maternal employment and job satisfaction and their relationship to children's perceptions and...

Sex Roles, Vol. 10, Nos. 9/10, 1984

Maternal Employment and Job Satisfaction and Their Relationship to Children's Perceptions and Behaviors

Nicholas Colangelo, David M. Rosenthal, and David F. Dettmann University of Iowa

The impact o f 179 mothers'maternal employment and maternal /ob satisfaction on their children's perceptions and behaviors was examined. The findings indicated that maternal employment was not related to job satisfaction or to children's perceptions or behaviors. Findings also indicated that maternal fob satisfaction was not related to children's perceptions or their behaviors. I t was hypothesized that maternal employment and maternal job satisfaction may not have the impact on family environment that has been previously suggested.

Over the past 25 years there has been an increase in the number of mothers entering the work force. This phenomenon has spurred a considerable amount of research relating the effects of maternal employment (or nonemployment) to a plethora of variables associated with child and adolescent development, school performance and adjustment, sex-role development, and mother-child interactions. Research reviews (Dellas, Gaier, & Emihovich, 1979; Etaugh, 1974; Hoffman, 1974) indicate that the effects of maternal employment on children have not been clearly shown. Gold and Andrus (1978a, 1978b) provide a similar conclusion in their own research, stating that maternal employment is a hetero- genous concept and its influence on children's development varies depending on the behaviors examined. Dellas et al. (1979) cautioned that a simple comparison of data on working and nonworking mothers may be too simplistic an approach for a subtle and complex issue. They contend that maternal employment has various correlates including nature of employment, amount of time spent on the job, child care provisions, father's attitude, and maternal job satisfaction.

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694 Colangelo, Rosenthal, and Dettmann

Maternal Job Satisfaction

In attempts to isolate the significant effects of maternal employment and nonemployment on various aspects of child and adolescent development, it appears that the significant factor is maternal job satisfaction rather than employment (Gold & Andrus, 1978b; Hoffman, 1974; Warshaw, 1976; Yarrow, Scott, deLeeuw, & Heinig, 1962).

The literature suggests that a mother's positive or negative attitude toward her work will influence her relationship with her children (Harrell & Ridley, 1975). Daughters who perceived their mothers as satisfied with their lifestyles were more likely to follow in their mother's life-goal orientation (Altman & Grossman, 1977).

Gold and Andrus (1978b) showed that while children with employed mothers had the most egalitarian sex-role concepts, this finding was primarily related to their mothers' greater satisfaction with their roles. Pasquali and Calle- gari (1978) provided more information on sex-role identification, specifically for daughters. Their findings showed that a mother working outside the home did not affect her daughter's sex-role identification. What their study supports is whether the mother works home or away, mother's enjoyment of her job en- hances her daughter's sexual identification.

Yarrow et al. (1962) reported that maternal employment can have positive results on children. Specifically, they reported that positive results were strongly related to the mother's satisfaction as a worker. Rosenthal and Hansen (1981) also suggested that maternal employment alone did not affect children's perceptions of their mothers or specific behaviors.

In terms of adjustment problems, Douvan (1963) found that lower-class women who worked full-time had adolescent children who had adjustment problems. In this group of working mothers, the strain of attempting the dual role tended to be the greatest. However, Woods (1972) found children of full-time maternal workers to be the best adjusted. In this latter case, the mother's positive attitude toward employment was related to the child's adjustment as well as to maternal attitude toward child care.

The assumption was made for the purpose of this study that homemaking is an occupation. Women who worked at home were expected to be satisfied or dissatisfied with their occupation in a similar fashion to women who were employed outside the home. Children from homes with homemaking mothers who expressed dissatisfaction were expected to perceive their mothers in a fashion similar to children who lived with dissatisfied mothers working outside the home. This assumption leads directly to the hypothesis studied and suggests that employment outside the home may not be as significant a variable as job satisfaction.

The present study focused on the relationship between maternal job satisfaction and its impact upon children. Specifically, it asked: (a) Is job satisfaction

Maternal Job Satisfaction 695

related to maternal employment? (b) Is there a relationship between maternal employment and children's perceptions and behaviors? (c) Is there a relationship between maternal job satisfaction and children's perceptions and behaviors?

