Happiness in dual-career couples: Changing research, changing values

Sex Roles, Vol. 8, No. 6, 1982

Happiness in Dual-Career Couples: Changing Research, Changing Values

Sara Yogev Northwestern University

This article offers a framework for understanding contradictory findings in the field o f the dual-career couple by presenting two patterns: (1) the early, conventional one o f the 1960s, which viewed married women's participation in the labor force as threatening marriage and the family, and (2) the contemporary view, which emerged during the 1970s and which admits that women can happily combine career with family. The article suggests that there is little evidence to support the view that dual-career couples experience increased rate o f marital conflict, marital dissatisfaction, and role blur; rather, the intellectual and psychological benefits in dual-career couples seem to outweigh the disadvantages, par- ticularly for wives.

The phenomenon of the employed wife may have had a greater impact upon the institutions of marriage and the family than any other recent social development, but there is little agreement on just what that impact has been. Some researchers found more conflict and less marital happiness in dual-career couples (DCC; Blood, 1963; Nye, 1963; Axelson, 1963), while others found more marital happiness (Dizard, 1968; Birnbaum, 1971), more sharing and enjoyment (Holm- strom, 1972; Carlson, 1973; Safilios-Rothschild, 1970), and more satisfaction- (Poloma & Garland, 1971 ;Hall, 1972).

Two patterns that are reflected in this wide range of data offer a framework for understanding the different I'mdings and avoiding much of the confusion that still exists in this field. These patterns reflect changing values: The prevalent view of working women's marriages in earlier research was negative, while the contemporary view tends to be more positive. 1968-1973 is a transi-

1 The author wishes to thank Arlene Kaplan Daniels for her assistance in preparing this manuscript.

593 0360-0025/82/0600-0593503.00/0 © 1982 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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tion period in which findings supporting both patterns exist, which is a natural phase in any scientific change (Kuhn, 1971).

This article critically reviews theory and research on the marriages of working women, documents the existence of these two patterns, and offers explanations for the shift in viewpoints.

THE EARLY VIEW

The research o f the 1950s and the 1960s supported the conventional model of the nuclear, conjugal family. In this model, the male is the head of the household, the female is the homemaker and child caretaker, and the family unit-is seen as a strong private institution. The conventional model was inex- tricably joined to scientific ideologies that defined the psychobiological and social-structural bases of sex-role differentiation and the prolonged dependency of children. This model saw working and professional women as violating the values and norms revolving about the female role. Thus, the participation of women in the professions and other employment was seen as contradictory, ambiguous, and a source of personal strain. The career woman traditionally has been viewed as the antithesis of the feminine woman. Employed women have been seen as failures as women and as tending toward personality disturbances. According to this view, women have an "either/or" o p t i o n - either to have a family and children and be feminine, or to have a career and be sexless. In consequence, the fact that more women were entering the labor force was treated as a potential threat to the institutions of marriage and the family.

Increase of Conflict and Decrease of Marital Satisfdction

One reason why researchers saw potential danger to the "traditional" family was finding that conflicts tend to arise in dual-income families over difficulties encountered in the management of household duties and child care (Blood, 1963). Dual-income families where the mother is employed full-time are inclined to quarrel frequently on more topics than single-income families (Nye, 1963). Some researchers felt that married women worked to compensate for an unhappy marriage (Blood & Wolfe, 1960). Axelson (1963), arguing that husbands' evaluation of the marriage had been neglected, found that larger pro- portions of husbands (61%) whose wives did not work evaluated the marriage positively, while only 38% of husbands whose wives were employed evaluated the marriage positively.

A higher rate of conflict was postulated to lead to less marital happiness and satisfaction. Feld (1963) and Nye (1959) initially found nonsignificant differences between housewives and full-time employed mothers in marital happi-

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hess. However, when controlling education and income, they found negative relationships between employment and marital happiness. The greatest differ- ence in evaluations of marriage was found at the lower socioeconomic levels, among women who had husbands in blue-collar occupations. Other studies also lent modest support to the lower rate of marital satisfaction' found among both partners when the wife is employed (Gover, 1963 ;Powell, 1963; Buric & Zecevic, 1967; Michel, 1967).

