An individual has the ability to project feelings and emotions onto someone else, to the extent that the other person reacts to them, whether in a similar or opposite manner. These are known as crossover effects. Crossover research investigates the influential relationship and behavioural changes between partners. It sheds light on the occurrence of similar reactions that develop across work and home domains because of interpersonal relations between partners. However, previous crossover research primarily focused on negative symptoms, disregarding the positive. This one-sided approach caused a disparity in crossover research, because one can only gain a holistic understanding of the significance and effects of working if research is extended to include positive aspects. The general objective of this study was to test a structural model of job resources, work engagement and life satisfaction, and to determine the crossover effects of work engagement and life satisfaction among dual-earner parents in South Africa. A cross-sectional survey design was used. A convenience sample of 125 couples (N = 250) was taken in the North West and Gauteng Provinces. A job resources questionnaire, the 'Utrecht Work Engagement Scale' (UWES) and the 'Satisfaction with Life Scale' (SWLS) were administered. Cronbach alpha coefficients, Pearson product-moment correlations, and structural equation modelling were used to analyse the data. Results indicated positive relationships between job resources (autonomy, support and development), work engagement and life satisfaction for both partners. Job resources explained variances of 62% for males and 72% for females in work engagement. A variance of 12% with regard to life satisfaction of males was explained by their work engagement, whilst a combination of female work engagement and their spouse's life satisfaction explained 10% of the variance in female life satisfaction. Unfortunately, expectations about crossover effects of work engagement between partners were not met. The final structural model only confirmed a crossover effect of life satisfaction between partners from male to female. Recommendations were made for the organisation and for future research. / Thesis (M.Com. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

An individual has the ability to project feelings and emotions onto someone else, to the extent that the other person reacts to them, whether in a similar or opposite manner. These are known as crossover effects. Crossover research investigates the influential relationship and behavioural changes between partners. It sheds light on the occurrence of similar reactions that develop across work and home domains because of interpersonal relations between partners. However, previous crossover research primarily focused on negative symptoms, disregarding the positive. This one-sided approach caused a disparity in crossover research, because one can only gain a holistic understanding of the significance and effects of working if research is extended to include positive aspects. The general objective of this study was to test a structural model of job resources, work engagement and life satisfaction, and to determine the crossover effects of work engagement and life satisfaction among dual-earner parents in South Africa. A cross-sectional survey design was used. A convenience sample of 125 couples (N = 250) was taken in the North West and Gauteng Provinces. A job resources questionnaire, the 'Utrecht Work Engagement Scale' (UWES) and the 'Satisfaction with Life Scale' (SWLS) were administered. Cronbach alpha coefficients, Pearson product-moment correlations, and structural equation modelling were used to analyse the data. Results indicated positive relationships between job resources (autonomy, support and development), work engagement and life satisfaction for both partners. Job resources explained variances of 62% for males and 72% for females in work engagement. A variance of 12% with regard to life satisfaction of males was explained by their work engagement, whilst a combination of female work engagement and their spouse's life satisfaction explained 10% of the variance in female life satisfaction. Unfortunately, expectations about crossover effects of work engagement between partners were not met. The final structural model only confirmed a crossover effect of life satisfaction between partners from male to female. Recommendations were made for the organisation and for future research. / Thesis (M.Com. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Dual-earner couples raising children face stress that can interfere with marital happiness. Some of these couples seek help from marriage and family therapists, but many therapists claim they are not well trained in the issues facing these couples. In order to determine what might help therapists. researchers in the past have traveled two scholarly paths: (a) studying dual-income couples who still have children at home and are dealing with the stressors of this lifestyle with varying degrees of success, and (b) asking long-term, happily married couples what helped them stay together successfully. This study combined both approaches. Dual-earner couples whose chi ldren were grown and who identified themselves as having great marriages refl ected on strategies that helped them develop and maintain successful and satisfying marriages. Implications for marital therapy are discussed.

Background This thesis explores the relationship between individuals’ subjective experiences and the welfare state setting. The research questions in focus deal with the outcomes of women’s and men’s increasing dual roles in work and family in contemporary welfare states. The studies analyse women’s and men’s subjective experiences of combining work and family, and their perceptions of fairness in the division of household work. Methods The thesis applies a comparative perspective where the unit of analysis is country and/or family policy model. A broad perspective with the aim to capture general patterns across a broad range of welfare states is combined with a narrower case-oriented approach. Multilevel analysis is used to analyse patterns at national as well as individual levels in the same model. Latent Class Analysis is used to capture patterns of latent dimensions with regard to the central concept of subject experiences. Results The results indicate that the introduction of policies aiming to promote dual roles among women and men and the articulation of gender equality can matter for individuals’ subjective experiences of work-family conflict. In dual-earner countries, the probability that a high level of conflict is counterbalanced by feelings of life satisfaction is higher than in other policy models. A class asymmetry is found when it comes to effects of policy on men’s and women’s levels of work-family conflict and work-family satisfaction; women in the working class and the salaried class are more similar when it comes to experiences of work-family conflict and satisfaction in Sweden than in Germany and the UK. The analysis also shows that perceptions of fairness in the division of housework are moderated by the institutional and normative context. The politicisation of gender equality increases the correspondence between actual share of housework performed and the perceptions of fairness in the division of housework. The effect of politicisation is more important for men’s perceptions than for women’s. Conclusion The thesis contributes to a deepened understanding of the relationship between policy and work-family conflict and the integration of the perspectives of role conflict and role expansion; knowledge about the ways in which both class and gender relations are structured concerning the patterns of work-family conflict and satisfaction in different policy contexts; and new knowledge about the relationship between policy and men’s – and not only women’s – perceptions of fairness in the division of household work.