METHOD

Sample

The sample consisted of 179 seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade students and their mothers. The sample was taken from two different junior high schools in western New York.

Ninety-four of the junior high school students were female. Of the total sample of mothers in the study, 54 worked full-time, 53 worked part-time, and 72 mothers classified themselves as homemakers. Full-time maternal employment was defined as a mother working outside the home a minimum of 30 hours per week at least 10 months of the year; part-time employment was defined as any employment outside the home that was less than that defined full-time. Homemaker was defined as a mother who had no current employment other than as a homemaker. Among the group of full-time employed mothers, 7% have worked less than 3 years; 24% have worked 3-6 years; 33% have worked 6-9 years, 17% have worked 9-12 years; and 19% have worked more than 12 years. Among part-time employed mothers, 37% have worked less than 3 years; 19% have worked 3-6 years; 23% have worked 6-9 years; 12% have worked 9-12 years; and 9% have worked more than 12 years (see Table I).

Of the current homemakers, 75% have never been employed, while 25% have had some employment previous to their participation in this study. Sixty- three percent of the homemakers who had some previous employment reported that this employment was terminated with the birth of their first child. The dis- tribution of length of employment for this group of previously employed homemakers indicated that 22% had worked less than 3 years; 39% had worked 3-6 years; 22% had worked 6-9 years; and 17% had worked more than 9 years.

Table Io Length of Employment of Full-Time and Part-Time Working Mothers (Percent)

Full-time (N = 54) Part-time (iV= 53)

Years employed 0-3 7 37 3-6 24 19 6-9 33 23 9-12 17 12 12+ 19 9


There were no significant differences as determined by chi squares between the three groups of mothers for the following demographic variables: socioeconomic status (SES), mother's and father's educational level, father's occupational status, numbers of sons and daughters, and total number of children in the family. An assessment of family income level showed that a majority (69%) was in excess of $15,000.

Procedures

In order to obtain parental permission, letters were mailed to each partici- pating family. All mothers who agreed to participate with their children returned signed permission slips. Although the subjects came from different schools, there were no significant interactions between schools and the other variables studied.

Instruments

Bullock Scale of Job Satisfaction (BSJS). This instrument is composed of 10 items designed to assess the individual's employing organization, the job itself, and finally the respondent's position in the work group. The participants were expected to check the best of five alternative answers for the first 9 items of the instrument. The tenth item required participants to indicate on a continuum line the level of their job satisfaction. The continuum ranged from "completely dissatisfied" to "completely satisfied." A job satisfaction score of 50 was the maximum possible, and 10 signified the lowest. Successive split-half coefficients of reliability of .93, .90, and .90 were obtained for the scale when administered to three samples. "Evidence of validity was obtained through comparison with judgments by a panel of experts and by comparisons with 'objec- tive' criteria" (Bullock, 1952, p. 54). Additionally, an examination of the 10 items suggested that the BSJS was appropriate for nonworking (e.g., homemaker) samples.

Parent-Child Relations Questionnaire (PCRQ). The child's perception of the parent-child relationship was measured by the PCRQ (Roe & Siegelman, 1963). This instrument was devised to obtain a measure of the characteristic behavior of parents toward children as perceived by the child. The 100 items refer to specific behaviors, not to attitudes. The categories of perceived parental behavior characteristics are loving, rejecting, casual, demanding, and attention.

Children with high loving scores perceive their parents as giving them warm and loving attention, being more likely to reason than punish, and en- couraging independence and a willingness to take chances in order to grow. High casual scores indicate that these children perceive their parents as being mildly affectionate; responsive when not busy doing something else; easygoing, with


few rules. Rejecting parents are perceived as establishing rules not for the sake of training the child, but for protecting the parent from the child's intrusions. Parents in this group may also be perceived as cold and hostile, while having no regard for their child's point of view. Parents who are perceived as being de s manding set high standards and impose strict regulations while also demanding unquestioning obedience. These parents expect the child to be busy at all times. Parents who are perceived as giving the child a great deal of attention give the child's interests priority. These parents are highly intrusive and expect to know all about what the child is thinking and experiencing. These parents reward de- pendency.

