Husbands' and Wives' Attitude-Behavior Congruence on Family Roles

The primary objective of this paper is to examine role attitude-behavior congruence for seven family roles. Findings based on questionnaire data from 1154 married men and women indicate that: (1) there exists a substantial number of husbands and wives experiencing role attitude-behavior incongruence; (2) of the individuals in the incongruent role attitude-behavior group, more women than men express egalitarian attitudes toward the performance of family roles; (3) both sexes tend to express egalitarian or role sharing attitudes, but women enact the majority of duties related to all roles with the exception of the provider role, which is mainly performed by men. Thus, the general conclusion is that where role attitude-behavior incongruence exists, both married men and women express egalitarian role attitudes but this egalitarianism is not generally reflected in role behaviors.