Being Together, Working Apart: Dual-Career Families and the Work-Life Balance

Barbara Schneider, Linda J. Waite

Cambridge University Press, Feb 24, 2005 - Family & Relationships - 553 pages

Despite the fact that most parents are employed, how work affects the lives and well-being of parents and their children remains relatively unexplored. A recent study of 500 dual-career families in 8 communities across the US provides a holistic view of the complexities of work and family life experienced by parents and their children. Drawing on the study, this book explores how dual-earner families cope with the stresses and demands of balancing work and family life, whether the time parents spend working is negatively affecting their children, how mothers feel managing both work and household responsibilities, and what role fathers are taking in family life. In answering these questions the authors argue for a new balance between work and family life. The book with its rich data, findings, and commentary from an interdisciplinary group of scholars provides a valuable resource for academics, policy makers, and working parents

Contents

• Why study working families?: 3
• The design of the 500 Family Study: 18
• Overview: 47
• Womens intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for working: 79
• Emotional transmission between parents: 138
• Overview: 167
• marital satisfaction and what: 196
• Overview: 227
• highlevel: 252
• Television use and communication within families with: 277
• Religiosity emotional wellbeing and family processes: 303
• Overview: 331
• parental influences on: 365
• parent occupation: 396
• how characteristics: 422
• strategies for dualearner: 449
• Appendix A Obtaining accurate measures of time: 461
• Commentary: 483
• BIANCHI KAZUO YAMAGUCHI: 491
• Commentary: 504
• References: 515
• Index: 542

Popular passages

Page 541 - Actions of dehydroepiandrosterone and its sulfate in the central nervous system: Effects on cognition and emotion in animals and humans. Brain Res.‎

About the author

Barbara Schneider is Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, Principal Investigator for the new Data Research and Development Center at NORC and the University of Chicago, and Co-Director of the Alfred P. Sloan Center on Parents, Children and Work. She is also Senior Social Scientist at NORC and the University of Chicago and Research Associate at the Ogburn-Stouffer Study of Population and Social Organization. Linda J. Waite is Lucy Flower Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Chicago and Co-Director of the Alfred P. Sloan Center on Parents, Children and Work. She is also Senior Social Scientist at NORC and the University of Chicago.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Being Together, Working Apart: Dual-Career Families and the Work-Life Balance
• Editors: Barbara Schneider, Linda J. Waite
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2005
• ISBN: 0521607892, 9780521607896
• Length: 553 pages
• Subjects: Family & Relationships / Parenting / General; Psychology / General; Psychology / Social Psychology; Social Science / Social Classes & Economic Disparity; Social Science / Sociology / General; Social Science / Sociology / Marriage & Family