Wives' Employment Status and Marital Adjustment: Yet Another Look

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Abstract
The effects of wives' employment status on wives' and husbands' evaluations of their own marital adjustment are examined in two recent national surveys. Working wives whose husbands also work report having wished they had married someone else and having thought of divorce significantly more often than housewives, but do not score significantly lower on ratings of marital satisfaction or marital happiness, or on four other specific components of marital adjustment. Wives' employment status does not significantly affect husbands' reports of marital adjustment. The negative effects of wives' employment on wives' reports of marital adjustment are then found to be restricted specifically to mothers of preschool children, and to wives with less than a high school diploma. No empirical support emerges for two major hypotheses to account for the negative effects of wives' employment on wives' marital adjustment in these two subgroups, one hypothesis concerning wives' role load and the second concerning wives' and husbands' attitudes toward wives' employment. There is some evidence, however, that these factors are moderators of the negative effects of wives' employment on wives' marital adjustment, in particular, that high role load moderates the negative effects of employment among mothers of preschool children.