Because of the expressed higher rate of conflict and lower marital satisfaction among DCC found in many studies in the 1950s and 1960s, frequent asser- tions were made that wives' employment was a major cause of the high divorce rate. Nye (1963) found limited but consistent support for the assertion that divorce and separation tend to be more prevalent in homes where the mother works full-time. Epstein's study (1971) found a very high rate of divorce for professional women.

Blur of Roles and Decrease of Marital Satisfaction

Another reason why researchers saw a potential threat in DCC for marital wen-being was "role blur." In the one-career family, the masculine role is well geared to the dominant value system with its emphasis on the importance of competition in individual success. In Spiegel's (1971)terms, the father's value orientations are "doing" and the "future"; in Parsons and Bales' (1966) terms, he has the "instrumental role." The mother has a "collateral" orientation (Spiegel, 1971) in which she puts the interests of her family as a whole above whatever individualistic interests she may have; this is part of her "expressive role" in Parsons and Bales' (1966) terms. However, in the dual-career family, both parents have a "doing," "individualistic," and "future" value orientation (Spiegel, 1961). The care of the children and household chores is shared more by both parents. Several studies supported this view and noticed that dual careers facilitate the wife's career by altering the allocation of responsibilities within the family; husbands were purported to assume some of the domestic and child care responsibilities which customarily fall exclusively on wives (Dizard, 1968; Garland, 1972; Miller, 1972; Rapaport & Rapaport, 1969, 1971b; for a different view, see the section on "role overload" below). Young and Willmott (1973) argued that the family is becoming more symmetrical (i.e., evolving toward a pattern where each marital partner has a significant role both in paid work and in the family). Oakley (1972) and Lein, Durham, Pratt, Schudson, Thomas, and Weiss (1974) suggested that husbands of working wives are more likely to increase their participation in child care. Holmstrom's (1972)study of 20 middle-aged dual-career couples found that professional wives received con- siderable help from their husbands. There was extensive interehangeability of tasks, although one partner tended to perform certain tasks. Rarely did the pro-

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fessional couples give ideological justification for task allocations. Availability, skill, interest, and enjoyment were the major reasons for the division of labor. Bahr (1974) concluded that when a woman is employed, her husband's family labor increases and hers decreases. Bailyn (1970), like Holrnstrom (1972), ob- served that family roles in DCC are sex-differentiated very little. However, other researchers have noted that greater sharing of household tasks has been limited, an issue addressed later in this article.

Researchers generally expected these major role changes to be character- ized by increased confusion and lack of predictability of behavior. The addition of another role for the mother outside the home and for the father inside the home increases the number of possible behaviors, some of which are unpredict- able. Therefore, researchers argued that marital conflict might occur more frequently among couples with working than with nonworking wives.

THE CONTEMPORARY VIEW

The conventional model, which was the dominant paradigm during the 1950s and the 1960s, has been questioned recently. Certainly, the conventional

m

model of the nuclear family is no longer the statistical mode, and great variations of the model abound. Divorced parents, reconstituted families, cohabita- tion, communes, and dual-worker families are all discussed as increasing num- bers of variant forms arise. A new paradigm which incorporates changes in domestic life and in conceptions and values about men and women is develop- ing. This paradigm takes into account women's need for self-actualization and is more tolerant of variations from the conventional model. Instead of the "either-or" approach, which dominated the 1950s and 1960s, a new option emerges of "both" (i.e., having family and career). Research studies about the professional woman and her marriage are less negative in their basic assumptions, findings, and implications.