Available studies indicate that the PCRQ is valid and reliable. Subtest reliabilities range from .708 to .872 (Roe & Siegelman, 1963).

Tennessee SelfConcept Scale (TSCS). The TSCS (Fitts, 1965) contains 90 items that are equally divided between positively and negatively worded statements. The score obtained on these items is referred to as the Total P score, and it reflects the overall level of self-esteem. Persons with high scores tend to like themselves, feel that they are persons of value and worth, have confidence in themselves, and act accordingly. People with low scores are doubtful about their own worth; see themselves as undesirable; often feel anxious, depressed, and unhappy, and have little faith or confidence in themselves. Reliability of the scale is reported by Fitts (1965) to be in the .80 to .90 range.

Vocational Development Inventory (VDI). The VDI attitude scale was used to measure vocational maturity as defined by Crites (1971). This instrument consisted of 50 true-false items. The questions measure the following defined variables: (a) involvement in the process of vocational choice, (b) orientation toward the problem of vocational choice, (c) independence in decision making, (d) preference for factors in vocational choice, and (e) conceptions of vocational choice. Higher scores on the attitude scale are indicative of more ma- ture vocational .planfulness. A sample consisting of 2,822 subjects in grades 5 through 12 from the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, school system was used to standardize the instrument.

Occupational Aspiration Scale (OAS). The OAS was used to measure level of aspiration (Hailer & Miller, 1971). The OAS is an eight-item multiple choice instrument. The instrument examines the participants' aspirations in terms of job prestige. Individuals with high scores prefer prestigious occupations. A study using 34,i 18 American high school students found the OAS to be essentially unifactorial, with the factor identified as Level of Aspiration (Otto, Hailer, Meier, & Ohlewoorf, 1974). Westbrook (1966) found that the instrument is a reliable and valid measure of aspiration.

School Achievement. School achievement was ascertained by using the total half-year average grades of each child. These averages included all subjects taken by the child during that semester in school.


RESULTS

Multivariate F statistics were used to examine the relationship between mothers' employment status, job satisfaction, children's perceptions of their mothers, children's vocational development, occupational aspiration, self-concept, and school achievement. The NYBMUL (MULTIVARIANCE Program) Version 6.1) was used to analyze the data (Finn, 1966).

Employment Status

An examination of the multivariate analysis of variance (see Table II) indi- cates the lack of any relationship between maternal employment and children's perceptions and behaviors (MF = .62, df = 18,328, p > .05). In addition, there was no relationship between job satisfaction and maternal employment (MF-- .99, dr= 22,284, p > .05).

Job Satisfaction

The relationship between maternal job satisfaction and the other variables was not significant. A multiple analysis of covariance using job satisfaction as a predictor indicated the lack of a relationship betv~een job satisfaction and the other dependent variables (MF = .67, df = 9, 164, p > .05). Examination of the correlation matrix (see Table III) also suggests the lack of any relationship between job satisfaction and the behavioral and perceptual variables.

A multivariate F statistic (MF = 2.55, df = 9, 164, p < .05) examining the relationship between sex, maternal employment, and the dependent variables indicated a significant relationship between sex and vocational development (F = 4.98, p < .05) and mothers' love (F = 6.68, p < .05). Females scored signifi- cantly higher on both vocational development and mothers' love variables. In addition, both the school achievement and mothers' reject variables approached significance for females earning higher school grades while feeling less rejected by their mothers (see Table II).

DISCUSSION

It appears that maternal employment does not affect children's perceptions or behaviors. This finding is consistent with previous research (Rosenthal & Hansen, 1981) and suggests that a consideration of maternal employment alone may be too simplistic.

