Roles and Women's Well-Being: Some Preliminary Findings from Malaysia

This study examines the relationship betweenroles (work and family) and well-being (happiness andsymptoms of distress) in a sample of employed Malaysianwomen, made up of both Malays (N = 288) and Chinese (N = 92). The two groups were similar in termsof their socioeconomic status, as measured by education,occupation, and family income. Both quantitative andqualitative analyses were used. Results of the quantitative analysis showed that aftercontrolling for the demographic variables of age, race,and occupational group as well as the personalityvariable of negative affectivity, job autonomy predicted both measures of well-being. Happiness was alsopredicted by spouse support. The qualitative resultsprovided another aspect into women's perceptions oftheir roles. The women's replies to questions on their preference for employment, theirhusbands' preference for them to work, their reasons forworking, the importance of work and family, child care,and their overall reports of work and family richly complemented the findings of the regressionanalysis. These findings are discussed with respect tothe general literature on women's roles and well-beingas well as within the context of the Malaysiansociety.     

Relation of Maternal Role Concepts to Parenting, Employment Choices, and Life Satisfaction Among Japanese Women

Japanese women are often described as heavily invested in the role of mother, yet young women in contemporary Japan are increasingly likely to postpone or opt out of marriage and child rearing. To understand the psychological dynamics of parenting among Japanese women who have chosen to become mothers, we examined the relation of maternal role salience beliefs, personal maternal role commitment, and parenting self-efficacy to life satisfaction, number of children, and employment status. Survey data were obtained from 116 urban Japanese women with children in the 2nd grade. Mothers with more children expressed greater personal role commitment. Those who had sought employment were less likely to hold strong maternal role salience beliefs. Life satisfaction was predicted by having more children, feeling efficacious as a parent, and being employed. These findings suggest that even in a society characterized by strong normative expectations for women, women's life satisfaction and choices about family life and employment are related to individual beliefs, attitudes, and judgments about their role.     

RESOURCE LOSS, RESOURCE GAIN, AND COMMUNAL COPING DURING PREGNANCY AMONG WOMEN WITH MULTIPLE ROLES

We investigated stress, coping, and employment status in 92, mostly European American pregnant women. Conservation of Resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1988, 1989) was applied as a specification of role-quality theory to examine the stressful influences of women's multiple roles. Women's resource loss predicted psychological distress better than either their resource gains or their employment status (i.e., multiple versus single roles). Full-time employed women were significantly more distressed under high loss conditions than were part-time or nonemployed women. Examining women's coping strategies based on a communal model of coping, we found that active, prosocial coping was associated with better emotional outcomes. A significant interaction was found for the effects of loss × cautious action such that loss was related to greater depression, but only among women who did not employ cautious action.     

Working wives and women's rights: The connection between the employment status of wives and the feminist attitudes of husbands

Women in the labor force tend to have more profeminist attitudes on women's rights and sex roles than women working in the home. In turn, the husbands of wives employed outside the home are more supportive of feminist positions than the husbands of wives working in the home. The difference is greater on attitudes relating to employment and traditional roles in the home and family but also occurs on some items dealing with political rights and general sexual equality. The causal connection between the attitude of husbands and the labor-force status of their wives can not be demonstrated, but causation is believed to work in both directions.This research was done for the General Social Survey project directed by James A. Davis and Tom W. Smith (GSS Technical Report No. 41). The project is funded by National Science Foundation Grant SES-8118731.     

Attitudes and adolescent nonmarital childbearing: evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth

The 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) provided data for the analysis of the impact of self-esteem, locus of control, attitudes towards women's family roles, work, and school on the probability of a nonmarital birth. The study avoided methodological problems of prior studies by using a national data base with attitude measured before nonmarital childbearing occurs. No prior studies included these 5 factors. Previous research on attitudes and nonmarital childbearing is summarized. Theoretical models imply that self-esteem, high educational goals, and an internal locus of control are associated with a lower likelihood of a nonmarital birth. The conceptual model for this study is described. It does not include how attitudes develop or estimate the linkage between family background variables and attitudes. A reduced from approach was used and controls were included for 6 family background and personal variables. The sample of 1184 girls was restricted to those aged 14 or 15 years in 1979 who were never married or had a child. 16.9% of the sample had a nonmarital child by 19 years. Measurement of explanatory variables is indicated as the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale and the Rotter scale for internal-external locus of control. A 7-item scale measured women's roles, an 8-item scale measured attitudes toward school, and 3 items assessed views on the importance of improving one's employment prospects. Background control variables were race/ethnicity, mother's education, presence of welfare income, family income, family structure, and religiosity. The standard logistics technique was used to estimate the logarithm of the odds of having a nonmarital birth as a linear function of both attitude and family background variables. Models were estimated both with and without the educational expectation variable. The results appear to indicate that self-esteem and attitudes toward school are associated with nonmarital childbearing, as predicted by theory. Locus of control does not systematically affect the likelihood of nonmarital childbearing, nor do family and gender roles and attitudes toward work. Educational expectations are not associated, but may act as an intervening variable.     

