1. MARITAL SATISFACTION OF EMPLOYED AND NONEMPLOYED YOUNG WOMEN
Elena Chebotareva
Moscow, Russia
8th EFTA-TIC Meeting of Trainers
September 26th-28th, Iasi, Romania

2. Family and work are the two most important spheres of modern life.
Job – family balance – is the most significant factor of subjective well-being (happiness)
Job and family satisfaction relations are specific in different social and cultural circumstances.

3. Family and work satisfaction correlates directly
earlier studies (ex. Ferree, 1976):
women with jobs outside the home are generally happier and more satisfied with their lives than are fulltime housewives.
There is a significant direct relationship between marital satisfaction and job satisfaction.
Weaver, 1997; Tenessee , Fox, Chancy , 1998;, Rondy, 1998); Gumberman et al , 2000; Noor, 2002; Kinnunen et al, 2005; Janning’s, 2006; Rogers & May, 2003 an so on.

4. Family and work satisfaction correlates inversely
Job satisfaction / involvement / commitment and family / marital satisfaction relate inversely / contradictory.
Full-time working women are overloaded with their family and job duties.
Women actively involved in business activity no longer assume traditional female family roles.
Fincham & Bradbury, 1990; Beutell, 1993; Hengstebeck, 2013; Helms, Supple, Su et all, 2014;

5. W-F conflict vs W-F synergy
Work –family conflict
Stress and difficult working conditions in some jobs have significant negative effects on physical and mental efficiency of the employee and it would also distort his/her family and social relationships greatly.
On the other hand, marital problems and conflicts decrease persons ‘efficiency at work and consequently their job satisfaction.
Hochschild, 1997.; Robinson, 1997; Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985; Bakker, Demerouti. & Burke, 2009; Amstad, Meier, Fasel, Elfering & Semmer, 2011.
Work-family enrichment / facilitation / synergy
Ex.: both spheres give additional recourses for increasing person’s efficiency
working persons have greater opportunities for self-realization and less expectations (claims) for family.
Sieber, 1974; Hill, 2005; Greenhaus & Powell, 2006; Wayne, ‎2007; Heraty, ‎2008.

6. Does it depend on how the search query is formulated?
Wright (1978): both work outside the home and fulltime housewifery have benefits and costs attached to them;
There are no consistent or significant differences in patterns of life satisfaction between the two groups of persons.
Is it the researchers biased views?

7. Gallup Poll (1989):
84% of married people when first asked say that they are “very satisfied” with their marriages.
Further more in-depth questioning revealed:
40% had considered leaving their partners,
20% had bad marriages half the time
28% had already been divorced at least once.

8. Dependence of marital satisfaction on experience of family life
Newlyweds are more satisfied with their family life;
The most disappointing period for many spouses is the time when they learn to deal with their first baby.
Alyoshina (1987): marital satisfaction decreases during the first decades of family life, reaching a minimum value in families with experience of years, and then increases sharply.
Families with children usually response higher marital satisfaction than childless families.

9. Importance of young families study
The young marriage - is one of the most complex and critical periods of family life.
It lays the foundation to further relations of the spouses and changes their personality.
Young couple get new roles, according to which the spouses change their “I” image and social identity.
Many young people in Russia marry just after university graduating. So professional and family identity crisis coincide.

10. Social identity crisis of young spouses
The young spouses do not to assume social roles, preferring individual ones.
Social roles structure in young spouses representations is much less clear, less consistent between the spouses.
The set of family roles that one spouse are ready to assume often differ significantly from the roles set that is expected from him (her) her by the partner;
Emotional and instrumental roles in young families are separated from each other;
(Chebotareva, Kozlova, 2011)

11. Conflicts in young families
Conflicts between young spouses with varying degrees occur in all areas of family life.
Most often the contradictions occur in relations with relatives and friends,
then because of divergence of the spouses’ attitudes to money,
then in connection to autonomy and dominance.
Least likely conflicts occur on the basis of mismatching the spouses’ behavior models.

12. The aims of the empirical study
to assess the differences in marital satisfaction and of full-time working young women and housewives among recent University alumni in Russia;
to reveal the relations of marital satisfaction with different family conflicts;
to analyze the differences if conflict interaction of employed and nonemployed women;
To examine the correlation of marital satisfaction with satisfaction with different job aspects.

13. Participants 70 women: aged from 23 to 30 years old,
recent university alumni in Russia.
married for years,
without children.
35 - full-time working women,
35 - had never worked a full day.

14. Techniques
Questionnaire on marriage satisfaction (V. Stolin, T.Romanova, G.Butenko)
Test “Mode of spouses’ interaction in conflict situations“ (Ju. Alyoshina, L.Gozman, E.Dubovskaya)
Test “Job satisfaction” (V. Snetkov)
U-test & Spearman's rank correlation were used for data analysis

15. “Mode of spouses’ interaction in conflict situations“
32 standard conflict situations that occur in almost every pair.
Respondents evaluated how typical these situations were for them.
Example:
Both of you have to stay up late at works, but somebody have to be with your child. You think that today your business is more important than your husband’s one, and it is he, who have to be with the child today. He is not agree with you. You...
absolutely don’t agree with what my husband says and does, actively express my disagreement and persist on my decisions;
don’t agree with what my husband says and does, somehow show my dissatisfaction, but avoid the discussions;
do nothing about it, don’t express my disagreement, wait for further development of the situation;
in general I agree with that he says, but I don’t think it necessary to express my attitude.
I fully agree with what my husband tells and does and actively support him and одобряю.
allows to identify:
the level of conflict in a pair,
the degree of constructiveness in conflicts resolving,
the most conflict spheres of family life.

