The primary objective of this study is to investigate how two-earner couples of three-year-old children with disabilities fit their home and work obligations together, and the extent to which that fit influences between and within couple differences in marital quality and family cohesion. No work/family study has analyzed the relation between home and work environments to identify common couple-level patterns of fit or assess the influence of these patterns on marital and family wellbeing. Similarly, no study of parental adaptation to caring for a child with disabilities has examined how employment relates to wellbeing. In this application, the investigator proposes to examine three family profile variables (division of care, care demands, and care arrangements) and four work profile variables (hours, involvement, schedule, and benefits) as components of fit. The secondary purpose of the proposed study is to assess how the outcomes from the couple-level analysis influence the well-studied link between job conditions and individual wellbeing. Two hypotheses will be tested: (1) positive family environments will moderate the negative effects of job demands on both maternal and paternal wellbeing; and (2) job rewards will moderate the negative effects of a poor family environment on maternal but not paternal wellbeing. Although wellbeing has been operationalized in the work/family literature using measures of mental and physical health, how work influences parenting is important but rarely studied. The proposed individual-level analysis will focus on parenting stress and competence as well as general mental health as critical outcomes. Job demands are measured by work intensity while job rewards are assessed by measures of autonomy and job satisfaction. The study will focus on two-parent families in which both the mother and father are employed at least ten hours per week and both are the parents of a three-year-old child with disabilities. Both parents will be interviewed and will complete self-report scales. The study's research questions and hypotheses will be analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling and cluster analysis. The findings from the proposed study will provide fresh insights into work/family relationships from both a couple-level and individual-level perspective for an unstudied segment of the workforce. Understanding the different ways in which couples establish a fit between their home and work roles will generate suggestions for how national or cross-company policies can be designed to benefit couple and family wellbeing, and indirectly boost maternal and paternal wellbeing as well as work productivity and performance.
