Role Allocation, Family Structure and Female Employment

Earlier studies on the effects of female employment on family task allocation and decision-making patterns failed to incorporate existing evidence regarding interrelations between closeness of contacts with kin and family interaction patterns. It is hypothesized that a wife's gainful employment will have differential effects on family interaction patterns, depending on the relative availability and the relative effectiveness offamily-internal and family-external support. Austrian data, based on a sample of 1370 blue-collar and white-collar working wives, indicate that reliance upon outside help from relatives is related to a high degree of role-segregation between the spouses on both task allocation and decision-making. These data confirm the assumption that female employment does not necessarily result in the development of egalitarian role-relations between the spouses.