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Adolescents and students are faced with the developmental task of becoming prepared for a career and master future career transitions. Existing research has investigated a range of concepts relating to career preparedness, including predictors and outcomes. However, this body of work is fragmented as a number of different conceptualizations and measurements related to career preparedness exist. Thus, the goal of this review is to provide an overview of the different concepts that have been used to describe and measure career preparedness. Based on a comprehensive review of empirical articles on maturity, readiness, adaptability, preparedness, and preparation, we propose an organizing framework of the diverse attitudes, knowledge and competencies, and behaviors required for career preparedness. We also review the empirical research on predictors and outcomes of career preparedness. We close by identifying issues in the conceptualization and measurement of different constructs and provide suggestions for future research, and implications for theory and practice.

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to review recent research on negative and positive crossover from work to family and from family to work in couples. The results of the 58 included studies mainly highlight indirect crossover based on spillover processes and marital interactions. More specifically, they show that incumbents’ positive and negative experiences at work cross over to their spouses’ well-being or family functioning through experiences of work-family enrichment and work-family conflict, respectively, and, for negative crossover, through negative marital interactions. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed and directions for future research are outlined.

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Work-to-family conflict (WFC) is a pressing issue for many working parents, in particular for working mothers, and hence, understanding the factors that contribute to WFC is important. We examined gender-role attitudes as antecedents of working mothers WFC, focusing on both working mothers own and their husbands gender-role attitudes. Building on cognitive dissonance theory and crossover research, we assumed that working mothers who hold more traditional gender-role attitudes or who live with a husband who holds more traditional gender-role attitudes experience more WFC. Additionally, we assumed that the strength of these effects further depends on mothers workload and the age of their children. We tested our hypotheses with several waves of recent data of 222 dual-earner couples, drawn from a representative sample of the Swiss Household Panel. Results showed that working mothers experienced more WFC if they held more traditional gender-role attitudes, but only if they had a high workload. Working mothers also experienced more WFC if their husbands held more traditional gender-role attitudes, however, independently of mothers workload or age of the children. These results suggest that both spouses gender-role attitudes influence working mothers WFC, albeit in somewhat different ways.