Work and Family

Because the two most important roles in life for many people are work and family, understanding the relationship between the two is crucial. Although work and family research in the 1960s and 1970s primarily focused on dual-career families and working mothers, research in the 1980s evolved into a multidisciplinary and multitheoretical area of study. Today researchers are still interested in the interaction between work and family, with a particular focus on the consequences of work for the quality of family life and the development of family members (Perry-Jenkins, Repetti, and Crouter 2000).