454 Chapter 12is associated with marital unhappiness, espe-
cially for women. The second tension occurs
when women and men have the desire for tra-
ditional roles but their economic status does
not permit them to enact those roles. In other
words, both husband and wife prefer that the
wife takes care of the home and the husband
is employed outside of the home, but lack of
financial resources requires the woman to be
employed outside the home. In this instance,
the husband may contribute to household
chores, but neither the husband nor the wife is
satisfied with this arrangement.facilitate the function of her family role and
may even detract her from it. See Sidebar 12.1
for an elaboration of the difficulties women
face as employees and mothers.
A number of difficulties arise in families
where both women and men work. In 1989,
Hochschild identified three kinds of tension
in dual-earner couples that still apply today.
The first tension exists when women and men
have different views about who should do
what work outside the home and inside the
home. I discussed in Chapter 11 how disagree-
ment about the division of labor in the familySIDEBAR 12.1:Paid Workers and Mothers
Society provides women with mixed messages about whether they should be paid workers when
they have children. Employed mothers receive the message that it is acceptable to work outside
the home and to be a parent—as long as parenting is the number one priority. That is, paid work
should never interfere with parenting. In fact, women are more likely than men to take time off
from paid work to take care of children. This means the parenting role has the potential to inter-
fere with the paid worker role more for women than men. Women who opt not to work outside
the home while raising children, however, may receive a different message from society. Today,
these mothers often feel the need to justify why they are not working outside the home. Here, I
examine whether paid employment benefits mothers.
Whether working outside the home is beneficial for women with children depends on a
number of factors, including characteristics of the job such as salary, hours worked, nature of
the work, job control and flexibility as well as characteristics of the home environment, such as
number of children, availability of child care, and husband’s participation in household and child
care activities (Elgar & Chester, 2007). A greater number of children in the home may detract
from the benefits of employment, but this depends on what resources are available to assist the
woman in caring for her children. Access to resources, such as income, child care, or a supportive
husband, influences whether mothers benefit from work.
Another factor that may influence the effect of combining paid work and family roles
on women’s health is the traditionality of the field in which women work. It may be easier for
women to combine paid work with family roles if they are employed in a field that by tradition
is inhabited by women rather than men. However, traditional jobs for women, such as nurses,
secretaries, and teachers, may have less flexibility than higher-status positions to accommodate
family needs. One of the attributes of a high-status position is that the person often sets her or his
own hours.
Thus the optimal conditions for paid work to benefit mothers’ health include a husband
who helps out at home, an income that can provide for high-quality child care, and a job that ac-
commodates family responsibilities.M12_HELG0185_04_SE_C12.indd 454 6/21/11 9:16 AM