Multiple Roles and Identities: Factors Influencing Self-Esteem Among Middle-Aged WorkingMen and WomenAuthor(s): Donald C. Reitzes and Elizabeth J. MutranSource: Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 313-325Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2787158 .Accessed: 02/01/2011 19:28

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Social Psychology Quarterly 1994, Vol. 57, No. 4, 313-325

Multiple Roles and Identities: Factors Influencing Self-Esteem among Middle-Aged Working Men and Women*

DONALD C. REITZES Georgia State University

ELIZABETH J. MUTRAN University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Data derivedfrom in-depth telephone interviews with 818 full-time working men and women age 58 to 64 who live in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill metropolitan area are used to explore hypotheses about the influence of roles and identities on self-esteem. Findings include the following: 1) neither role accumulation nor specific combinations of the roles influence self-esteem; 2) commitment to the worker, spouse, and parental roles increases self-esteem; and 3) the influence of identity meanings on self-esteem varies by role and gender.

Roles are key units of social structure. They link individuals with the social and material resources of social groups and institutions, and thereby provide individuals with an external source of rewards and opportunities. Roles also provide individuals with an internal framework on which to develop a sense of meaning, purpose, and agency (Foote 1951; Gecas 1986; Park [1926] 1950). One of the underlying tenets of structural role theory was the untested as- sumption that multiple roles with diverse role partners create psychological stress. Sieber (1974), however, offered a new direction for role theory when he argued that multiple roles need not have negative consequences; on the contrary, they may provide individuals with role privileges, status security, personal enrichment, and ego gratification.

Multiple roles also mean multiple identi- ties, self meanings, and subjective responses to roles. In this research we propose that identity meanings and role commitments provide people with a sense of purpose and direction that may contribute to a positive assessment of self-worth. We investigate middle-aged working men and women, in part because they offer us the opportunity to explore individuals in adult roles that may offer multiple resources and multiple opportu- nities for identity gratification and fulfillment. Therefore we are interested in the influence of role accumulation and specific combinations of work and family roles, as well as in variations in commitment and identity mean-

* This research is supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging.

ings on the self-esteem of working, middle- aged men and women.

Although we are interested in exploring the implications of multiple roles and identities, our empirical focus requires that we address two particular issues. First, we must situate middle-aged workers in the preretirement stage of the life cycle. Preretirement reflects a time when anticipatory socialization to retire- ment may begin in earnest (Ekerdt and DeViney 1993). At this time, too, the responsibilities of parenthood may be reduced because children are likely to be older and/or not living at home. In addition, intact couples may experience heightened marital satisfac- tion (Kalish 1982). Our focus on middle-aged workers highlights Mead's (1932) theme that the past and the future commingle in the social construction of the present (Maines, Sugrue, and Katovich 1983). Preretirement reflects both the anticipation of future retire- ment and the acquisition of past roles (Thornton and Nardi 1975). Further, prere- tirement highlights the fact that roles are temporal and dynamic. The opportunities and demands of parenthood, as well as of work careers and marital ties, change over time. Thus the effect on self-esteem of being a parent, or even commitment to the parental role, may vary throughout the life cycle.

Second, our empirical focus on middle- aged workers demands that we consider the issue of gender. It is now widely recognized that gender shapes life experiences, and that even in similar roles men and women may encounter different patterns of opportunities and constraints (McAdams 1992). Although both men and women may be employed

313

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full-time, women tend to be overrepresented in work careers characterized by relatively low earnings, few fringe benefits, and little job security (Minkler and Stone 1985). The role of worker may have different rewards and identity meanings for men and for women, as well as exerting different influ- ences on self-esteem. Similarly, being a working spouse demands more of a woman's time and energy than a man's (Hochschild 1989), so the role of spouse may have a different influence on men's and women's self-esteem. As we consider the implications of multiple roles, possible gender differences must be taken into consideration.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

