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This study examines the retirement planfulness of men and women in dual-earner couples using data from the Ecology of Careers Study and structural equation modeling. It assesses whether each spouse plans independently, whether this is a gendered division of labor, whether both spouses' plans mutually influence each other, or whether decision making about retirement is an individual process for each member of a couple. The authors find that spouses' levels of retirement planfulness are positively related but in different ways depending on gender, cohort, and family circumstances. Perceived control (mastery), income adequacy, and workload all predict both husbands' and wives' planfulness. And husbands' planfulness tends to shape their wives' planfulness in the full sample. However, age cohort and family stage both moderate dual-earner couples' decision making about retirement. Younger couples (those in the trailing edge baby boom cohort) make plans independently, and in this younger cohort, only wives' planfulness can be modeled. Keywords: retirement planfulness; dual-earner couples; working couples; gender differences

This study analyzes longitudinal survey data on dual-earner couples (N = 884) to assess individual- and couple-level effects of caregiving on changes in well-being. The authors draw on a life course, role context, and strategic selection theoretical framework to examine positive and negative effects of individuals' own caregiving transitions and their having a spouse engaged in caregiving on well-being. The authors find that (a) caregiving is associated with well-being declines for dual-earner women and well-being increases for dual-earner men; (b) women caregivers with flexible work arrangements report higher levels of well-being than caregivers without such arrangements, although the size of this effect is small; and (c) having a spouse involved in caregiving affects employee well-being, but in different ways for women and men. Keywords: caregiving; dual-earner couples; employment; longitudinal; well-being

This study investigates factors related to retirees' and their spouses' individual and joint retirement satisfaction using decision-making theory and a life course perspective. The sample includes 421 retired respondents (ages 50 to 72) and spouses from the Cornell Retirement and Well-Being Study. Although 77% of retirees report retirement satisfaction, only 67% of their spouses are satisfied; even fewer couples (59%) report joint satisfaction. Multivariate logistic regression analyses reveal that retirees' and spouses' individual and joint reports of retirement satisfaction are related to perceptions of spousal influence on the retirement decision, with effects varying by gender. Those couples most likely to report being satisfied with retirement, individually and jointly, are retired wives and their husbands where wives reported that their husbands were not influential in their retirement decision. The results underscore the importance of regarding retirement as gendered and as both an individual- and a couple-level experience. Keywords: retirement; satisfaction; gender; decision making; couples

Basing their hypotheses on identity and life-course theories, the authors examine the social role identities of a group of older adults (N = 92) both before and after their move into a new continuing care retirement community (CCRC) to investigate whether this transition is linked to changes in social role identities. The congruence between actually enacting a role and choosing it as a role identity varies with the role. Current role behaviors and satisfaction predict role identity for two institutionalized, public roles (volunteer and church/synagogue member) but are less related to two more private roles (parent and friend). Cluster analysis reveals a typology of three discrete groups, based on social role identities: an involved group with a high number of role identities, a group focused on family roles identities, and a group focused on the friend role identity. The social role identities of the three groups changed in different ways after moving to the CCRC.

This study applies a life-course approach and retirement migration theory to develop a model of future housing expectations and actual moves for a random sample of men and women in late midlife. Results suggest that late-midlife workers and retirees expect to age in place; expectations to live in highly supportive environments are uniformly low. Older, nonmetropolitan respondents with less education and more years in their homes express the strongest expectations that they will age in place. Those people who rent their homes, have weaker ties to their communities, and have more symptoms of depression tend to foresee a move in the future. However, physical health of respondents and their spouses do not predict future housing expectations. Prior expectations about aging in place, residential history, and life-course changes in marriage and retirement predict actual moves within the next two years, with differing patterns for men and women.

Most research examining the influences of maternal employment focuses on the mother and the child at only one stage of the child's life. By contrast, this study examines how temporal and status aspects of mothers' jobs during daughters' early childhood (aged 0 to 6), preadolescence (aged 7 to 12), and adolescence (aged 13 to 18) affect a key transition: the rate that daughters leave school. The sample consists of 246 White and 188 Black daughters aged 18 to 23 in 1990, drawing on data from both mothers and daughters from the 1968-1990 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Findings suggest that part-time maternal employment during any point in childhood increases the likelihood that Black, but not White, daughters will remain in school. Maternal employment characteristics have little influence in determining whether White daughters remain in school.

Women in the 1950s were encouraged to remain within the home with motherhood and marriage as their primary involvements without consideration of the emotional impact of such limited activities. An analysis of 358 upstate New York married mothers with children under 13 from a 1956 archive reveals that social roles outside the home and employment change women's life satisfaction. Social roles such as religious member, club member, relative, neighbor and friend tended to increase self-esteem and life satisfaction while employment was related to maternal discontent and inadequacy feelings.

Studies of women's reentry to the labor force have generally not discriminated between middle aged women and younger women. Since younger women make up the larger share of women workers, the motivations and circumstances for middle aged homemakers' reentry to the labor force have not been adequately studied. A study of women aged 40 to 59 who reentered the labor force during the 1970s shows that those with more education were more likely to renter, and those who were older were less likely to. Models for explaining this should incorporate the societal context of the specific era studied.

This article integrates research on gendered organizations and the work-family interface to investigate an innovative workplace initiative, the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE), implemented in the corporate headquarters of Best Buy, Inc. While flexible work policies common in other organizations 'accommodate' individuals, this initiative attempts a broader and deeper critique of the organizational culture. We address two research questions: How does this initiative attempt to change the masculinized ideal worker norm? And what do women's and men's responses reveal about the persistent ways that gender structures work and family life? Data demonstrate the ideal worker norm is pervasive and powerful, even as employees begin critically examining expectations regarding work time that have historically privileged men. Employees' responses to ROWE are also gendered. Women (especially mothers) are more enthusiastic, while men are more cautious. Ambivalence about and resistance to change is expressed in different ways depending on gender and occupational status.

Many recent studies of the time-squeeze have used aggregate, trend data on work-hour behavior and inferred changing preferences among working men and women. This article begins with couple data and examines preferences as well as behavior in married-couple families. Work-hour behavior is conceptualized as an interaction between employee preferences, employer demands, and the institutional context. The article's analyses clearly indicate that there is a considerable disparity between couples' self-reports of preferences and their actual behavior. These results suggest that long work weeks generally do not reflect employee preferences but may result from constraints and demands imposed by the workplace. The rising sense of a time-squeeze in American society may stem from all-or-nothing assumptions about the nature and structure of work and the pressure to put in long hours to be seen as committed, productive, and having the potential for advancement.

Finding Time: How Corporations, Individuals, and Families Can Benefit from New Work Practices. Leslie A. Perlow. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. 156 pp. $37.50, cloth; $14.95, paper. Finding Time [...]

Given the fundamental changes in the institutions of both work and family, the need to focus on the work-family interface is greater than ever. Most studies, however, examine this interface in terms of individuals and at only one point in time. The authors propose a coupled-careers model, based on a life course perspective, directly addressing the multiple interfaces between work and family and between men and women as they unfold over time. This approach challenges implicit assumptions and stereotypes about work, careers, and gender that are increasingly outdated. Analysis of the data collected in the Cornell Retirement and Well-Being Study consistently shows the asymmetry between husbands and wives in their distinctive work-family interfaces over the life course. The evidence from our data leads us to believe that what is required are new, more open, and more flexible institutional arrangements for structuring the work-family interface for both men and women at all life course and career stages.