A long-standing debate questions whether homemakers or working wives are happier. Drawing on cross-national data for 28 countries, this research uses multi-level models to provide fresh evidence on this controversy. All things considered, homemakers are slightly happier than wives who work fulltime, but they have no advantage over part-time…

Social institutions that have been around for thousands of years generally change slowly, when they change at all. But that's not the way things have been playing out with marriage and family since the middle of the 20th Century. Some scholars argue that in the past five decades, the basic architecture of these age-old institutions has changed as…

The authors investigate the direction of the relationship between marital happiness and wives' full-time employment using the 1987 to 1988 and 1992 to 1994 waves of the National Survey of Families and Households. First, the authors predict change in wives' employment between the two waves using marital happiness and other Time 1 characteristics.…

Examined whether early divorce would affect job satisfaction of professional or clerical/technical women (N=88) working in hospitals and explored differences among married, divorced, and single working women in their perceptions of different areas of their work. Results revealed significant positive relationship between job level and job…

Implicit in much theoretical literature on marital relations in dual-career families is the hypothesis that marital stress and dissatisfaction would be attendant if working wives were higher in occupational prestige than their husbands. Two sources of the hypothesis are reviewed; no support is found for the hypothesis. (Author)

This paper explores the earnings consequences of women's competing familial and work commitments. The analyses support the conclusion that currently-married women receive smaller economic benefits from schooling and occupational status because of interrupted labor force participation and familial constraints. (Author)

Investigated causes for rise in female age of marriage in Sri Lanka, studying 10,964 persons from 1,974 households. Found that rise in marriage age was not primarily a response to social pressure for fertility decline, but rather a result of urbanization, higher levels of education, unemployment, and consequent decline in parentally arranged early…

The effects of wives' employment status on wives' and husbands' evaluations of their own marital adjustment were examined in two recent national surveys. Working wives whose husbands also work reported having wished they had married someone else and having thought of divorce significantly more often than housewives but did not score significantly…

Differences in academic career participation by men and women and their marital and child bearing rates are assessed along with current research findings on dual-career faculty couples. Case study research on 10 dual-career couples is reviewed, with emphasis on familial relationships resulting from commitment to two careers. Observations regarding…

Much of the discussion surrounding marriage promotion policies have little basis in the reality of life in low-income communities. Research suggests that much of the income differential between low-income and middle class women is the result of differences in educational attainment, labor market experience, and access to labor supply rather than…