We begin with role accumulation and the recognition that roles provide individuals with a source of integration and material rewards. Gove and Geerken (1977) invoked a Durkhe- imian ([1897] 1951) perspective when they suggested that one reason why married women who are not employed have poorer mental health scores than married men is that the addition of the work role increases social integration and reduces alienation and social isolation. They found that employed husbands had lower mean psychiatric symptom scores than employed wives, who in turn had lower scores than unemployed wives. They found no differences, however, when controlling for feelings of incessant demands, desire to be alone, and loneliness. Gove and Zeiss (1987) explored the impact of the work, marital, and parental roles on adults' happiness and concluded that in general, the greater the number of roles occupied, the greater the happiness. Employment increased happiness for all women except mothers with children at home; the combination of being married and working produced the highest mean happiness scores for women. In 1986, in a rare longitudinal study, Moen, Dempster-Mc- Clain, and Williams (1992) reinterviewed women who had participated in a 1956 study. They found that the number of roles the women had occupied 30 years earlier was related positively to functional ability and subjective rating of their health in 1986. Occupying multiple roles was interpreted as an indicator of social integration, and served to prevent social isolation.

Our first hypothesis proposes that accumu-

lating roles will lead to greater social integration, possibly to greater power, pres- tige, resources, and emotional gratification, and therefore to higher levels of self-esteem. All of our respondents occupy the worker role but can occupy as many as 12 different roles. I Following the role accumulation argument, we wish to learn whether increased occu- pancy of these roles bolsters self-esteem.

Hypothesis 1. The greater the number of roles held by individuals, the greater their self- esteem.

Another perspective suggests that specific combinations of roles, rather than role accumulation, lead to positive outcomes. Menaghan (1989) noted that 80 percent of men age 50 or older in her Chicago sample were either employed-married-childrearer, employed-married, or married only. For women of the same age, modal patterns were less clear: only 38 percent occupied the three largest categories of no roles, married only, and married-childrearer. Gender differences were evident in the effects of different role combinations on mental health. Psychological symptoms were highest for men with married- childrearer roles or no roles, and lowest for men with married-employed or married- employer-childrearer role combinations; for women, psychological symptoms were high- est for the role combinations of childrearer only or no roles and lowest for the combina- tions of married-employed-childrearer, mar- ried-employed, married-childrearer, and em- ployed only. The emerging pattern was that psychological distress is more likely when one's role repertoire departs from normal, expectable situations for one's age and gender.

Thoits (1983), using panel data from a New Haven community study, found that individu- als who possess more roles tended to report significantly less psychological stress. In later work (Thoits 1986, 1992), however, she argued that specific role combinations influ- ence psychological distress. Thoits (1986) found that being married and having children tends to reduce distress for women but that

I Clearly, individuals can occupy other roles as well, but our set covers, in addition to the worker role, the family roles of husband/wife/partner, dating relationship, parent, grandparent, son/daughter, sibling, and cousin/ other relative roles, as well the roles of friend, neighbor, religious person, and volunteer/member of a community organization.

MULTIPLE ROLES AND IDENTITIES 315

holding all three roles is more stressful for women than for men, whereas being em- ployed tends to be more psychologically beneficial for men. Similarly, Thoits (1992) found that among husband-fathers, being unemployed increases distress and being employed reduces distress, whereas the com- bination of parent-worker is less beneficial for women.

The second hypothesis focuses on the impact of the specific combination of roles. The family roles of spouse and parent are perceived as very important for both adult men and women; the role of worker, although less important than family roles for both sexes, is still perceived as important for men and, to a somewhat lesser extent, for women (Pleck 1985; Thoits 1992).2

This study focuses on four discrete combi- nations of the three adult roles: worker only, worker-spouse, worker-parent, and worker- spouse-parent. For middle-aged working men a mild stigma may be associated with not being married or not having children, but we expect that it would be much stronger for women. Thus role combinations that are consistent with the traditional gender norms, which emphasize the work role for men and family roles for women, are likely to support self-esteem, while role combinations that are less consistent with these expectations may lower self-esteem. Middle-aged women who are employed but do not occupy either family role may have lower self-esteem scores than women who hold all three roles. This expectation may not hold for younger em- ployed women, especially women experienc- ing the role overload associated with full-time work and childbearing. For middle-aged women with older children, however, parent- hood may be less demanding. Similarly, for middle-aged women, some of the strain associated with combining full-time work and marital responsibilities may be less severe than for younger women, either because husbands and wives have accommodated their expectations to role demands or because couples who have not been able to deal with the strain have dissolved their marriages.

