The Social Context of Married Women's Work and Its Impact on Black Husbands and White Husbands

Abstract

Married women's increasing labor force participation has received much research attention (Fendrich, 1984; Gutek, Stromberg, & Larwood, 1988; Hochschild, 1989; Kessler & McRae, 1982; Rosenfield, 1992). Although research has demonstrated that married women's employment outside the home can have positive physical and mental effects on wives (Burke & Weir, 1976; Kessler & McRae, 1982), there is still the sense that these benefits may come at the expense of husbands' well-being. In this article, we comprehensively examine the impact of married women's work on the well-being of husbands. The sample is representative of Black and White first marriages in a Midwestern urban county. We argue that social context variables, which influence the meaning given to women's work, are the key to understanding the relationship between women's work and the well-being of husbands. PAST LITERATURE Numerous studies have explored whether wives' employment outside the home has detrimental effects on husbands' well-being. Nonetheless there is still widespread debate, because the results are inconclusive. For example, results from some studies (Booth, Johnson, White, & Edwards, 1984; Ross, Mirowsky, & Huber, 1983; Staines, Pottick, & Fudge, 1985) have indicated that husbands with employed wives experience significantly more psychological distress and poorer physical health than husbands of wives who do not work outside the home. Other researchers (Fendrich, 1984; Rosenfield, 1992) have found that wives' employment outside the home has little overall relationship to husbands' psychological and physical well-being. Still other results (Booth, 1977) have indicated that husbands of employed wives are in better mental health than husbands of housewives. Given the inconclusive findings, recent research has begun to focus on factors connected to the social context of women's work that may modify the relationship between work and well-being (Berardo, Shehan, & Leslie, 1987; Houseknecht & Macke, 1981; Vannoy & Philliber, 1992). These social context variables influence the meaning that husbands and wives give to women's employment; it is this meaning that differentially impacts well-being. A social contextual framework provides a theoretical basis with which to examine the impact of married women's work on the well-being of husbands. Following the arguments of others (Berardo, Shehan, & Leslie, 1987; Hood, 1986; Vannoy & Philliber, 1992), we maintain that the consequences of married women's employment outside the home are influenced by factors associated with the meaning of the work constructed by husbands and wives. GOALS AND THEORETICAL EXPECTATIONS OF THE CURRENT STUDY Given this theoretical foundation, the present study has three basic goals. First, instead of dividing women into groups based on the number of hours they work outside the home, we let women identify their own work status. We maintain that this helps clarify the meaning couples assign to women' s work. Second, we explore the social context of women's work for both Black husbands and White husbands. Women's work is embedded within the context of a racial/ethnic culture, consisting of norms and expectations that determine the meaning of that work. Finally, we also examine whether four specific social context variables--husband's participation in housework, gender role attitudes, parental status, and household income--modify the relationship between married women's work and the well-being of husbands. Self-Definitions of Women's Work Most of the past literature on the integration of work and family roles classifies women into two categories: those who work outside the home and those who do not. These two groups are usually based on the number of hours a woman participates in the labor force. However, there is literature that has suggested that women work for different reasons (Berardo, Shehan, & Leslie, 1987; Houseknecht & Macke, 1981). …