A process model for understanding links between women's work conditions and marital adjustment in two-earner couples
Date
1991
Authors
Sears, Heather Ann
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Abstract
The present study examined the relations among women's work conditions, women's experiences of stress, and marital adjustment in two-earner couples. Following Pearlin, Lieberman, Menaghan, and Mullan's (1981) life strains model of the stress process and subsequent research by Kandel, Davies, and Raveis (1985), it was hypothesized that conditions encountered in the workplace (e.g., overload) could be viewed as occupational life strains and thus have the potential for eliciting global stress (e.g., depression) through their relations with situation-specific stress (e.g., occupational stress). Second, it was hypothesized that women's work conditions would be associated with women's and men's marital adjustment. This study also explored the extent to which women's feelings of stress mediated the relations between women's work conditions and women's and men's perceptions of marital adjustment.
Participants (N = 86) were employed women and their employed spouses from Victoria, B.C. Data for the analyses were from questionnaires completed during Summer 1988. Measures were women's work conditions (total work hours, socio-economic status, work schedule inflexibility, role overload, noxious work environment, inadequacy of rewards, and depersonalization); women's stress (occupational stress, role strain, depression, anxiety, and mood); and women's and men"s marital adjustment (marital cohesion, marital consensus, and marital satisfaction).
The data were analyzed using principal components analyses and structural equation modeling techniques. Results showed that first, work overload and low rewards were associated with women's work stress, and work status was associated with women's work stress and women's global stress. Second, women's work stress was associated with increased global stress. Third, women's stress mediated a spillover process from women's work conditions to women's marital adjustment. Fourth, women's marital adjustment and women's stress mediated a crossover process from women's work conditions to men's marital adjustment. The discussion centers around implications of women's work conditions for women's stress and for marital adjustment in two-earner couples. Social policy implications and suggestions for future research are also presented.