2 In our data set, 76 percent and 81 percent of the men and 60 percent and 82 percent of the women named the roles of spouse and parent among their three most important roles. In both cases these roles were the most frequently mentioned. The role of worker was mentioned by 22 percent of the men (fourth most frequent) and 13 percent of the women (fifth most frequent).

Hypothesis 2. Role combinations in which one or more of the three adult roles are absent, especially when the marital and/or parental roles are absent for women, should decrease self- esteem.

Roles also provide the social anchorage for identities and the organization of identities into self conceptions (Stryker 1980). Sym- bolic interaction theory rests on two key assumptions (Rose 1962). The first is that human behavior is influenced powerfully by symbolic interpretations of self, others, and the social setting. Roles are symbols-shared social meanings-that are learned through the process of socialization, but new emergent meanings may be negotiated in the actual situation. The second assumption is that individuals do not merely passively "internal- ize" roles and role expectations, but actively shape and infuse roles with intrinsic, subjec- tive, and self meanings (Turner 1956). Stone (1962) and Reitzes and Burke (1983) pro- posed that role learning entails two processes: 1) "identification of" roles, or learning the shared meanings and expectations of roles; and 2) "identification with" roles, or infusing of roles with self meanings, values, and motives.

The third hypothesis concentrates on the individual's subjective response to roles. The "identification with" process suggests that commitment and centrality are two of the ways in which individuals invest roles with purpose, meaning, and affect. Commitment refers to a person's belonging or attachment to a role; individuals vary in their degree of role commitment (Burke and Reitzes 1991). Although commitment to the worker role has long been understood to influence perfor- mance on the job (Jans 1982; Morrow 1983), we are interested in whether commitment to worker, spouse, and parent roles influences self-esteem. Individuals also order roles by their importance or centrality (McCall and Simmons 1978; Rosenberg 1979). Thoits (1992) found that centrality did not reduce psychological symptoms of distress, but Stryker and Serpe (1994) reported that centrality has a positive effect on time in the role.

We expect that both commitment and centrality provide an individual with a sense of meaning, purpose, and satisfaction, which can increase self-esteem. Commitment to and centrality of a role, however, also may increase a person's vulnerability to role

316 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY

strains (Simon 1992). In addition, as a result of differential gender socialization, commit- ment and centrality regarding primary rela- tionships, such as family roles, may influence self-esteem more strongly for women, while commitment and centrality regarding achieve- ment-related roles, such as the work role, may have a greater effect on men's self- esteem (Thoits 1992).

Hypothesis 3. Individuals who attribute greater centrality and commitment to their work, spouse, or parental roles will have higher self-esteem than individuals who attribute less commitment or centrality to these roles.

The fourth hypothesis also is derived from the "identification with" process. Identity meanings are those which persons attribute to themselves in a role (Burke 1980; Stryker 1980). Individuals use their identity meanings as reference points to assess the implications of their own behaviors. For example, the creation and maintenance of an identity as intellectually curious may encourage college students to excel in their academic work (Reitzes and Burke 1983). More comprehen- sively, Heise (1988) developed affect control theory to explore the reciprocal relationships between the meanings of identities, situa- tions, and behaviors.

