It's not what I expected: the association between dual-earner couples' met expectations for the division of paid and family labor and well-being.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Allen TD ; Shockley KM
• Description:
  The impact of dual-earner couples' unequal division of paid and family labor after the transition to parenthood is inconsistently linked to well-being outcomes. We argue that this relationship can be better understood by examining the congruence between the post-child division of labor and pre-child expectation for the division of labor. Based on a met expectations framework, this idea was tested with 137 dual-earner heterosexual couples with young children. Hypotheses were testing using polynomial regression analyses with well-being considered in both affective (career, marital, and family satisfaction) and health-related (depressive and physical health symptoms) terms. Results suggested that congruence in the paid labor and childcare domain mattered most for wives' well-being, whereas congruence with household labor mattered most for husbands' well-being. Crossover analyses revealed a similar trend in that wives' expectations-division of paid labor congruence was significantly related to husband's well-being and husbands' expectations-division of household labor congruence was significantly related to wives' well-being. Hypotheses were also tested with pre-child desires for division of labor instead of pre-child expectations. The pattern of results was similar albeit stronger for expectations. Implications include the importance of comprehensively assessing division of labor and the fact that pre-child attitudes are relevant to post-child outcomes. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Family Occupational Health Safety Workplace
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Division Of Labor; Work-family; Dual-earner Couples; Career Satisfaction; Marital Satisfaction Families; Work Environment; Work-life Balance; Children;
• ISSN:
  0001-8791
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Florida ; Georgia ; OSHA Region 4
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  240-260
• Volume:
  104
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20064801
• Citation:
  J Vocat Behav 2018 Feb; 104:240-260
• Contact Point Address:
  Kristen M. Shockley, Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, 125 Baldwin St., Athens, GA 30602
• Email:
  kshock@uga.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2018
• Performing Organization:
  Sunshine Education and Research Center, University of South Florida
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Vocational Behavior
• End Date:
  20290630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:993b49e3fd3273b2cc42bc1a95290bd7730ce81db63bae6ff475fe47a479bda674d3e9d5ea11353eeb7e2b708c319b3ceefab3dc6d00a48b4bcbb7476fce26d1
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/249242/cdc_249242_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.36 MB ]