Work and family--allies or enemies?: what happens when business professionals confront life choices

288 Pages·2000·17.03 MB·English

by  Stewart D. Friedman

Work and Family—
Allies or Enemies?
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Work and Family—
Allies or Enemies?
What Happens When Business Professionals
Confront Life Choices
Stewart D. Friedman
Jeffrey H. Greenhaus

OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
2000
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Oxford New York
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Copyright © 2000 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PubUcarion Data
Friedman, Stewart D.
Work and family—allies or enemies? : what happens when business professionals
confront life choices / Stewart D. Friedman, Jeffrey II. Greenhaus.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1SBNO-19-511275-X
1. Work and family—United States. 2. Industries—Social aspects—United States.
I. Greenhaus, Jeffrey H. II. Title.
HD4904.25.F754 2000 306.3t6'0973—dc21 00-020663
135798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To Audrey Bernstein Kessner,
a cherished friend, who in her too brief time on
this earth, showed how to live a full life. —SDF
To my family, who have always been
my allies in work and life. —JHG
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
1. The Changing Dynamics of Work and Family 3
Six Major Themes
How Work and Family Affect Each Other
The Great Divide Between Men and Women
The Changing Face of Careers
2. Choosing Work or Family... or Both? 19
Life Role Priorities
Shaping Life Role Priorities
HOID Gender and Family Structure Affect Our Involvement in
Career and Family
Inequities in Our "Available" Choices
Four Conclusions About Choice and Involvement
3. How Family Affects Career Success 41
Two Q uestions
What Is Career Success?
What Leads to Career Success?
Family: Bonus or Penalty?
What Conclusions Can We Draw?
4. Having a Life 55
Where Our Career and Life Values Lead
How Time Matters
Looking Beyond Time
How Gender Matters
Balance and Boundaries
viii Contents
5. Children: Unseen Stakeholders at Work 69
A Model for Understanding Work's Effects on Children
What Affects Parenting and Child Outcomes?
Summing Up
6. Support from Our Partner 85
When Do Partners Receive Support?
Are There Benefits to Partner Support?
Four Conclusions About Partner Support
7. Support from Our Employer 103
What Do We Mean by Family-Friendliness?
Why Are Some Employers Family-Friendly?
Benefits of Employer Family-Friendliness
Employer Support + Partner Support
Summing Up
8. What Have We Learned? 121
A Model of Work-Family Relationships
Resources and Their Impact
The Effects of Involvement
The Dynamics of Emotional Gratification
What Causes Conflict Between Work and Family?
Recurrent Cycles of Influence
In Praise of the Career + Family Focus
Summing Up
9. What Can Be Done? 143
Benefits
Three Principles for Creating Allies of Work and Family
An Action Agenda
Summing Up

Appendix One: Design and Methodology of Our Study 175
Appendix Two: Personal Life Beyond the Family 193
Additional Tables 197
Notes 223
References 247
Index 257
Preface
Our book provides new evidence and ideas that help us understand the choic-
es we make as individuals and employers, about life's two central domains,
work and family. We must understand the consequences of those choices, and
what we can do to make allies of work and family.
The research evidence comes from our study of the values, work lives, and
family lives of business professionals, graduates of two business schools in
Philadelphia. We've taken this evidence, interpreted it, and written about its
practical implications for action in a way that we hope will be useful to any-
one seeking insights about the increasingly difficult challenge of balancing
work and family.
We've got some good news, and we've got some not so good news. Some
of what we show will confirm what many readers already suspect about how
work and family affect each other. Other findings will be surprising—and
provocative. We've taken a fresh look at an enduring dilemma by examining
in considerable depth both the work and the personal sides of the work-fami-
ly story.
In recent years there has been a spate of management books on the
work-family connection. Many of them focus on women and how they cope
with the obstacles they face as they try—often with great difficulty—to com-

bine productive careers with satisfying personal relationships and family
lives. Researchers in a variety of other disciplines have also addressed
work-family issues. But in each case, the focus is on only a small slice of this
complex subject. Some treat family dynamics as a function of a narrow range
of career and work factors. Others concentrate on the impact of work and
careers on limited aspects of family life. We've found something lacking:
research into the details that are crucial to understanding the tensions experi-
enced at the nexus of work and other life roles.
Work and Family—Allies or Enemies? addresses this gap. Our hope is to
make a lasting contribution to the literature in the work-family field—not
just on the business or organizational side, and not just on the family side, but
for both domains. We're convinced that if society is to achieve greater inte-