The Happy Homemaker? Married Women's Well-Being in Cross-National Perspective

Introduction

• Study examines whether homemakers are happier than working wives across 28 countries.
• Considers mediating factors like division of household labor.
• Analyzes how country-level factors alter the relationship between work status and life satisfaction.
• Contrasts liberal feminist view of demoralizing domesticity with arguments for fulfillment in tending home and family.
• Notes the decline in women's general happiness compared to men, despite increased labor force participation.
• Examines claims that middle-class mothers are opting out of paid work.

Background

• Discusses the philosophical question of what constitutes happiness.
• Notes a lack of consistency in concepts, measures, and terminology related to happiness and well-being.
• Cognitive component: gap between what one wants and what one has.
• Subjective, emotional component: transient, affective states.
• Emphasizes a cognitively-oriented indicator of well-being.

Happy Homemakers

• Normative pressures and role conflicts are reasons that housewives will be happier.
• Social conservatives and cultural feminists believe satisfaction comes from fulfilling traditional gender roles.
• Social comparison theory: a wife's employment will erode her well-being if it's out of step with gender conventions.
• Public opinion still questions married women's paid work, especially full-time when children are preschoolers.
• Employed women are vulnerable to dissatisfaction due to stress from work-family conflict.
• Time-bind literature describes the strain from diminished time to satisfy household demands.
• Insufficient time with loved ones leads to lower well-being.
• Work-to-home spillovers, like fatigue and emotional upsets, also contribute to dissatisfaction.
• Negative spillover is greater for dual-earner couples.
• Time binds and spillovers may lower marital satisfaction.

Happy Working Wives

• Beneficial aspects of employment suggest a positive association between women's paid work and life satisfaction.
• Women derive as much satisfaction from employment as men, despite workplace disadvantages.
• Married women's employment may enhance happiness by increasing economic resources, expanding social networks, and providing a fulfilling role.
• Role expansion hypothesis: multiple roles may have positive outcomes.
• Combining paid work and family life can lead to new sources of satisfaction.
• Work-family enrichment thesis: experiences in one role may improve performance or enjoyment in the other role.
• Positive spillover from work to home includes energized states and upbeat moods.
• Employment is a source of valuable social ties that generate social capital.
• Women cite co-workers as offering social support, which can buffer stress.
• Employment brings concrete rewards; personal income can be used for bargaining over housework.
• Longitudinal data shows that increases in women's income and contributions to family finances lead to increased marital happiness and well-being.
• Part-time work offers rewards of a job with less disruption to family life.
• Important to distinguish homemakers from those not in the labor force due to unemployment.

Empirical Evidence on Employment and Happiness

• No consensus on the relationship between women's well-being and work status.
• Cross-sectional studies report varying results.
• Differing measures add to uncertainty in the literature.
• American women have lost ground to men in happiness since the 1970s, but the trend is similar for employed and non-employed women.
• Cross-sectional data cannot determine if full-time homemakers are drawn from the ranks of the happy (or unhappy).
• Panel studies suggest that women who are more satisfied with life are attracted to homemaking.
• Mixed results from longitudinal studies caution against generalizations about well-being differences.

Cross-National Research

• Housewives reported greater happiness, but not greater life satisfaction, than the employed in one study.
• Respondents in single-earner couples were less happy than those in dual-earner couples in 30 European countries.
• Longer work hours are associated with greater well-being in 25 European countries, though not always statistically significant after controlling for attitudes.
• Voluntary part-time workers were more satisfied with life than full-time workers in seven European countries.
• Study focuses on women to eliminate ambiguity and distinguishes homemakers from unemployed and disabled individuals.

Mediating Factors

• Employment influences happiness, with other variables likely mediating the relationship.
• Wife's employment adds to family income, which contributes to life satisfaction.
• Research links wives' employment to marital satisfaction via household division of labor.
• Life satisfaction is positively associated with satisfaction with home life in wealthier nations.
• Marital quality strongly influences life satisfaction.
• Paid work reduces time for housework but offers bargaining resources for husbands to do more.
• Unfair division of household labor leads to marital conflict and low well-being.
• Wife's satisfaction with housework division is a strong predictor of marital quality and conflict.
• Marital indicators may mediate between employment and satisfaction.

Control Variables

• Prior research suggests additional correlates of life satisfaction.
• Happiness is positively associated with age and education.
• Religiosity is weakly related to life satisfaction.
• Gender egalitarian attitudes are linked to greater well-being.
• Children exacerbate perceptions of time deficits for working mothers.
• Children have complex effects on well-being, with outcomes varying by country wealth.

Women's Employment and Happiness in Cross-National Context

• Country-to-country differences in life satisfaction are widely documented.
• Relation between women's work status and happiness depends on context.
• Work for pay is negatively associated with happiness for Japanese women but not significantly related for US women.
• Single-earner couples are happier than two-earner couples in Germany.
• Women's work may matter less for well-being in wealthier countries or where welfare policies buffer market inequalities.
• Wife's work status may matter less in countries with family-friendly policies and favorable public opinion toward maternal employment.
• Women's well-being is positively associated with female labor force participation in countries endorsing gender equality.
• Employment policies that raise returns to paid work may contribute to the satisfaction of working women.

Hypotheses

• Link between work status and happiness of married women is expected, but the direction is unclear.
• Conflicts between work and family, as well as normative pressures favoring stereotypical gender roles, suggest homemakers will be happier.
• Benefits of employment, including role expansion, workplace social networks, earned income, and personal fulfillment, suggest working women will be happier.
• Any influence of work status is likely mediated by other micro-level variables.
• Marital quality, couple conflict, and family stress are expected to relate negatively to happiness.
• Family income, husband's participation in housework, and wife's assessment that housework division is fair are hypothesized to relate positively.
• Country-level characteristics are argued to buffer work-family conflict and other work status influences on well-being.
• Higher GDP and social welfare provisions will be associated with a narrower work status gap in happiness between homemakers and working women.
• Liberal gender ideology will be associated with fewer work status differences in well-being.
• Higher female labor force participation rates will be associated with smaller work status differences in happiness.
• Public child care will be linked to a weaker association of employment status with happiness.
• Affirmative action policies will be linked positively to life satisfaction associated with paid work.

Data and Methods

• Draws on data from the 2002 Family and Gender module of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP).
• Data are representative of 28 populations.
• Analysis limited to female respondents, 18-65, who were married or