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One hundred and eighty-nine husband and wife pairs separately completed lengthy questionnaires examining such things as their satisfaction with life, marriage and job; experienced job and life pressures; mental and physical well-being; and communication with their spouses. Fifty-three of the wives (28 percent) were employed full or part time, making it possible to determine the effects of wives' employment status on individual and pair measures of satisfaction and performance. In general, working wives were more satisfied and performed more effectively than nonworking wives; conversely, husbands of working wives were less satisfied and performed less effectively than husbands of nonworking wives. Some reasons for the greater stress of the husbands in their adjustment to the two-career family situation are offered.
Burke et al. (Sat,) studied this question.