Comment on "The Study of Family Power Structure: A Review 1960-1969"

Abstract

theory and her characterization of the experimentalists' view of survey research. My major criticism of Safilios-Rothschild's article is her rejection of the resource theory without appropriate justification. In her discussion of Theories About Family Power Structure she states that e-ducation and occupation cannot be considered as power resources, citing several studies which seem to support her statement (p.547). A close examination of the studies she cites reveals that her conclusion may not be warranted: 1. Michel (1967) data show just the opposite of what Safilios-Rothschild claims. Educated husbands have more decision-making power than uneducated husbands: The observed trend is the same in France and the United States: the higher is the level of husband's education, the higher his family (Michel, 1967:339). mean power scores reported by Michel for husbands with primary, technical, secondary, and college educations are 1.95, 1.96, 2.01, and 2.04, respectively. Similarly, high occupational status husbands were found by Michel to have more decision-making power than low occupational status husbands: The comparative data concerning husband's authority according to his occupation... . follow the same trend in France as in the United States (Michel, 1967:339). Michel reported 1.79, 2.00, 2.00, 2.05, 2.02, and 2.08 as the mean husband authority scores for semi-skilled, skilled, low white-collar, middle white-collar, high white-collar, and professional workers, respectively. 2. Safilios-Rothschild also uses Komarovsky's (1962) data to support her position that education and occupation are not power resources, as shown by the following statement by Safilios-Rothschild: .. . Komarovsky (1967) found that the uneducated and unskilled husbands who earned less money enjoyed more decision-making power than the more educated, skilled and higher wage earners (p. 547). However, a careful reading of Komarovsky reveals that the data may be consistent with the resource theory. data show that education is a power resource, as the following statement by Komarovsky shows: