Will both spouses have careers?: Predictors of preferred traditional or egalitarian marriages among university students

This study examined the significance of work preference variables, family preference variables, socialization influences, and needs for achievement and affiliation in predicting preferred traditional versus egalitarian marriages among university students. Results showed that, overall, male university students preferred traditional marriages while female university students preferred egalitarian marriages. Sex also interacted significantly with the following variables: desired family task involvement, desired job task involvement, and mother's family involvement. The data suggest that a perspective encompassing a wide variety of variables (including work, family, and socialization considerations) may be useful for conceptualizing individuals' preferences for traditional or egalitarian marriages. Implications of the results for management and career counseling are discussed.     

Understanding Dual Career Couples

The increasing number of clients seeking to maintain a dual career life-style has increased the need for counselors to educate themselves to the unqiue set of concerns, needs, and characteristics particular to dual career partners and their families. This article presents an overview of the published literature delineating the variables associated with this life-style, including the numerous benefits or incentives, the common conflicts and stressors, and the personality dynamics shared by these men and women. In addition, the article will describe dysfunctional coping strategies as well as adaptive strategies employed by individuals attempting to manage the coupling of both career and family.     

Making Career Development a Reality for Dual-Career Couples

This article presents a brief overview of the complex critical issues that play a part in the life-style of the dual-career couple. These critical issues, although interdependent, are categorized into three areas for the purposes of discussion: career-related, family system, and individual issues. The resulting implications for the career development process are also discussed. Finally, recommendations are introduced that would increase the effectiveness of career development counseling for individuals who either anticipate being part of, or are currently a part of, a dual-career couple.     

Work–family interface from a life and career stage perspective: The role of demands and resources

Work–family conflict and enrichment are experiences that occur daily and have substantial consequences for employees, their families, and the organizations that employ them. The aim of the current review is to make a link between life and career stage, work and family conditions, and the work–family interface. The basic proposition is that life stages partly determine career development, and consequently the specific working conditions (job demands and job resources) and family conditions (family demands and family resources) that individuals are exposed to. As a result, the specific demands and resources in the work and family domains determine to what extent individuals experience that work and family are conflicting or enriching life domains. In this review we suggest that individuals in early adulthood will experience high inter‐role conflict and low facilitation due to high demands and low resources in both life domains, while individuals in late adulthood will experience the opposite pattern; that is, low conflict and high facilitation due to low demands and high resources in both domains. Individuals in middle adulthood will experience high work–family conflict but also high family–work facilitation due to the presence of high job demands and resources in both life domains. Integrating life and career stage perspectives and the experience of work–family interface is of notable practical utility because it provides a mechanism to make more informed decisions about the relative need for and corresponding benefits of work–family programs.     

Multiple-role realism: A theoretical framework for the process of planning to combine career and family roles

The desire of many young women to become fully involved in both career and family roles is now a well-known phenomenon. Trends in womens' plans for a multiple-role life-style are considered, with the identification of a hopeful, overly optimistic quality characterizing such plans as well as the existence of more thoughtful planning. The construct multiple-role realism is introduced as a theoretical framework that can extend the understanding of the process of multiple-role planning and of individual differences in the development of career and family plans. Evidence supporting the theoretical formulations of multiple-role realism is reviewed. Implications for future research and interventions that follow from the proposed model are discussed.     

The relationship between work and well‐being in clergywomen: implications for career counseling

This article focuses on the ministry, a profession in which 2 important characteristics intersect to pose special challenges for women in balancing their work and family responsibilities. In this qualitative study of clergywomen (N = 190), the authors examined the impact of being female in a male‐dominated occupation, particularly one that has been traditionally structured as a “2‐person career.” They argue that career counselors are in a unique position to prepare future clergywomen for the special challenges they will face in the ministry and make recommendations for ways in which career counselors may serve this distinctive population.     

