The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

452 Chapter 12

more job stress, or is this because men’s

work is more likely to interfere with fam-

ily life? By contrast, a study examined the

extent to which the paid worker role cre-

ated conflicts for family roles and the extent

to which family roles created conflicts for

the paid worker role and found that women

scored higher than men on both (Innstrand

et al., 2009). A study of dual-earner couples

showed that men and women were equally

likely to perceive that job demands interfered

with their marital relationship, but women

were more likely than men to perceive that

their spouses’ job demands interfered with

their relationship (Matthews et al., 2006). Al-

though there was greater spillover from the

paid worker role to the spouse role for men

than women, the spillover had greater nega-

tive consequences to the marital relationship

for women. It may be that it is more norma-

tive for men’s than women’s paid work to

spill over into the family so it is more note-

worthy when women’s work affects family

life. From my own experiences, women are

more likely to attend children’s school and

men’s health does not tell us much about

how combining roles influences health. Roles

cannot be viewed as resources or sources of

stress that are combined in an additive way

because they interact with one another. For

example, taking on the parent role may affect

how one views and enacts the paid worker

role. And, taking on the paid worker role

may affect how one views and enacts the

parent role. Roles are enacted in a mutually

exclusive way but affect one another—a phe-

nomenon known asrole spillover.Next we

examine the specific ways that employee and

family roles affect one another.

Effects of the Paid Worker Role on Family Roles

It is not clear whether the paid worker role

conflicts with family roles more for women

or men. A meta-analysis revealed that job

stress detracts from family satisfaction for

both women and men but that the rela-

tion is stronger for men (Ford, Heinen, &

Langkamer, 2007). Is this because men face

Men

(a)

Women

1

2

3

4

Hours Exercise in 14 Days

5

6

7

8

(^0) Men
(b)
Women
1
2
3
4
Hours Exercise in 14 Days
5
6
7
0
Unmarried
Married No childrenChildren of age <5
FIGURE 12.6 (a) Employed married men and women exercise less than their unmarried counter-
parts, but the effects are stronger for men. (b) The presence of children under age 5 is associated with
less exercise for employed men and women, but the effects are stronger for men.
Source: Adapted from Nomaguchi and Bianchi (2004).
M12_HELG0185_04_SE_C12.indd 452 6/21/11 9:16 AM