Sexuality and the dual-earner couple: Multiple roles and sexual functioning.

This article reports data testing predictions that a couple's sexual relationship suffers if the wife is employed, particularly if she is employed full time. The theoretical framework rests on the scarcity hypothesis and the enhancement hypothesis concerning multiple roles. Longitudinal data collected from a sample of more than 500 women and their husbands at 3 time points from pregnancy through a year after birth provide no support for the scarcity hypothesis. There were no significant differences between homemakers and women employed part time, full time, and high full time on measures of frequency of intercourse, sexual satisfaction, and decreased sexual desire. Work-role quality was a better predictor of sexual outcomes than hours of employment. Fatigue was associated with sexual outcomes for both employed women and homemakers.