This article examines the association between job role quality and psychological distress in a sample of 300 full-time employed dual-earner couples, controlling for such individual level variables as age, education, occupational prestige, and marital quality and for such couple level variables as length of marriage, parental status, and household income. The magnitude of this effect is compared for men and for women. Results indicate that job role quality is significantly negatively associated with psychological distress for women as well as for men and that the magnitude of the effect depends little, if at all, on gender, casting doubt on the widely held view that job experiences more significantly influence men's mental health states than women's. The results are discussed in the context of differentiating between sex differences and gender differences.

This paper investigates the sources of work‐family strains and gains in a sample of 300 two‐earner couples. Although most men and women report work‐family gains, not all individuals experienced work‐family strains. Workload and the quality of experiences at work and at home were major predictors of work‐family strains. Experiences at work and at home, social support, and sex‐role attitudes were major predictors of work‐family gains.

Are changes in job quality more closely linked to changes in distress for men than for women? Conversely, are changes in marital quality more closely linked to changes in distress for women than for men? These questions were addressed in a longitudinal analysis of a random sample of 210 fulltime employed dual-earner couples. Change over time in job role quality was significantly associated with change over time in distress, and the magnitude of the relationship differed little, if at all. by gender. In contrast, change over time in marital role quality was also associated with change in distress, but the magnitude of the association depended on gender. Among full-time employed married women, change in marital experience was more closely linked to change in distress than among their husbands. The dual-earner family is the dominant family form in the United States today and for the foreseeable future (Hayghe, 1990). There has been much concern about the mental health consequences for men and women of this new family form (Kessler & McRae. 1982; Rosenfeld. 1980). As a result of taking on the role of employee in addition to their family roles, it was feared that women would be under increased strain, with serious mental health consequences (see Barnett, 1993, for a review). Concern has also been expressed that men married to employed wives will experience heightened psychological distress (Cleary & Mechanic, 1983; Rosenfeld, 1980). However, because of the "second shift" (Hochschild & Machung, 1989) and the presumed greater demands of this family form on women, it has generally been thought

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Are changes over time in the quality of a woman's job associated with changes in her psychological distress? Do family roles moderate these relationships? We addressed these questions using longitudinal data from a 2-year 3-wave study of a stratified random sample of 403 employed women who varied in occupation, race, partnership, and parental status. After estimating individual rates of change for each woman on each of the predictors and the outcome, we modeled the relationships between family role occupancy and change in job-role quality on the one hand, and change in psychological distress on the other. Among single women and women without children, as job-role quality declined, levels of psychological distress increased. Among partnered women and women with children, change in job-role quality was unrelated to change in psychological distress.