Fathers' involvement in their children's healthcare.

Fathers' involvement in the routine healthcare of young children was investigated, and fathers' relative participation in two tasks, staying home with a sick child and taking the child to the doctor or dentist, was assessed. The relationships between fathers' involvement in healthcare and several other measures, including mothers' employment status, fathers' attitudes toward women's rights and roles, the amount of time fathers spent at work, and fathers' involvement in housework, were also examined. The subjects were 50 fathers of young children in intact, White, middle-class families. Both staying home with a sick child and taking a child to the doctor or dentist were usually performed by mothers, but when mothers were employed, fathers were significantly more involved, regardless of the child's sex. Staying home with a sick child and taking a child to the doctor or dentist were positively related to fathers' involvement in housework. Fathers' staying home with a sick child was significantly correlated with fewer hours at work and liberal attitudes toward women's rights and roles; these variables were not related to taking a child to the doctor or dentist. Positive correlations between fathers' involvement in housework and staying home with a sick child and taking a child to the doctor or dentist suggests that fathers' involvement in childcare is viewed as an aspect of family work.     

Sociodemographic characteristics and drinking status as predictors of older women's health.

As part of a U.S. national survey of women's drinking and life experiences, the authors used responses from a subsample (n = 245) of women aged 55-90 years (M = 65.8 years) to examine the relationship of sociodemographic characteristics (income, marital status, and occupational status) and drinking status to several health outcomes (self-perceived general health, depression, sexual satisfaction, and sexual dysfunction). In all analyses, the authors controlled for respondent age. Results indicated that higher household income predicted greater lifetime and current sexual satisfaction with a partner as well as higher general health ratings. Women drinkers also reported better general health than did abstainers. An interaction between marital status (married or cohabitating vs. nonmarried) and employment status (employed vs. nonemployed) was a predictor of general health ratings. The authors found significant contrasts among the 4 groups when they controlled for age, income, and drinking status: (a) Among the employed respondents, the nonmarried women reported better general health than did the married women; and (b) among nonmarried respondents, the employed women reported better general health than did the nonemployed women.     

Sex-role differences in time use

Analysis of how men and women spend their time reveals much about patterns of underlying sex-role relationships. This article examines national sample data on time use by men and women in order to determine systematic sex differences in the division of work and leisure in society. Particular attention is directed to how time-use patterns shift as both paid work and marital and family burdens are added to the woman's role. To determine time use, subjects kept diaries of their activities for a particular day. In addition, attitude questions about time use were also analyzed. Paid employment was found to constrain the free time of women far more than any other single role factor, including marriage and parenthood. Consequently, employed married women have significantly less free time than do employed men or women not in the labor force. While the free time of a married woman with children decreases when she becomes employed, a husband's free time may actually increase with his wife's employment. Nevertheless, few women indicated that they would like more help with housework and child care from their husbands. Several explanations for women's resistance to more male help are examined. Implications of these results for the career development of employed women and for future changes in marital role relationships are discussed.     

Maternal Employment and Family Socioeconomic Status: Unique Relations to Maternal Stress,Parenting Beliefs,and Preschoolers’ Adjustment in Taiwanese Families

With the rapid increase in women’s labor force participation in Asia, a greater understanding of the impact of maternal employment on parenting and child development in Asia is much needed. The present study examined the concurrent relations between maternal employment status and family characteristics (e.g., socioeconomic status/SES, family structure) in Taiwanese families, and the unique relations of maternal employment and family SES to maternal stress, parenting beliefs, and preschoolers’ socioemotional adjustment. In a school-based sample of 511 preschoolers (age range?=?4–6 years, 52.9% girls), their mothers, and teachers in Taipei and Taitung, mothers reported their employment status, family characteristics, perceived stress and parenting beliefs. Mothers and teachers rated preschoolers’ adjustment. Results showed that compared to unemployed mothers in Taiwan, employed mothers were more likely to come from families with higher SES and fewer children, and nuclear (vs. extended) families. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized model. Mothers from lower-SES families reported higher stress and higher endorsement of coercive parenting, and lower endorsement of authoritative parenting than mothers from higher-SES families. Controlling for SES, employed mothers endorsed higher coercive parenting than unemployed mothers. Mothers’ endorsement of authoritative parenting was associated with better child adjustment by mothers’ (but not teachers’) reports, whereas maternal stress and coercive parenting were associated with poorer child adjustment (by mothers’ reports only). In sum, maternal employment was intricately associated with family SES in Taiwanese families, and the two contextual factors shape parenting and child adjustment in different processes.     