In this study we can probe the effect of identity meanings in the three roles of worker, spouse, and parent on self-esteem. Mortimer, Finch, and Kumka (1982) defined four meaning dimensions among late adolescents that remained stable over time and influenced adaptation to adult roles. Three of these dimensions suggest identity meanings that are generally applicable to roles in middle and old age: 1) competent is similar to Osgood, Succi, and Tannenbaum's (1957) evaluation dimen- sion or Bales's (1951) task-directed dimen- sion, and reflects instrumental identity mean- ings; 2) confident captures Turner's (1968) identity-directed dimension and reflects emo- tional or affective identity meanings; and 3) sociable taps an interest in others and is similar to Bales's (1951) expressive dimen- sion. We expect that identity meanings will have positive effects on self-esteem for both men and women. If traditional gender norms are in operation, however, women may place greater emphasis on the affective and expres- sive identity meanings of being confident and sociable, while men may place greater emphasis on the instrumental identity mean-

ing of being competent (Wood, Rhodes, and Whelan 1989).

Hypothesis 4. Individuals who perceived them- selves as more confident, more competent, and more sociable in their worker, spouse, or parent roles will have higher scores on self-esteem than will other role occupants.

A final caution is in order. We recognize that the relationship between roles and self-esteem is probably reciprocal, but our cross-sectional data prevent us from clearly distinguishing causal order. For logical and theoretical reasons, however, we focus on the influences of roles and identities on self- esteem. Our structural hypotheses follow the assumption that the greater social integration which accompanies role accumulation and the normative expectations associated with spe- cific role combinations influence the forma- tion and maintenance of self-esteem. As for our identity hypotheses, following Burke (1980), we argue that situated and specific contexts of identities encourage individuals to be sensitive to the identity-confirming (or -challenging) responses of others and to the outcomes of behaviors. As a result, individu- als receive frequent confirmations (or chal- lenges) to their identities, and identities are relatively easy to modify. Self-esteem, as a global self-evaluation, is influenced not only by current identities but also by past experi- ences and pressures for self consistency; therefore self-esteem changes more slowly. Thus, although the relationship is reciprocal, identities more commonly and more fre- quently influence self-esteem. The desire to confirm and support a positive self-esteem, however, motivates both identities and behav- ior (Rosenberg 1979).

METHODS

Data

The data for this study were collected as the 1992 panel of the study titled "Roles" and Self: Factors in Development and Retire- ment. " The sampling procedures were de- signed to identify approximately 400 men and 400 women age 58 to 64 who were working at least 35 hours a week and living in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill (North Caro- lina) metropolitan area. To gather our sample, we began by obtaining the driver history files maintained by the North Carolina department

MULTIPLE ROLES AND IDENTITIES 317

of Motor Vehicles. The file is estimated to include more than 80 percent of the entire population in this age group and a higher percentage of full-time workers. From the list, which records applicants' age, gender, and address but not their telephone number or work status, we randomly selected names in proportion to the size of the three counties included in the study area. Following Dillman (1978), we sent out two introductory letters and screening postcards (three weeks apart) and made follow-up telephone calls (up to 12 tries) to verify telephone numbers and to identify full-time working subjects living in the area.3

The screening procedures produced 1,332 persons eligible for participation in the study, of whom 826, or 62 percent, consented to take part in our two 30-minute telephone interviews. Our analysis is based on the 818 respondents (397 men and 421 women) who gave complete responses on the self-esteem measure. The response rate was higher for women (64 percent versus 60 percent for men), whites (64% versus 54% for African- Americans), and people living in Chapel Hill (76% versus 62% for Durham residents and 60% for Raleigh residents).4 We believe that our sample contains a diverse set of respon- dents with a variety of social background characteristics. It allows us to proceed with our primary goals of testing hypotheses and exploring the effects of multiple roles and identities on the self-esteem of middle-aged working men and women.

3We originally contacted 4,594 people from the Motor Vehicle registration list, but, we had to eliminate 3,262 for the following reasons: 1) 1,073 were working, but not full-time (35 hours a week); 2) 1,228 were not working (retired, disabled, had never worked); 3) 265 were not age 58 to 64; 4) 107 had died since their registration; and 5) 589 agreed to participate in the study but broke contact before we could determine whether they met our age and work status criteria.

