Americans today are turning to their marriages to fulfill their needs for esteem and selfactualization much more than in the past, but at the same time they are investing less time and effort in their marriages. The authors draw on Maslow’s theory of motivation to propose that needs in marriage are arranged in a hierarchical fashion (with physiological and safety needs at the bottom, needs for belonging and love in the middle, and needs for esteem and self-actualization at the top). They suggest that, as modern Americans climb this hierarchical mountain (“Mount Maslow”), they demand more from each other in terms of fulfilling higher needs, but they are suffocating (experiencing lower marital quality and personal well-being) because they are not devoting the time and investment that would provide enough oxygen to allow them to be responsive and insightful partners. In the following commentary, we call into question a fundamental assumption of Finkel et al.’s primary thesis: that one can theorize about “broad historical trends (in marriage) that characterize the experience of the vast majority of Americans” (p. 3). Although Finkel et al. acknowledge that this approach may “gloss over important nuances and subtleties” (p. 3), they argue that such trade-offs are necessary when addressing a topic as broad as the nature of marriage. We contend, however, that the differences inherent in American marriages as a function of gender, social class, race, and ethnicity are far more than nuances and subtleties but rather reflect deep and complex differences in the function and structure of marriage, differences that are marginalized in the current analysis of American marriage. We propose that Finkel et al.’s framework provides a narrow view of needs in marriage and misses a crucial piece of the picture, namely, that the ways in which marriage is conceived, enacted, and valued differs profoundly for men and women and across social class, racial, and ethnic groups as well as across the life course. In addition, we propose a new metaphor for conceptualizing marriage that considers how needs, beliefs, and values continually shift in salience over the course of marriage, meaning that partners may be simultaneously working on companionate needs, basic survival needs and self-actualization needs. Our view questions the linear and hierarchical path to self-actualization proposed in Finkel et al.’s model. Rather, we propose that marital fulfillment may not come from scaling “Mount Maslow” but rather from hanging tough during a very long hike. During this hike, you may need to stop for rest and water (i.e., basic needs), take time to share the experience with your partner (i.e., belongingness), test your strength and abilities (i.e. self-esteem and competence), and ponder the true meaning of life from atop a peak (self-actualization). Moreover, a good hike includes a mixture of achieving all of these needs again and again so you can stay in it over the long haul.