The data also suggest that job satisfaction is not related to children's perceptions or behaviors. This finding does not support the hypothesis suggested by

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others (e.g., Gold & Andrus, 1978b, Hoffman, 1974). One reason for this dis-

crepancy may be that the present study examined variables not discussed in pre-

vious research. Gold and Andrus (1978a, 1978b) examined the parent-child relationship, but from the parents ' perspective, not the child's as in the present research. Sex-role stereotyping was assessed in Gold and Andrus (1978a, 1978b) and Warshaw (1976), but not in our study. However, the other studies cited did not examine children's self-concept, nor did they use standardized question- naires of job satisfaction, vocational development, and occupational aspiration. Rather, when these variables were investigated, the researchers used a single-item

assessment. The lack of relationship between job satisfaction and children's percep-

tions and behaviors may also be at tr ibuted to the concept of job satisfaction. Quite possibly, job satisfaction may be too broad and interdependent with other variables to be studied as a homogeneous concept that impacts mother-child relations.

Further research must isolate the impact of maternal job satisfaction on children. Issues that must be studied include family structure, quality of day care, quality of home environment, and fathers' and children's atti tudes towards maternal employment .

R E F E R E N C E S

Altman, S. L., & Grossman, F. K. Women's career plans and maternal employment. Psychol- ogy of Women Quarterly, 1977, 1, 365-376.

Bullock, R. P. Social factors related to job satisfaction: A technique for the measurement of job satisfaction. Research Monographs of the Ohio Bureau of Business Research, 1952, 70(Whole).

Crites, J. O. Maturity of vocational attitudes in adolescence. Washington, D.C.: American Personnel and Guidance Association, 1971.

Dellas, M., Gaier, E. L., & Emihovich, C. A. Maternal employment and selected behaviors and attitudes of preadolescents and adolescents. Adolescence, 1979, 14, 579-589.

Douvan, E. Employment and the adolescent. In F. I. Nye & L. W. Hoffman (Eds.), The employed mother in America. Chicago: Rand McNaUy, 1963.

Etaugh, E. Effects of maternal employment on children: A review of recent research. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 1974, 20. 71-98.

Finn, J. D. NYBMUL. Buffalo: State University of New York at Buffalo, 1966. Fitts, W. H. Tennessee Self-Concept Scale manual. Nashville, Tenn.: Counselor Recordings

and Tests, 1965. C-old, D., & Andrus, D. Comparisons of adolescent children with employed and nonem-

ployed mothers. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 1978, 24, 243-254. (a) Gold, D., & Andrus, D. Developmental comparisons between ten-year-old children with em-

ployed and nonemployed mothers. Child Development, 1978, 49, 75-89. (b) Hailer, A. O., & Miller, I. W The Occupational Aspiration Scale. Cambridge, Mass.: Schenk-

man, 1971. Harrell, J. E., & Ridley, C. A. Substitute child care, maternal employment, and the quality

of mother-child interactions. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1975, 37, 556-564. Hoffman, L. W. Effects of maternal employment on the child: A review of the research.

Developmental Psychology, 1974, 10, 204-228. Otto, L. B., Hailer, A., Meier, R. F., & Ohlewoorf, G. W. An empirical evaluation of a scale

to measure occupational aspiration level Journal of Vocational Behavior, 1974, 5, 1-11.


Pasquali, L., & Callegaxi, A. I. Working mothers and daughters' sex-role identification in Brazil. Child Development, 1978, 49, 902-905.

Roe, A., & Siegelman, M. A parent-child relations questionnaire. Child Development, 1963, 34, 355-369.

Rosenthal, D. M., & Hansen, J. C. The impact of maternal employment on children's perceptions of parents and personal development. Sex Roles, 1981, 7, 59 3-598.

Warshaw, R. The effects of working mothers on children. (Doctoral dissertation, Adelphi University, 1976.) Dissertation Abstracts International, 1976, 37, 1933B. (Univer- sity Microfilms No. 76-22,820)

Westbrook, B. W. The reliability and validity of a new measure of level of occupational aspiration. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 1966, 26, 997-1005.

Woods, M. The unsupervised child of the working mother. Developmental Psychology, 1972, 6, 14-25.

Yarrow, M. R., Scott, P., deLeeuw, L., & Heinig, C. Child rearing in families of working and nonworking mothers. SociaIPsyehology Quarterly, 1962, 25, 122-140.

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