Work–family enrichment,job satisfaction,and work engagement: The mediating role of subjective career success

Objective: The aim of the study was to explore the possible indirect effect of subjective career success on the relationship between work–family enrichment and job satisfaction and work–family enrichment and work engagement. Method: A cross-sectional, quantitative research design approach was followed using a convenience sample (N = 334). Results: Results revealed that work–family enrichment was not only positively related to subjective career success, job satisfaction and work engagement, but also predictive of the mentioned constructs. Furthermore, subjective career success was found to indirectly effect the relationship between work–family enrichment and job satisfaction and work engagement. Conclusion: Using the resource-gain-development framework, new insights are provided into the processes and mechanisms relating to work–family enrichment. Our findings suggest that resources are creating positive affect in not only the work and career domains of employees, but also leading to more engaged and satisfied employees. (i.e., the indirect effect of subjective career success). Organisations can benefit when they enhance work environments (e.g., by providing relevant resources) to promote work–family enrichment and, by implication, subjective career success and positive work outcomes such as job satisfaction and work engagement.     

The Relation of Career Adaptability to Work–Family Experience and Personal Growth Initiative Among Taiwanese Working Parents

This study aimed to explore the effect of career adaptability on 598 working parents in Taiwan. The results showed that career adaptability served an important role in moderating and mediating the effects between work–family conflict, work–family strength, and personal growth initiative.     

Expanding Academic and Career Self‐Efficacy: A Family Systems Framework

This article presents 2 theories useful to school counselors: self‐efficacy and family systems. The author advocates the use of a family‐sensitive model when counseling individuals that recognizes and respects the individual's membership in a family culture. Self‐efficacy and family systems interventions for academic and career development are demonstrated in the hope that individual identities in relation to family identities will be strengthened so that youth can access family legacies as they consider their academic and career options.     

Religion,Family, and Career among Graduate Students in the Sciences

Concerns about family life push some students away from a career in science or lead them away from particular career paths within science. Religion has been shown to have an influence on individuals’ values concerning both family and work. This study uses data from a survey of U.S. graduate students in five science disciplines to estimate a structural equation model examining paths between religiosity, work and family values, and intent to pursue different careers within science. The analysis finds that religiosity is positively associated with the importance placed on family and, through this mediator, is associated with a lower intent to pursue research‐focused academic jobs and higher intent to pursue teaching‐focused academic jobs. We discuss the implications of these findings, particularly as the analysis shows that women and some racial and ethnic minority students are more religious than their male and white peers.     

Value Satisfaction as a Function of Role Salience,Age, and Sex

This study explores the interactions of age, sex, and role salience toward predicting value satisfaction in career decision making among community college students. Suggestions of ways employment counselors can assess values in all aspects of an individual's life-style for use in career-life planning are offered.     

Planning ahead: college seniors’ concerns about career-marriage conflict

Career-marriage conflict (CMC) reflects the reality that for many college seniors, the next decade of their lives will be spent launching a career, often a very demanding one, building a long-term romantic relationship, and coordinating the demands of two careers. We focus on the antecedents and correlates of these concerns. Based on social-role theory, we hypothesized that seniors whose mothers worked outside the home while the seniors were children would express less concern about CMC than seniors with at-home mothers. We also hypothesized that seniors’ expectations about the timing of their marriages and childbearing relate to their concerns about CMC, with students who plan to delay family formation having fewer CMC concerns. These hypotheses were supported through an analysis of secondary data from a sample of 324 college seniors at a private university in the Northeast.     

Asian American career development: A qualitative analysis

This study used a modified version of consensual qualitative research design to examine how contextual, cultural, and personal variables influence the career choices of a diverse group of 12 Asian Americans. Seven domains of influences on career choices emerged including family, culture, external factors, career goals, role models, work values, and self-identity. Furthermore, several overarching themes were discovered that expressed elements of many of these domains. These themes highlighted the pervasive and influential role that both culture and family of origin play in the construction of meaning that these Asian American participants made from their career choices. Implications of these domains and themes and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Work and Family Variables, Entrepreneurial Career Success, and Psychological Well-Being

The study examines the influence of work and family variables on the career success and psychological well-being of 111 men and women entrepreneurs. The results show that work-domain variables account for significant variation in time commitment to work, whereas family-domain variables explain substantial variation in time commitment to family. Time commitment to work and time commitment to family play an important role in mediating the effects of gender, work and family characteristics, and role demands on work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict. These two types of work–family conflict in turn mediate the effects of time commitment to work and family and selected work and family variables on entrepreneurs’ career success and life stress. Implications of the findings and directions for further research are discussed.     

