1. CHAPTER 13
Work and Family Life

2. Chapter 12: Work and Family Life Chapter Outline
Money and Relationships
Work and Marriage: Effects of Work on Spouses
Work and Family: Effects on Children
Balancing Work and Family Life
Balancing Work and Leisure Time
The Future of Work and Family Life

3. Chapter 12: Work and Family Life Introduction
One survey noticed a link between homicides in the family and economic deprivation.
Impoverished families, including those riddled with unemployment, were contexts for homicide.
Discussion:
How do economic forces affect the family structure?

4. Money and Relationships
Money as Power in a Couple’s Relationship
Money is a central issue in relationships because of its association with power, control, and dominance.
Generally, the more money a partner makes, the more power that person has in the relationship.

5. Money and Relationships
Effects of Poverty on Marriages and Families
Poorer physical and mental health
Lower personal and marital satisfaction
Lower life expectancy
Relationship conflict
Stress leading to substance abuse, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, divorce, and questionable parenting practices
Teenage pregnancy

6. Work and Marriage: Effects of Work on Spouses
Basic Rules for Managing One’s Work Life to Have a Successful Marriage
Turning a negative into a positive
Being creative
Tolerating dissimilarity
Being committed to the relationship

7. Work and Marriage: Effects of Work on Spouses
About 60% of wives work today, nearly double the percentage in 1960.
Generally speaking, the more money a partner makes, the more power that person has in the relationship.
Although two-thirds of all husbands in dual-income families make more money than their wives, women are more likely to make the decisions in more areas.
Higher education increases a woman’s power in the relationship.

8. Employed Wives
77% of all U.S. wives with children are in the labor force.
Mothers are most likely to enter the work force when their children are teenagers (between the ages of 14 and 17).
Some women prefer to be employed part-time rather than full- time.
Adjusting for inflation, the value of a stay-at-home mother is $62,000 per year in terms of what a dual-income family spends to pay for all the services that she provides.

9. Employed Wives Role-status outcome groups:
“Have It All” (mothers, employed full time)
Traditional (mothers, employed part time or not at all)
Employed Only (childfree, employed full time)
Mommy track: stopping paid employment to spend time with young children.

10. Office Romance
In one survey, 60% of respondents said they had been involved in an office romance
28% of respondents had dated someone who worked in the same company.
Office is a “scene of seduction and amorality.”

11. Types of Dual-Career Marriages
HIS/her career
HER/his career
HIS/HER career marriage
THEIR career marriage

12. Effects of the Wife’s Employment on the Wife
Role overload – not having the time or energy to meet the demands of responsibilities in the roles of wife, parent, and worker.
Second shift – housework and child care that employed women do when they return home from their jobs.
Role conflict – being confronted with incompatible role obligations.
Role strain – anxiety that results from being able to fulfill only a limited number of role obligations.

13. Effects of the Wife’s Employment on the Husband
Relieved of the sole responsibility for the family’s financial support
Freedom to quit jobs, change jobs, or go to school
Potential to form a closer bond with their children

14. Effects of Wife’s Employment on the Marriage
Woman’s employment does not affect a happy marriage but can affect an unhappy one.
Co-provider couples report the highest marital satisfaction and most equitable division of housework.
Having control over the hours one works is related to positive family functioning.

15. Work and Family: Effects on Children
Effects of the Wife’s Employment on the Children
Children do not appear to suffer cognitively or emotionally as long as positive, consistent child-care alternatives are in place
Self-Care/Latchkey Children
Quality time
Day care considerations
More than half of U.S. children are in center-based child-care programs
Quality of day care
Cost of day care

16. Balancing Work and Family Life
Superperson Strategy
Cognitive Restructuring
Delegation of Responsibility and Limiting Commitments
Time Management
Role Compartmentalization

17. Balancing Work and Leisure Time
“Technology is such that a person may never detach from work and stay connected to the office even on vacation.”
How does the above statement reflect the changing nature of leisure in America?

18. Leisure Intrusive Technology Definition and Importance of Leisure
Seven in ten U.S. workers say that technology has resulted in work becoming a part of their personal time.
Definition and Importance of Leisure
Leisure – the use of time to engage in freely chosen activities perceived as enjoyable and satisfying
View of Work/Leisure by Millennials
Millennials (those born between 1980 and 1995) are no longer interesting in being consumed by their work.

19. Leisure Functions of Leisure Relieve work-related stress and pressure
Facilitate social interaction and family togetherness
Foster self-expression, personal growth, and skill development
Enhance overall social, physical, and emotional well-being

20. Leisure Individual and Relationship Problems Related to Leisure
Excessive drinking
Relationship problems related to television watching, travel, time, and video games
Family Vacations and Vacation Stress
Vacations can be stressful because of planning, travel time and costs, putting work on hold, and arranging for pet care.

21. What If?

22. The Future of Work and Family Life
Families will continue to be stressed by work.
Employers will, increasingly, ask employees to work longer hours and do more without the commensurate increases in salary or benefits.
The number of wives who work outside the home will increase.

23. Quick Quiz What is role overload?
not having time or energy to meet the demands of role responsibility
being on the second shift
getting too much into one's role as parent
taking on both gender roles of parent
Ans: A

24. Quick Quiz
What is most likely the primary concern of an employed parent?
pleasing their employer
juggling demands of work and family
making enough money
finding time for the spouse
Ans: B

25. Quick Quiz
The housework and child care that employed women do when they return home from their jobs is called:
the fourth shift
the third shift
the second shift
the first shift
Ans: C

26. Quick Quiz
Which of the following can be a disadvantage of leisure time?
relieve work-related stress
foster self-expression
enhance social well-being
drink excessively
Ans: D

27. Quick Quiz
When the careers of both the wife and husband are given equal status in the relationship, the couple has a commuter marriage, which is also called:
HIS/HER career
HIS/her career
HER/his career
THEIR career
Ans: A