Criticism of the Increased Conflict Issue

The increasing influence of the approach which sees the family as a social system is partially responsible for the changes in this issue. In this view, some conflict can be healthy and provide for marital growth. Sprey (1969) challenged a myth which looks at family conflict as a major source of family disorganiza- tion, while harmony and equilibrium are seen as the "normal" state of the family. He suggested a view of the family as a system in conflict as a more adequate and fruitful one. Similarly, Bebbington (1973) proposed that familial stress does not have an immediate negative connotation, but is a natural part of each family's life. Orden and Bradburn (1969) noted that marriages include both

Happiness in Dual-Cm'eer Couples 597

satisfactions and tensions, which they viewed not merely as opposite ends of a single continuum, but as separate and independent dimensions. Thus, a family may be high in satisfactions and low in tensions, high in tensions and low in satisfactions, or high or low in both, Therefore, the issue of conflict - which had a negative and threatening meaning to the family in the early view - is treated by contemporary researchers as a normal part of family life.

Criticism of the Decrease of Marital Satisfaction

Many recent studies have failed to confirm the early belief that dual-career families cause less marital happiness. Campbell, Converse, and Rodgers (1976); Fidell (1977); Gross and Arvey (1977); Haavio-Mannila (1970); and Tavris and Jayaratne (1976) obtained only trivial and nonsignificant differences between marital adjustment of dual-career and one-career couples. Staines, Pleck, Shepard, and O'Conner (1978) found that working wives do not score significantly lower on ratings of marital satisfaction or marital happiness and that wives' employment status does not significantly affect husbands' report of marital adjustment.

Other studies have found that dual-career couples are happier (especially the wives) than spouses in one-career families. Bimbaum (1971) compared marital happiness of professional women with that of educated housewives and found that a higher proportion of professional women say they are happily married than do comparably gifted, educated housewives. Arnott (1972a) found that the unhappiest group of married women included housewives who prefer outside employment. Poloma and Garland (1971) found that all their female subjects in DCC expressed great satisfaction in being able to combine marriage and career; for these women, the family role was the more salient one and the professional role was supportive in the role hierarchy. Satisfaction with marriage was associated with how easily the spouses were able to manage family and work responsibilities. When the wife was not solely responsible for child care and housework, the likelihood of a happy marriage increased (Bailyn, 1970; Dizard, 1968). Rapaport and Rapaport (1974) found that symmetrical couples (both spouses have two jobs - professional and familial) enjoy being together more and doing activities together. Carlson (1973) found that dual-career mothers, who are not tied to their children and household around the clock, appreciate interaction with their families and welcome family-centered recreation more than housewives. Saf'flios-Rothschild (1970) found that working women with high work commitment perceive themselves as generally prevailing in decision making, as giving in less often in disagreements, as having more freedom of behavior, and as being more satisfied with marriage than nonworking women.

It is unclear whether marital satisfaction in DCC has increased over time, or whether earlier researchers failed to recognize the complexity of the concept of marital satisfaction. It is simplistic to assume that wives' employment alone

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can be considered when marital satisfaction is evaluated. Other factors play an important part and must be considered in order to get a better understanding.

First, congruency between attitudes and behavior has been found to be an important factor. Orden and Bradburn (1969) distinguished between women who work by choice and those who work by necessity. They found a consistent relationship between the wife's enjoyment at work and her evaluation of her marriage. They found greater marital happiness for both husband and wife in DCC when the wives take employment by choice and have a positive attitude toward their employment than in DCC when wives work out of necessity. The latter couples averaged high on tension and low on satisfaction.

Congruence with traditional sex-role stereotypes was found to be another important factorin marital satisfaction. Stiehm (1976) found that young career women who do not fear success have an intimate relationship with a man they believe to be smarter and thus potentially more successful than themselves. These women can afford to achieve and be happy because their men will achieve more. Birnbaum (1971) found that the typical married professional woman has an egalitarian marriage, but still needs to perceive her husband as a remarkably intelligent man to psychologically sanction her own achievement. Pleck (1978) noticed that husbands can accept their wives' employment as long as it does not come too close to, or worse, surpass their own in prestige, earnings, or psychological commitment.