The Relation Between Mothers’ Attitudes Toward Maternal Employment and Social Competence of 36-Month-Olds: The Roles of Maternal Psychological Well-Being and Sensitivity

The relation of mothers’ attitudes on the effects of maternal employment on children, psychological well-being, sensitivity of the mother, and children’s socioemotional development were examined in mothers who worked full time (consistently) and mothers who were unemployed during their children’s early years of growth from 6 months of age. Longitudinal observations of 1,213 mothers and children from age 1 to 36 months from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care were analyzed using structural equation models. Mothers and children benefited when maternal attitudes were consistent with the mothers’ actual employment status. Among consistently employed mothers, those with positive attitudes about employment had better psychological well-being. When mothers who were unemployed, they believed that maternal employment would have positive consequences for their children’s development, they preferred working outside home and they were more likely to show a low level of psychological well-being and poor quality of mother-child relation. Additionally, maternal well-being mediated the relation between a mother’s attitudes and a child’s social competence. For both groups, better psychological well-being of mothers was positively related to better child’s socioemotional outcome. Maternal sensitivity, however, did not mediate the relation between maternal attitudes and child’s social outcomes. The findings shed light on the need for a sensitive measure of characterizing mothers who work versus those who stay at home in order to better understand the effects on a child’s development.     

The Relationship of Job Attribute Preferences to Employment, Hours of Paid Work, and Family Responsibilities: An Analysis Comparing Women and Men

We used 1997 International Social Survey Programme data from 14 countries to examine the relationship of job attribute preferences to family responsibilities, employment, and paid work hours. Separate regression analyses for women and men examined whether family responsibilities (marriage, children, spousal employment, and housework responsibility) predicted job attribute preferences. Many family responsibilities were significant predictors of men's and women's extrinsic and intrinsic preferences. Family responsibilities also predicted women's flexibility preferences. We next examined whether job attribute preferences were associated with employment and weekly paid work hours when family responsibilities were controlled. Job attribute preferences showed several significant relationships to women's and men's employment and several significant relationships to women's paid work hours.     

Employment Status and Sex Role Attitudes in Middle-class Suburban Mothers

Twenty-one employed and 31 nonemployed suburban mothers of 2nd and 6th grade children were administered the Bern Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), Welledey Role Orientation Scale (WROS), and items from the Traditional Family Inventory (TFI items). Employed mothers agreed with more nontraditional attitudes on the WROS and described themselves in more masculine or androgynous terms than did nonempldyed mothers. These differences were not affected by grade or sex of child. While the directionality of effect could not be established, it was clear that these employed women viewed themselves and their roles as wives and mothers differently than did their nonemployed counterparts. This was true despite differences in conditions of employment, and despite a more traditional overall attitude among these women than has been reported in studies using younger, upper middle-class university women. In this study, mothers employed part time were more traditional in their responses to TFI items concerned with child rearing attitudes than were mothers employed full time. Again, while directionality of effect could not be established, the decision to work part time and thus spend more time with the children is compatible with a more traditional attitude. The usefulness of these easily administered measures in dividing groups of women for further research on sex roles outside university communities is apparent.     

The "CEO" of women's work lives: how Big Five Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Openness predict 50 years of work experiences in a changing sociocultural context

Few long-term longitudinal studies have examined how dimensions of personality are related to work lives, especially in women. We propose a life-course framework for studying work over time, from preparatory activities (in the 20s) to descending work involvement (after age 60), using 50 years of life data from the women in the Mills Longitudinal Study. We hypothesized differential work effects for Extraversion (work as pursuit of rewards), Openness (work as self-actualization), and Conscientiousness (work as duty) and measured these 3 traits as predictor variables when the women were still in college. In a prospective longitudinal design, we then studied how these traits predicted the women's subsequent work lives from young adulthood to age 70 and how these effects depended on the changing sociocultural context. Specifically, the young adulthood of the Mills women in the mid-1960s was rigidly gender typed and family oriented; neither work nor education variables at that time were predicted from earlier personality traits. However, as women's roles changed, later work variables became related to all 3 traits, as expected from current Big Five theory and research. For example, early personality traits predicted the timing of involvement in work, the kinds of jobs chosen, and the status and satisfaction achieved, as well as continued work participation and financial security in late adulthood. Early traits were also linked to specific cultural influences, such as the traditional feminine role, the women's movement, and graduate education for careers.     

Constructing the “Good Mother”: The Experience of Mothering Ideologies by Work Status

The purpose of this study was to explore how mothers construct their worker–parent identity within a cultural context of competing mothering ideologies. We used narrative data from interviews with 95 married mothers with at least 1 child under the age of 5 to compare the construction of intensive mothering expectations by middle-class full-time employed mothers, part-time employed mothers, and at-home mothers. Although previous research has shown that mothers alter work status to live up to intensive mothering expectations, our results show that mothers also alter their construction of intensive mothering expectations to reconcile these demands with their work status choices. The results also suggest that mothers with different employment decisions differ in their construction of Y. Elvin-Nowak and H. Thomsson's (2001) 3 discursive positions—accessibility, happy mother/happy child, and separation of work and home.     

