With an increasing number of married mothers who participated in paid work roles, fathers with full-time employed spouses now are expected to assume the role of caregiver and have higher frequency of engagement in parenting practices. This study of 235 university students from dual-earner and single-earner families investigated their retrospective perceptions of both mothers' and fathers' frequency of engagement in overall and specific parenting behaviors. These perceptions were measured by the Parent Behavior Frequency Questionnaire-Revised Scale, which includes seven parenting characteristics and related behaviors. Paired samples t-tests suggested that married mothers, whether fully employed outside the home or not, engaged more frequently, than their full-time employed spouses, in parenting characteristics related to bonding, education, general welfare and protection, responsivity, and sensitivity. However, mothers' employment status had little influence upon the frequency at which either parent engaged in any of the seven parenting characteristics and related behaviors. University students who perceived that both parents were more frequently engaged in specific parenting behaviors related to education, responsivity and sensitivity rated themselves higher on interpersonal competence, as measured by the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire-Revised Scale. Students who perceived that both parents were less frequently engaged in negative parenting behaviors rated themselves higher on competence in conflict management. In addition, family earner status had no significant impact on university students' levels of interpersonal competence. Although there was no significant gender difference in the levels of total interpersonal competence, male students reported higher levels of interpersonal competence in the domains of asserting influence and conflict management than their female counterparts. These findings revealed that like parents from single-earner families, parents from dual-earner families also demonstrated a significant discrepancy in the frequency of engagement in parenting practices. Mothers still invested considerably more time with their children than do fathers. Therefore, there may be a need to develop parent education programs for fathers so that they have opportunities to shape paternal identity and parental self-efficacy. Also, it is necessary to develop friendly family- employment policies and enhance social support networks that enable both full-time employed mothers and fathers to achieve a satisfactory balance between family and work.

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.

The thesis consists of a summary and four self-contained papers. Paper [I] examines the effects of interregional migration on gross earnings in married and cohabiting couples. In particular, we examine the link between education level and income gains. We find that pre-migration education level is a key determinant of migration and economic outcomes and is also a determinant of the effect of migration on income distribution within the household. The positive average effect on household earnings is largely explained by income gains among highly-educated males. Females generally experience no significant income gain from migration in absolute terms. Paper [II] analyzes the effect of the spouse’s education on individual earnings. In this study, we control for time-invariant heterogeneity that may be correlated with the spouse’s education level and use a rich data set that includes observations of individuals when they are single and when they are married. The results support the hypothesis of cross-productivity for both males and females. Furthermore, couples with education within the same field experience even larger effects. In Paper [III] we aim to study how the spouse’s productivity in the labor market affects one’s own individual earnings when married. Using longitudinal data on individuals as both single and married allows us to estimate the spouses’ productivity as single persons and thereby avoid problems of endogeneity between the two spouses’ labor market performances. Productivity is approximated with residuals from estimates of pre-marriage earnings equations. Results indicate that there are negative effects of the spouse’s productivity on individual earnings for both males and females, and that this effect appears to be enhanced by the duration of the marriage. Paper [IV] studies spousal matching on earnings for females in secondorder marriages. We aim to follow women who marry, divorce, and subsequently remarry compared with females who marry and stay married over the course of the study interval. Overall, we find significant positive correlations for all three of the marital partitions. The correlation tends to be smaller for the first of a sequence of marriages for women who divorce than for women who marry and stay so. For the second of the successive marriages, however, the correlation of the residuals is larger than that for women who marry but once.

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.

The aim of the research was to generate a way of identifying resilient and non-resilient middle-adolescent learners in Grade 8 and 9, in a South African township secondary school. The theoretical frameworks on resilience, the developmental context and middle-adolescence were explored and two questionnaires were developed using the literature reviews and the theoretical frameworks. A Resilience Scale was developed to identify resilient and non-resilient learners in a township school, in terms of self-evaluation. A Learning Behaviour Scale was developed to determine the ability of teachers to identify learners’ resilient and non-resilient (academic and social) behaviours. In-depth interviews were conducted to identify themes of resilience and non-resilience in the coping behaviour of adolescents in township schools, and to evaluate the credibility and dependability of the Resilience and Learning Behaviour Scales. The Grade 8 and 9 learners of the school were targeted for the research, since they are within the middle-adolescent age range (14-16 years). The participants were 190 Grade 8 and 9 learners, who all completed the Resilience Scale. In-depth interviews were conducted with twelve learners (in three groups of four according to their Resilience Scale scores, that is, highest, lowest and those grouped most closely around the mean). The curricular teachers were requested to complete the Learning Behaviour scale for the selected interviewees. Although all the items of the Resilience Scale proved statistically reliable, the scale appeared not to reliably identify resilient and non-resilient learners, as judged by the interview data, which indicated ten to be resilient and two to be non-resilient. The interview data were used to determine the resilience status of each learner according to the Resilience Process Models of Kumpfer and Boyd and Eckert. Interviews were found to be the most reliable research tool to identify the resilience and non-resilience status of the participants. The Learning Behaviour Scale yielded strongly inconsistent results and thus failed to identify resilient and non-resilient learners. / Dissertation (MEd (Educational Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

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