Congruence between spouses is another factor in marital satisfaction. Baflyn (1970) has asserted that "an educated married woman's resolution of the career-family dilemma cannot be adequately evaluated without knowledge of her husband's resolution - of the way he fits his work and his family into his life" (p. 97). Therefore, it is necessary to include the husband's personal orientation (career or family) in order to obtain a more realistic conception of how career-family role strain is resolved. The most salient finding is that marital happiness seemed to be maximized when there is a minimal separation of interests. Bahr and Day (1978) found that among couples with the wife not employed, marital satisfaction tended to be slightly higher if husband and wife were attitudinaUy against female employment and role reversal.

Other studies confirm that women seek to make their role preferences (homemaker and/or career) congruent with their husbands' preferences. Arnott (1972b) confirmed the hypothesis that wives seek congruence between their self- concepts and behavior and the role preferences of their husbands. Rapaport and Rapaport (1971a) found that for many married women, the husband's attitude toward the wife's employment status is the most important factor in determin- ing actual or planned career.

Bailyn's (1970) study suggests an explanation for why Burke and Weir (1976) and Axelson (1963) found that DCC husbands are less satisfied. If these

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men prefer a conventional pattern, it is not surprising that they are unsatisfied in their present situation. However, when we look at men who are in the situation they prefer, their marital satisfaction is not harmed by an employed wife.

Support for this hypothesis is found in Ridley's study (1973)of relationships among job satisfaction, job involvement, and marital adjustment in DCC. Among males, a significant positive relationship exists between satisfaction with work and satisfaction with marriage. For women the findings are more complex and parallel those of Orden and Bradburn (1969). If work is highly salient for a woman, then the satsfaction she derives from her job affects her marital relationship in a positive manner. On the other hand, if a woman's work is perceived as relatively unimportant, then little association appears between her job and marital satisfaction. Marital satisfaction was found to be greatest when both spouses were satisfied with their jobs, exactly as Bailyn (1970) and Rapaport and Rapaport (1974) had suggested.

Socioeconomic class was found to be another factor. Feld (1963) and Nye (1959) found that among lower socioeconomic level families a negative relationship occurred between wives' employment and marital happiness. Feldman and Feldman (1973) utilizing poverty-level families found that employed women had significantly lower marital satisfaction than nonemployed women. The poor working women also thought that their husbands were less satisfied with their functioning than did the unemployed. The researchers suggest that these differences no longer persist in middle-class wives, although they continue to appear among lower-class wives. There are several explanations for this f'mding. Lower- class working women reported four times more often than middle- and upper- class women "financial and economic" reasons for working, while upper- and middle-class wives mentioned career orientations more often than financial considerations. Orden and Bradburn's (1969) Findings (more marital happiness in women who work by choice - i.e., middle and upper class - and less marital happiness in women who work by necessity - i.e., lower class) offer one explanation for the pattern of loss happiness which the lower-class women experience.

Another explanation for the decrease of marital satisfaction in lower-class DCC is suggested by the connotation of the wife's employment. In an environment where the wife's employment is expected and appreciated, it can have a positive effect on marital happiness and satisfaction. But a negative effect is likely in an environment where the wife's employment connotes failure of the husband to full'ill his role as the provider of the family. Yankelovich (1974) suggested that for the large majority of men whose jobs are not inherently psychologically satisfying (e.g., blue-collar work), daily work is made worth- while by pride in hard work. The sacrifice made to provide for their families' needs validate these workers as men. Working wives thus take away a major source of these men's identity and are psychologically threatening.

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Criticism of Role Blur and the New Issue of Role Overload

The issue of role blur became the main research focus during the contemporary period. Rapaport (1975) and Rapaport suggests a possible answer to the "role blur" issue by proposing the term "equity," which goes beyond equality. "Equity" means a fair allocation both of opportunity and of constraints. The term acknowledges differences between men and women and the need to think in terms of variations of patterns. In order to achieve equity in relationships between men and women, the occupational, familial, and personal motivational systems must be considered. The fact that there are no cultural rules for how to divide the two formal roles between the two spouses can be a major source of conflict. Many men are reluctant to take an equal share in the expressive tasks of the housewife's role. Men may feel their masculinity is in danger because of "macho" socialization. Rapaport introduces the term "identity tension line" to describe how far individual couples are able to go toward establishing their ideal new definitions of sex roles before reaching the point of discomfort, where new defmitions threaten individual notions of self-esteem.