Effects of Concerns About Child Care Among Single, Employed Black Mothers with Preschool Children

This study investigated whether differences in child care arrangements and mothers' attitudes about leaving their child in nonmaternal care were associated with maternal psychological well-being and perceptions of children in a sample of single, employed, low-income, Black mothers who were former welfare recipients. Feelings of discomfort with regard to nonmaternal care were associated with higher levels of maternal depressive symptomatology, which, in turn, predicted more negative perceptions of children. Preference for employment and increased working hours were associated with greater life satisfaction. Maternal education and the gender of the child were important moderating variables. Type of child care arrangement was nonsignificant. Policy implications are discussed.     

BELIEFS ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES OF MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT FOR CHILDREN

This study investigated the psychometric properties of the Beliefs About the Consequences of Maternal Employment (BACMEC) scale in a sample of 570 pregnant women and 550 of their husbands/partners. Both the costs and benefits subscales showed excellent internal consistency reliability. The two subscales emerged as two separate factors in factor analyses, both for the mothers'data and for the fathers'data. Construct validity was indicated by moderate correlations with a scale assessing traditional versus egalitarian sex-role attitudes. The two subscales significantly differentiated a group of mothers who favored early entry into childcare from a group who favored later entry. Fathers'scores were quite close to those of mothers, indicating that they have similar beliefs about the consequences of maternal employment for children.     

Predicting Voluntary Turnover from Job Applicant Biodata and Other Applicant Information

Research suggests that biodata (i.e., personal history information) is one of the best predictors of voluntary employee turnover. Given this fact, it is surprising that research on biodata has declined in recent years, and that biodata is not commonly used by employers for selecting employees. This article presents the results of a study that focused on the ability of biodata items and other information available on job applicants to predict voluntary turnover. With one exception, the hypotheses offered were confirmed. Specifically, applicant status (i.e., previously had applied for a job), submission of optional personal history information, employment status (i.e., job applicant was employed), and recruitment source (i.e., employee referral) all predicted voluntary turnover. The ability of applicant status, submission of a personal statement, and recruitment source to predict employee performance also was examined. Applicant status and recruitment source were found to predict subsequent performance ratings.     

Predictors of conflict over the household division of labor among women employed full-time

This empirical study examined predictors of conflict over the household division of labor among a group of 319 middle class, less traditional married women in order to examine the degree to which equity factors predicted conflict. Forty of the women were either African American, Hispanic, Native American, or Asian. An analysis of covariance indicated that there were no differences by race/ethnicity. The study explored the following: (1) the degree to which equity factors predict conflicts over household labor, (2) which equity factors best account for conflict, (3) the degree to which particular equity factors mediate the relationship of conflict with other variables, (4) whether equity factors are more compelling in predicting conflicts than practical or status variables, and (5) whether women's perceptions of the reasons for conflict put more emphasis on equity than on other issues. Results indicated that while both equity and practical factors predicted conflict, equity factors were more statistically significant. The best overall model of conflict suggested that it was predicted by lower satisfaction with the division of labor (which, in turn, was contingent upon time differentials between spouses and the time a womans' spouse spent on traditional women's tasks), a larger number of household members, a woman's younger age, and performing a greater number of overall household tasks. Equity is important to such women and constitutes a basis for making arguments about justice. However, these employed women devote twelve hours more per week to household labor than their partners and are relatively satisfied with the division. Chaeftz's theory of gender equity identifies where this sample of employed women may be located in the process of change.Thanks to Diane Blohowiak for statistical assistance and to Susan Jacquet, Laura Thieme, Annette Tierrien, and Mark Hoven Stohs for assistance with data gathering. Special thanks to the reviewers.     

Contributions of a supportive work environment to parents' well-being and orientation to work

Examined the joint and unique contributions of informal social support in the workplace and formal, family-responsive benefits and policies provided by employers to the job-related attitudes and personal well-being of employed parents with a young child. Eighty married men, 169 married women, and 72 single women with a preschool child completed a survey concerning social support from co-workers and supervisor, utilization of family-responsive benefits and policies, readiness to leave the employer for additional benefits, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, role strain, and health symptoms. Among the findings: (a) Fathers and mothers expressed equal levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, but mothers reported more role strain and health symptoms; (b) nearly 48% of married women's organizational commitment was accounted for by measures of support in the workplace; (c) informal social support at work was significantly more important to men's well-being than that of women; and (d) formal, family-responsive policies appeared more consequential for the prediction of women's role strain, perhaps because of women's greater responsibility for adjusting work life to meet the demands of family roles.