My Stepfather Is a She

Homosexual marriages in which children are reared are increasingly in evidence as one of the proliferating new family forms. Mental health practitioners will be called on to involve themselves professionally with such families and to develop skills appropriate to support the functioning of such unions, as well as to alleviate their distress. This article consists of the treatment of a lesbian couple and their two sons.     

Women, Career Orientation, and Employment

This study examines age and life-cycle stage variance in women's career orientation (i.e., intention to pursue a career) and in the expression of career orientation through employment. The study group is a cross-sectional, non-probability sample of 1, 120 women, ages 22–64, who contacted a major mid-western university's Center for Continuing Education of Women. Three findings predominate: (1) Career orientation is negatively related to age, reflecting greater career interest among younger women. (2) In all marital and parental status categories, high proportions of young women are career oriented, suggesting that career interest persists through the periods of family formation and expansion. (3) The greatest discrepancy between career orientation and rate of full-time employment occurs among married mothers of preschool children, suggesting that career plans are deferred during early motherhood. Discussion focuses on the implications of the findings for work and family policy and further research.     

Family and career path characteristics as predictors of women’s objective and subjective career success: Integrating traditional and protean career explanations

This study examined the effects of family and career path characteristics on objective and subjective career success among 916 employed mothers. Among family variables, age at first childbirth was positively related and career priority favoring the husband was negatively related to both income and subjective career success; number of children was negatively related and years elapsed since first childbirth was positively related to income only. Among career path variables, career gaps, interorganizational mobility and proportion of one’s career spent in part-time work were negatively related to income; career gaps were negatively related to subjective career success. Income was positively related to subjective career success. Results suggest that integration of traditional and protean career perspectives helps to explain women’s career success.     

Having it all? Combining work and family in a male and a female profession

Are women in a female-dominated profession more successfully able to combine work and family obligations than women in a male-dominated profession? To explore this question, a comparison was made between the family status and careers of 747 women librarians (a female-dominated profession) and those of 449 women MBAs (a male-dominated profession). It was expected that the librarians would marry earlier and have more children. This general prediction was not supported. Over half of both groups of women were married, and after controlling for age, there were no differences in number of children. However, many women without children in both groups reported that they would like to be mothers. This disparity between wanting children and not having them was more common for women MBAs than women MLSs. MBAs and librarians were about equally likely to have had job interruptions, but librarians were more likely to have worked part-time. Reasons for an interruption to full-time work were as likely to be for problems finding (full-time) work as for family responsibilities. Librarians' salaries were much lower, but job interruptions and part-time work had a more negative effect on the salaries of women in business. In sum, the data suggest that many of the women surveyed have not combined motherhood with a professional career and that it is probably somewhat more difficult to combine a family with a career in business than with a career in library science.     

How Do Partners Find out About the Risk of Huntington’s Disease in Couple Relationships?

Whilst a growing body of work has explored family communication about Huntington’s disease and how at-risk individuals learn about their risk, the experience of telling a partner and partners’ experiences of finding out about this potentially devastating hereditary illness have received little attention. This study describes the experiences of partners in finding out about Huntington’s disease and any impact on couple’s relationships/marriages. We undertook a thematic analysis of qualitative interviews which explored the dynamics of partners’ marriages after predictive testing and partners’ views of genetic counseling. A main theme from partners’ accounts was how they found out about their spouse’s risk of Huntington’s disease and the impact this had on marital relations. The analysis revealed four types of disclosure experiences: (1) marital secrets; (2) alerting, but not telling; (3) knowing and seeing; (4) marital ignorance. Our findings demonstrate that partners’ experiences of (non)disclosure about the risk of HD within marriages is an important factor which contributes to couples’ coping or marital problems. Exploring how spouses found out about their partner’s risk of HD will illuminate issues about a couple’s past and future patterns of communication and their coping strategies. A practical and ethical implication is the extent to which genetic counselors should inform partners about the course and nature of Huntington’s disease when a partner is the support person for the individual being tested.