How marital partners influence each other when facing work and family decisions is the focus of this article. The 1980s were the first time in American history that more women, wives, and mothers were in the paid workforce than were not in the paid labor force (Cherlin, 1991; Gerson, 1985; Nock & Kingston, 1984). As a result of this increase, more couples are making decisions about how they as a couple will manage work and family roles. Decisions about work and family can range from couples deciding whether to relocate for the husbands' job, to couples deciding whether a spouse should enter or exit the paid labor force. These decisions are particularly important to examine because power in a relationship has been viewed as resting on the ability to control economic resources (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983; Menaghan & Parcel, 1990). At one level, married couples confronting work decisions are dealing with day-to-day routines. However, at another level, the decisions they make affect their power balance and their future interpersonal behaviors. Decisions about work and family roles are important as well because they can affect how satisfied husbands and wives are with their marriages. Couples with more equitable levels of power and influence have been found to score higher on marital satisfaction (Corrales, 1975; Raven, Centers, & Rodrigues, 1975) than those with less equitable power and influence levels. Marital partners who feel they have a say in how their roles are structured are more satisfied with their roles and with their marriages than people who have no input (Madden, 1987; Thompson & Walker, 1989). In qualitative research, women commonly mentioned family demands as influencing their work participation, commitment, and satisfaction (Gerson, 1985; Hochschild, 1989). Research on how couples make work-family decisions needs to incorporate how gender may affect the behaviors couples display during decision making, and how gender role ideology (that is, beliefs about roles of men and women) may affect decision making (Ferree, 1990; Komter, 1989; Thompson, 1993). This article seeks to improve understanding of how couples make work-family decisions, including how individual factors such as gender and gender role ideology relate to how marital partners try to influence each other, and how these factors affect marital satisfaction. REVIEW OF LITERATURE We cannot understand work-family decisions without looking at how couples make them. This investigation prompts an analysis of the influence strategies couples use when faced with decisions. The literature indicates that use of influence strategies varies by gender. There is literature as well supporting the thesis that socioeconomic factors, which also vary by gender, and gender role ideology have some bearing on how couples act as the make decisions. Influence Strategies Recent scholars have sought to describe the strategies used by marital partners during their attempts to influence each other (McDonald, 1980; Sexton & Perlman, 1989; Spiro, 1983). The study of these strategies addresses the way power is actually enacted in a relationship, or the power processes. Research indicates that the investigation of influence strategies is more fruitful than the investigation of overall power, in part because power processes have been understudied and in part because couples tend to report a norm of equal power, although they may not behave as if they truly have equal power (McDonald, 1980; Sexton & Perlman, 1989). Sexton and Perlman set out to demonstrate differences in overall power, reports of influence strategies, and actual influence behaviors between dual-and single-earner couples. They found few differences between the two types of couples and little variation in reports of overall power. Their findings in general reflected gender differences in influence, rather than differences between the two types of couples. Based on these findings, men's and women's reports of influence strategies are hypothesized to differ. …