Neck's (1978) t'mdings support Rapaport's terminology. Pleck found that family tasks are strongly segregated by sex and that husbands' time in family tasks does not vary in response to changes in wives' family work resulting from wives' paid employment. Sex has a stronger effect and accounts for much more of the variance in an individual's time in family work than does employment status. Weingarten (1978) found that couples negotiate a division of labor that allows women to compensate for the time they spend away from the family and men to choose the family work that is less threatening to their masculine selves. Other studies of DCC are in accordance with Pleck and Rapaport and Rapa- port and do not corroborate the f'mdings about the egalitarian division of labor in DCC.

For example, Poloma and Garland (1971) found that in 38% of the dual- career couples, the husbands did virtually no householding, leaving it entirely to the wives and hired help. Similarly, Safilios-Rothschild (1970) suggested that when income is high, the wife's employment may not lead to an increase in the husband's housework, since the couple can afford to hire help. Bryson, Bryson, and Johnson (1978) found that dual-career wives bear a disproportionate share of the burden for child care.

Time-budget studies are another source of information that refutes data about husbands' increased housework in response to wives' employment. Walker (1970) and Meissner, Hurnphreys, Meis, and Scheir (1975) did not find that husbands contributed more time to family tasks when the wives were employed. Thus "role overload," rather than "role blur," is supported by much recent research. Indeed, it is possible that the multiple demands on a wife's time and energy contributed to some of the marital conflict found in earlier studies.

Happiness in DuaI-Csteer Couples

Role Overload

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Since contemporary studies have failed to confirm earlier concerns about role blur as a result of equal sharing of family work, contemporary researchers have focused on a new issue - role overload in working women. Studies done in the 1970s found that a possible consequence of a wife's employment and unequal, sex-segregated family work is stress. In DCC both members, but especially the wives, have an accumulation of roles - t h e occupational and the familial. They participate in two different activity systems with claims on time and energy allocations that are incompatible. Rapaport and Rapaport (1969) proposed the term "role overload" to describe this situation and found that DCC show more patterns of stress because of role overload. However, only one recent study (Bahr & Day, 1978) has found that marital satisfaction of both spouses tended to be slightly higher when the wife was not employed. A few other studies have found less marital satisfaction as result of wife's employment among husbands only (Burke & Weir, 1976) and did not fred it at all among wives. Rapaport and Rapaport (1971a) found that for th e most part the majority of the couples in their study were able to manage overload and stress. Sim- ilarly, I-I~l (1972), who investigated role overload in the married professional woman, found that the simple act of coping, as opposed to noncoping, may be more strongly related to satisfaction in women. John.Parsons (1978) found that parents in DCC experience severe overload problems, but enjoy the challenge of their lifestyle. A key issue is employed wives' report that the intellectual and psychological benefits far outweigh any disadvantages. Harrison and Minor (1978), in accordance with this line of research, found that the majority of their Black working wives sample indicated satisfaction with the way they handled their roles in life. These subjects have accepted the need to use varying coping models when dealing with role conflict, and perceive themselves as having adjusted to their role demands in the best possible way.

There is a basic agreement that working women experience role overload. Researchers are now concerned that this strain, even if distributed in a more equitable way than the current case, will still continue to be a source of instabil- ity in the family. The concern is that "expansion of the scope of the male family role without accommodating changes in male work role will lead to role strain in men similar to the strains now faced by working wives" (Pleck, 1978, p. 424).

Hunt and Hunt (1978) express another concern. They think that discus- sion of the difficulties associated with child care and housework in dual-career families primarily from the standpoint of role overload is "an overly simplistic treatment of the problem" (p. 409). The problem is not simply a logistic one of covering the workload but also a social psychological one of having adequate support systems. Hunt and Hunt are concerned that DCC may not be able to provide both men and women with the supportive services necessary to make

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them competitive in the career market, as does the support system provided for men by the one-career family.

