This review highlights four themes emerging from the work and family literature of the 1990s. The first theme evolves from the historical legacy of the maternal employment literature with its focus on children's well-being. The second theme, work socialization, is based on the premise that occupational conditions, such as autonomy and complexity, shape the values of workers who in turn generalize these lessons off the job. Research on work stress, the third theme, explores how experiences of short-and long-term stress at work make their mark on workers' behavior and well-being off the job. Finally, the multiple roles literature focuses on how individuals balance roles, such as parent, spouse, and worker, and the consequences for health and family relationships. In addition to these four major themes, advances in work and family policy initiatives over the past decade are discussed. Suggestions for future research focus on addressing issues of causality, attending to the complexity of social contexts, linking research to

Relationships between parental monitoring and children's school performance and conduct were examined in 77 dual-and 75 single-earner families in which the eldest child was between 9 and 12 years old. During home interviews, mothers, fathers, and children reported on children's school grades, perceived academic competence, and perceived conduct. Parental monitoring (i.e., parents' knowledge about children's daily experiences) was assessed in 7 evening telephone interviews. Results indicated that less well-monitored boys received lower grades than did other children. Less well-monitored boys in dual-earner families perceived their conduct more negatively than did other children, a pattern corroborated by parents' reports. The findings are discussed with regard to the importance of examining family processes in contrasting family ecologies.

Little research has investigated the division of child care and housework in adoptive or lesbian/gay parent families, yet these contexts “control for” family characteristics such as biological relatedness and parental gender differences known to be linked to family work. This study examined predictors (measured preadoption) of the division of child care and housework (measured postadoption) in lesbian (n = 55), gay (n = 40), and heterosexual (n = 65) newly adoptive couples. Same‐sex couples shared child care and housework more equally than heterosexual couples. For the full sample, inequities in work hours between partners were associated with greater discrepancies in partners' contributions to child care and masculine tasks; inequities in income between partners were related to greater discrepancies in contributions to feminine tasks. Participants who contributed more to child care tended to contribute more to feminine tasks. These findings extend knowledge of how labor arrangements are enacted in diverse groups.

This study examines changes in leisure patterns across the transition to parenthood for dual-earner, working-class couples, as well as the relationship between leisure and marital quality. To this end, 147 heterosexual couples were interviewed across the transition to parenthood. Findings indicate that during the transition to parenthood, husbands and wives experience an initial decline in leisure, followed by a gradual incline after the wife's return to work. Overall, wives who reported more shared leisure prenatally also reported more marital love and less conflict 1 year later. Husbands with more independent leisure prenatally reported less love and more conflict 1 year later. Conclusions suggest leisure time is integral to well-functioning marriages, with effects lasting throughout the first year of parenthood.

Correlates of father involvement were examined separately in 20 dual-earner and 20 single-earner families that were participating in a larger longitudinal study of the early years of marriage. All families had one child between 1 and 25 months of age. During interviews held 2 l h years after marriage, parents completed questionnaires from which data on fathers' work hours, sex role attitudes, perceived skill at child care, and perceptions of love for their wives were drawn. During the several weeks following these interviews, mothers and fathers were telephoned on nine occasions and asked to report separately on child care, leisure activities, and marital interactions that had occurred during the 24 hr preceding each call. Fathers in dual-earner families were significantly more involved in child care than single-earner fathers, but the two groups did not differ in leisure involvement with their children. More important, there were different correlates of father involvement in the two groups, patterns suggesting that dual-earner fathers may increase their involvement with their children at the expense of harmonious marital relations. The findings are discussed with regard to the importance of studying family processes in contrasting family ecologies.