16. Questionnaire on marriage satisfaction
24 statements about satisfaction or dissatisfaction with different spheres of family life.
Example:
“The life without family and loved person is to high a price for my independence”:
“My family life is not such as I expected early”
Types of possible answers: а) it’s true, b) I’ m not sure, c) it’s not true.
It assesses the extent of constructiveness of the spouse's behavior in conflict areas:
- relations with relatives and friends,
- parenting,
- desire for autonomy,
- violation of role expectations
- mismatch of behavior standards
- one of the spouses dominance
- jealousy manifestations
- differences in attitudes to money

17. Test “Job satisfaction”
56 statements, respondents were asked to rate on10 points scale how true were the statements for them.
In the first part respondents were asked about their actual job; in the second – about some ideal job.
The divergence between the real and the ideal works reflects the degree of satisfaction of the person’s needs for:
creative and interesting work
favorable conditions at work
warm and trusting relations in a team
recognition and personal authority
personal development
financial and social security
principled and demanding relations in a team
individual development of all team members
pro-active attitude
well organized work
productiveness of work
utilitarian needs an so on.

18. Marital satisfaction of employed and nonemployed women

19. Employed women’s interaction in family conflict situation
M = -0,32 ≤ passively destructive interactions

20. Nonemployed women’s interaction in family conflict situation
M = -0,40 ≤ passively destructive interactions

21. Differences in interactions in family conflict situation
Rank Sum U p
employed
nonempl.
marital satisfaction
7854,50
3470,50
620,50
0,00
relations with relatives and friends
6334,00
4991,00
2141,00
0,01
parenting
5660,50
5664,50
2810,50
0,99
desire for autonomy
6168,50
4956,50
2206,50
0,05
violation of role expectations
6341,00
4984,00
2134,00
mismatch of behavior standards
6067,50
5257,50
2407,50
0,13
one of the spouses dominance
5292,50
6032,50
2442,50
0,16
jealousy manifestations
5547,50
5777,50
2697,50
0,67
attitudes to money
4790,00
6535,00
1940,00

22. Overall level of constructiveness
Correlations of marital satisfaction with conflict interactions at employed women
Marital satisfaction
Relatives & friends
(p=0,24)
Dominance
(p=0,34)
Role expectations
(p=0,41)
Autonomy
(p=0,23)
Overall level of constructiveness
(p=0,34)

23. Employed women conflict situations interrelations
relatives
parenting
autonomy
roles
behaviour
domination
jealousy
0,47
1,00
0,50
role expectations
0,38
0,31
0,42
behavior standards
0,40
0,52
dominance
0,39
0,41
0,37
0,61
0,65
0,24
0,44
0,26
money
0,32
0,02
0,23
0,03
0,21
0,09
0,28

24. Nonemployed women conflict situations interrelations
relatives
parenting
autonomy
roles
behaviour
domination
jealousy
0,27
1,00
0,14
0,03
role expectations
0,20
0,12
behavior standards
0,39
0,53
dominance
0,04
-0,04
-0,06
-0,02
0,13
0,29
0,11
0,10
0,05
money
0,02
-0,03
-0,01

25. Overall level of constructiveness
Correlations of marital satisfaction with conflict interactions at nonemployed women
Marital satisfaction
Relatives & friends
(p=0,30)
Jealousy manifestations
(p= - 0,36)
Role expectations
(p=0,27)
Behavior standards
(p=0,27)
Overall level of constructiveness
(p=0,15)

26. Correlations of marital satisfaction and job satisfaction at employed women
Correlation of overall levels of job satisfaction and marital satisfaction is not statistically significant.
? Different work spheres have different impact on family life and marital satisfaction.

27. Creative & interesting work Development of all team members
Correlations of marital satisfaction and satisfaction with different aspects of work
Marital satisfaction
Creative & interesting work
(p= - 0,38)
Social recognition of the team
(p= -0,23)
Development of all team members
(p= -0,25)
Active life style
(p= -0,20)
Good job organization
(p= -0,20)
The team’s job success
(p= - 0,20)

28. Conclusions
Young families as with employed and with nonemployed women characterized with passively destructive interactions;
These types of women don’t differ in their abilities for constructive conflict interaction;
Employed young women more constructively solve conflicts connecting external and internal family borders (relations with relatives and friends, personal autonomy and family roles);
Nonemployed can more constructively solve conflicts with attitudes to money.

29. For employed women marital satisfaction is connected to general family style of constructive conflict solving.
For both groups of women marital satisfaction is connected in particular to constructive solving conflicts about relations with relatives and friends and about family role expectations.
For employed women it is also connected to constructive solving conflicts about autonomy and dominance;
For nonemployed - to constructive solving conflicts about behavior standards and jealousy.

30. The relations between overall levels of marital and job satisfaction is ambiguous, depending of spheres of women’s self-realization at work.
Marital satisfaction inversely correlates with satisfaction with certain job characteristics:
creativity and interest,
personal development,
social recognition,
active life style,
team spirit (solidarity, hierarchy, common success)

31. Hypothesis to check further
Employed women better understand their needs and can discuss them more clearly and openly;
Nonemployed women some frustrated needs express symbolically through the conflicts in other spheres.
The relations between marital and job satisfactions are mediated by person’s values, levels of personal maturity of both spouses and their interpersonal relations.
The relations between marital and job satisfactions are specific for each age period and stage of the family life cycle.
There is cultural specifics in job and family satisfactions interrelation.