Explanations for the Shift in Viewpoints

It would be a mistake to try to understand the two contradictory themes without noting the changes that have occurred in society in the last two decades. The traditional mother role does not occupy a sufficient portion of a woman's life span to be a full-time occupation for adult women, because of increased life expectancy and smaller families. The humanistic approach, which stresses self- fulfillment and self-realization as primary values, has grown in influence. For many women, this emphasis means that fulfilling the roles of mother, wife, and homemaker is not enough; women need something else in order to be satisfied with their achievements and their worth as human beings. On top of all this, marriage is increasingly unstable; divorced women may have to support themselves and their children and may need other skills beside homemaking ones in order to be able to get a job. All of these happenings have contributed to the gorwing influence of the Women's Liberation Movement. These activities have contributed to changing common beliefs about sex-role stereotypes and women's roles in society. The movement has made many aware that both men and women have become locked into their respective sex roles and that traditional sex roles restrict free expression of behavior in important ways. The conse- quences of this growing appeal have been reflected in media and government policy. Wider acceptance of the Women's Liberation Movement has coincided with the emergence of the contemporary view about professional women in the 1970s.

Another explanation for the discrepancy between the two kinds of f'mdings might be the reassessments of research design and methodology. Most research in the early period assumed a unidirectional cause-and-effect relationship, such as the influence of mother's employment on marital happiness (Blood, 1963; Nye, 1959; Axelson, 1963). There was little examination of how the interaction of two variables- (1) marital satisfaction, (2) dual career f a m i l y - might be affected by another factor - (3) mother's orientation to work. One might call this interaction "the second-order effect" (Bronfenbrenner, 1974). In contemporary research, an increasing number of studies have looked for second-order effects and have treated subjects as part of a social and psychological context with multiple determinants (e.g., Orden & Bradburn, 1969; Burke & Weir, 1976).

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Studies about the marriages of dual-career couples seem less confused and make more sense when the findings are viewed as representing an earlier and a


contemporary view. Now there is little evidence to support the earlier view that married women's participation in the labor market is a potential threat to the institutions of marriage and family, because of increased rate of conflict, role blur, and decrease in marital satisfaction. However, one should not simplistically conclude that DCC no longer have problems. The problems such couples face are still subtle and complex. While there is currently no indication for increased rate of conflict in DCC (rather, conflict is viewed as a natural part of family life) and no indication for role blur, since family work is very much sex segregated (which explains why working women experience role overload), the influence of wives' employment on marital satisfaction has not yet been completely clari- fied. It is not a one-to-one cause-and-effect relationship. Many other issues (e.g., congruency between attitudes and behavior, congruency between spouses, congruency with traditional sex-role stereotypes, and social class) contribute to dual-career couples' marital satisfaction. Not all of these issues are well understood and sometimes contradictory f'mdings exist. While wives' satisfaction has seemed to increase with employment, few studies have suggested that husbands' satisfaction may be harmed. Similarly, the issue of role overload in dual-career couples is not fully understood. Most studies indicate that although working women experience role overload, the act of coping and the challenge of this lifestyle seem to outweigh the disadvantages, and there is no harm to the family unit.

While it is fairly easy to measure time devoted to housework and child care, the line of research that tries to study marital dynamics, role overload, and "support system" is very complicated. These notions, which are so important for our understanding of the men and women in dual-career marriages, are less accessible to researchers. Future research should try to fred avenues of attack on these problems by including in-depth interviews and other clinical psychology methods which will increase our understanding of a few cases. After getting more precise and accurate information, it will be possible to devise new stan- dardized instruments and to' try to make conclusions on bigger samples. While old conflicts may no longer be relevant, new, more complex, but equally insidious forms of difficulties have taken their place. The dual-career couples of today are a transition generation who live without a clear precedent. It is as much a challenge for them to manage their lives as it is for researchers to study them.

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Happiness in dual-career couples: Changing research, changing values