This study employs qualitative diaries and in-depth interviews with dual-earner couples in order to investigate how the demands of work and family responsibilities are negotiated on a daily basis. The methods used are novel in that in-depth interviews were conducted initially with both members of the couple present, and subsequently with each individual separately. Diaries were also completed by each individual privately, as a means of eliciting their experiences of decision-making in a real-time basis. It is argued that the use of such in-depth qualitative analysis enabled new and important findings to emerge, including distinguishing between different types of decision-making, uncovering important new decision-making cues, and gaining a greater insight into those cues previously acknowledged. The findings also demonstrate how these cues have an impact on decision-making in the context of both parties in the couple. In using both couples and individuals as levels of analysis it is possible to identify how this interdependence is manifested whilst also allowing for the discovery of important strategies used by the couples on a daily basis to resolve work-family conflicts. Balancing work and family is shown to be a continuous work in progress and the methodology used here allowed the daily dynamics of that work in progress to be revealed.

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This thesis examines the time-use patterns of adults in dual-earner households with and without children as a function of several individual and household socio-demographics and employment characteristics. A disaggregate activity purpose classification including both in-home and out-of-home activity pursuits is used because of the travel demand relevance of out-of-home pursuits, as well as to examine both mobility-related and general time-use related social exclusion and time poverty issues. The study uses the Nested Multiple Discrete Continuous Extreme Value (MDCNEV) model, which recognizes that time-decisions entail the choice of participating in one or more activity purposes along with the amount of time to invest in each chosen activity purpose, and allows generic correlation structures to account for common unobserved factors that might impact the choice of multiple alternatives. The 2010 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data is used for the empirical analysis. A major finding of the study is that the presence of a child in dual-earner households not only leads to a reduction in in-home activity participation but also a substantially larger decrease in out-of-home activity participation, suggesting a higher level of mobility-related social exclusion relative to overall time-use social exclusion. To summarize, the results in the thesis underscore the importance of re-designing work policies in the United States to facilitate a reduction in work-family conflict in dual-earner families. / text

Acknowledging the critical role that occupational factors play in employee health, researchers have tried to understand ways to reduce the harmful effects of work on employee health. As the process by which individuals recharge resources that have been depleted, recovery has been recognized as important due to its potential to mitigate the negative effects of work on employee well-being. Although the recovery literature has continued to grow, many questions remain unanswered. The purpose of the present study was to expand our knowledge of recovery by examining situational (job characteristics) and individual (trait guilt) predictors of recovery and investigating psychological attributes of off-job activities. An experience sampling design was used to understand relationships among focal variables at day level. Hypotheses were tested using the data from 99 full-time employees living with a full-time working spouse and at least one dependent. The results suggest that daily job characteristics serve an important role in recovery such that they relate to recovery experiences of psychological detachment and relaxation. However, job characteristics did not have significant relationships with the choice of off-job activities. With regard to subjective experiences of off-job activities, findings demonstrated considerable variance across individuals. Further, psychological attributes of off-job activities were found to relate to recovery experiences although the results were not always consistent with expectation. Next, little support was found for the moderating role of trait guilt in the relationship between job characteristics and off-job activities. Finally, consistent with previous research, recovery experiences related to better well-being outcomes.

Significant shifts in social ideology and legislation have brought about considerable changes in work and family dynamics in the Western world, and the male as breadwinner-wife as homemaker model is no longer the norm. However, despite increasingly gender egalitarian ideals, the division of labor among dual-earner couples tends to adopt a "neo traditional" once children are born, where women devote more time to family labor and men spend more time in paid employment Although asymmetrical divisions of labor have clear workplace and societal consequences in terms of women's earnings, organizational advancement, and inequality, the effects on individual well-being are not well understood. The purpose of the present study was to apply the theoretical lens of person-environment fit to examine how misfit between dual-earner couples' pre-child division of labor preferences and post-child actual divisions of labor relate to affective (career, marital, and family satisfaction) and health-related (depression and physical health symptoms) well-being. Additionally, several conditions were posited to temper the strengths of these relationships (domain centrality, gender, voice in division of labor decision making, and satisfaction with the current division of labor). Participants were 126 dual-earner couples with small children, and hypotheses were testing using polynomial regression analyses. The results suggested that congruence between an individual's own pre-child desires for the division of paid labor and the actual post-child division of paid labor relates to his/her own career and marital satisfaction, depression, and physical health symptoms. Congruence in the family domain is also important, as desire-division of family labor fit related to affective sentiments toward family and one's spouse. With the exception of career satisfaction, these relationships were curvilinear, such that deviations in either direction from perfect fit related to poorer well-being. On the other hand, there was little evidence for spousal effects, as dual-earner well-being did not relate the congruence between division of labor abilities and spousal demands. Finally, evidence of moderation was only found in a few cases, and none were consistent with prediction, highlighting the need for future research on the contextual conditions of P-E fit in the dual-earner context.