The Work-Family Role System

Abstract

The study of work and the study of the family have traditionally constituted separate sub-disciplines in sociology. Rapoport and Rapoport (1965) and Kanter (1976), among others, have aptly stressed the need for greater examination of work and family in relation to each other. Such joint consideration is necessary to describe how individuals' functioning in either of these spheres is affected by their involvement in the other. Further, the current examination of brings added impetus to the analysis of interrelationships. A major part of what is usually meant by change in sex roles is specifically change in the traditional allocation of work and family between men and women. Traditional role norms prescribed the specialization of work and family responsibilities by sex, but a new option for each to integrate in both work and the family is now emerging. This paper analyzes some aspects of what I term the work-family role system. The role system is composed of the male work role, the female work role, the female family role, and the male family role. Each of these may be fully actualized, or may be only partly actualized or latent, as is often the case with the female work role and the male family role. The analysis of these four as a system provides a useful way of organizing research about the relations among these roles, and suggests new relations to be examined. It also makes possible some inferences about the dynamics of future changes in women's and men's in work and the family. Analyzing men's and women's work and family as components of a role system involves specifying how each role articulates with the others to which it is linked, and how variations in the nature of each role, or whether the role is actualized at all, affects the others. For example, to describe the link between the female work and the female family roles, we consider how the extent of the female work role (ranging from no paid work at all, to the most demanding and highest status full time work) both affects and is affected by the extent of the female family role. These links can be considered at two conceptual levels. They can be analyzed at the level of the individual couple, e.g., the relation between wives' employment status and wives' role performance in the family. Each link can also be considered at the