The Relationship of Maternal Employment to Adolescent Roles, Activities, and Parental Relationships

Questionnaires about activities and parental relationships were administered to metropolitan secondary school adolescents. The evidence from 229 of these questionnaires suggests that adolescents have only slightly more responsibility for household chores when the mother is employed, and that their degree of participation in social activities does not differ consistently from respondents whose mothers are not employed. Reports of parent-child disagreement over a wide range of issues are more common when the mother is employed, but perceptions of parental interest, help with school and personal problems, and degree of closeness to parents are similar to those of children whose mothers are not employed outside the home. The importance of investigating the relationship between maternal employment and the roles, activities, and attitudes of adolescent children is manifest in light of the increasing numbers of women moving into paid employment. A useful perspective for deriving hypotheses about these relationships is to view the nuclear family as an open social system consisting of the four structurally related positions of husband-father, wife-mother, sonbrother, and daughter-sister. The economy's increasing need for workers in white-collar and service-producing sectors, the development of mechanical household appliances, smaller families, better health, and rising material standards of living may effect a redefinition of household responsibility for family members because these factors tend to draw women away from the home into paid employment. The amount of work done by teenage sons and daughters may