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How do two-career couples manage in a one-career world? This book examines this mismatch between outdated scripts and the experiences of dual-earner couples. It broadens our understanding of occupational and family career strategies couples use in light of the widening gap between their real lives and the outdated work-hour and career-path roles, rules and regulations they confront. The book draws on the data from the Cornell Couples and Careers Study to demonstrate that: Regardless of income, time is a scarce commodity in dual-earner households. With two jobs, two commutes, often long work hours, high job demands, business travel, several cars, children, ailing relatives, and/or pets - time is always an issue; time is built into jobs and career paths in ways that make continuous full-time (40 or typically more hours a week) paid work a fact of life in American society; and the multiple strands of life - career, family and personal - unfold over time.
Spouses move through their life courses in tandem, with early choices - to have children or not, to work long hours or not, to switch jobs or not, to relocate for his or her career or not - all having long-term consequences for life quality and for gender inequality. The evidence from this book suggests that it is about time for the United States to confront the realities and needs of contemporary working couples and indeed, all members of the new workforce. To do so requires more than Band-Aid, short-term (and often short-sighted) policy remedies. The book argues that it is essential to re-imagine and reconfigure work hours, workweeks, and occupational career paths in ways that address the widening gaps between the time needs and goals of workers and their families, at all ages and stages of the life course.
How do two-career couples manage in a one-career world? This book examines this mismatch between outdated scripts and the experiences of dual-earner couples. It broadens our understanding of occupational and family career strategies couples use in light of the widening gap between their real lives and the outdated work-hour and career-path roles, rules and regulations they confront. The book draws on the data from the Cornell Couples and Careers Study to demonstrate that: Regardless of income, time is a scarce commodity in dual-earner households. With two jobs, two commutes, often long work hours, high job demands, business travel, several cars, children, ailing relatives, and/or pets - time is always an issue; time is built into jobs and career paths in ways that make continuous full-time (40 or typically more hours a week) paid work a fact of life in American society; and the multiple strands of life - career, family and personal - unfold over time.
Spouses move through their life courses in tandem, with early choices - to have children or not, to work long hours or not, to switch jobs or not, to relocate for his or her career or not - all having long-term consequences for life quality and for gender inequality. The evidence from this book suggests that it is about time for the United States to confront the realities and needs of contemporary working couples and indeed, all members of the new workforce. To do so requires more than Band-Aid, short-term (and often short-sighted) policy remedies. The book argues that it is essential to re-imagine and reconfigure work hours, workweeks, and occupational career paths in ways that address the widening gaps between the time needs and goals of workers and their families, at all ages and stages of the life course.
Phyllis Moen is the Ferris Family Professor of Life Course Studies at Cornell University, where she also serves as Professor of Human Development and of Sociology, and was founding Director of the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center. She has accepted a McKnight Presidential Chair in Sociology at the University of Minnesota for the fall of 2003. Her many books include A Nation Divided: Diversity, Inequality, and Community in American Society, also published by Cornell University Press.
Chapters cover such topics as work-hour strategies..., competing
clocks, timing parenthood, journey to work, managing households,
turning points in work careers, factors that predict success,
prioritizing careers, the new technology climate and the rise of
telecommuting, alternative employment arrangements, moving toward
retirement..., the case of same-sex couples, work-life integration,
and family-friendly policies.
*Future Policy*
Moen and other authors in the volume assert that families have
changed extensively while work settings have changed little,
resulting in a 'cultural lag' or 'mismatch' between what working
families need to meet their care-giving responsibilities and what
work organizations demand of workers.... A strength of the volume
is its comprehensive set of topics. The chapters cover not only
standard topics in the field, such as work hours, work preferences,
and parenting, but also commuting, technology, and the 'spillover'
of work to family life and vice versa, topics much less often
included in work and family volumes.
*Industrial and Labor Relations Review*
This impressive and well-edited volume presents findings and
implications of a major study on work-family interface by the
Cornell University Careers Institute. The study, which was
supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, focuses on
middle-class, dual earner households and how they manage their two
work lives and their combined family life.... Summing Up: Highly
recommended.
*Choice*
This volume presents findings from the Cornell Couples and Careers
Study, a study of dual career, middle class couples in upstate New
York, directed by Phyllis Moen. The book stands out in the
work-family research field for several reasons. These include the
comprehensive look at couples' linked work and family careers and
the inclusions of understudied topics such as same-sex couples,
spouses' relocation decisions, and religious participation. The
book contributes to the areas of careers, labor markets,
organizations, gender, family, the life course, and work-family
policy.
*Contemporary Sociology*
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