4 A comparison with census data (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1990) for men and women age 58 to 64 living in the Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area suggests that we may have oversampled whites and middle-class people. Our sample contains fewer African-Americans (18% versus 23%), fewer people who have not attended college (41% versus 91%), fewer precision workers and laborers (13% versus 47%), and fewer people with incomes under $25,000 (26% versus 71%) than the census data. Our sample, however, is restricted by design to full-time workers, a population that may be expected to have higher educational levels, occupational status, and incomes than the census population. The latter also includes men and women who are unemployed or are employed less than 35 hours a week.

Variables

Four sets of variables are used in the data analysis. The dependent variable self-esteem, derived from Rosenberg (1965), has proved to be a durable and useful measure of a person's summary or global assessment of self. The scale includes 10 items such as "I feel that I'm a person of worth, at least on an equal basis with others," "I am able to do things as well as most other people," and "I wish I could have more respect for myself" (recoded). Responses ranged from "strongly agree" (4) to "strongly disagree" (1) (alpha= .87).

Six health and status measures serve as background characteristics. Poor health is a measure of functional limitation and is based on a seven-item scale of difficulties in activities such as walking, using stairs, standing or sitting for long periods, bending, lifting weights up to 10 pounds, and reaching above one's head, with responses of "never," "sometimes," or "often" (alpha=.79). Our sample is limited to persons age 58 to 64; thus the age variable, measured in years, covers a seven-year range. Less than 1 percent of the sampled identified themselves as Asian or as neither white or black, so racial diversity is limited to blacks and whites; white is a dummy variable. Gender is measured with a dummy variable coded as female. Income is derived from a question that asks for the total 1991 household income with 10 response categories ranging from $7,500 or less through (1) $35,001 to $50,000 (5) to $200,001 and over (10). Education is based on the highest grade completed in school and is coded in number of years. Occupation is measured by a 100-point occupational pres- tige scale using 1980 U.S. census occupa- tional classifications and 1989 NORC prestige scores. Scores range from eighty-six for physicians and 75 for lawyers to 19 for news vendors and 9 for shoe shiners (NORC 1991; U.S. Bureau of the Census 1982).

Role occupancy is measured in three ways. Respondents were asked whether they held any one of the following 12 roles: worker, neighbor, friend, husband/wife/partner, dat- ing relationship, father/mother, grandparent, son/daughter, brother/sister, religious person, volunteer/member of a community organiza- tion, and cousin/other relative. Role accumu- lation is the number of these 12 roles that the individual occupied. To measure specific role

318 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY

combinations, we construct dummy variables for the role sets of worker-spouse, worker- parent, and worker only (worker-spouse- parent serves as the reference category). We also include in some analyses the dummy variables parent role5 (based on responses to the question "Do you have children?") and spouse role (based on responses to the question "Are you married?") to explore the influence of these specific roles on self- esteem.

Finally, identity processes include mea- sures of identity meanings, centrality, and commitment to a role. Identity meanings refer to the meanings a person attributes to himself or herself in a role. Mortimer et al. (1982) suggested a multidimensional measure, which we adapted to identities in the work and family roles. After the leading phrase "As a worker, I am . . .," "As a husband/wife/ (partner), I am . . .," or "As a parent, I am," we organized adjective pairs in a semantic- differential five-point format (Osgood et al. 1957). Competent is an instrument dimension that focuses on self meanings of success or achievement in a role. It is measured by three items: active-inactive, successful-unsuccess- ful, and competent-not competent (alpha = .59, .75, and .73 for worker, spouse, and parent respectively). Confident refers to an affective dimension that centers on feeling self-assured in a role, and is measured by the three items relaxed-tense, happy-sad, confl- dent-anxious (alpha = .56, .63, .65 for worker, spouse, and parent respectively). Sociable reflects an expressive dimension that entails self meanings associated with an outgoing interpersonal style. It is measured by four items: interested in others-interested in self, warm-cold, open-closed, and social- solitary (alpha = .62, .73, and .69 for worker, spouse, and parent respectively).

Table 1 displays the correlations among the identity variables. Correlations among the identity meanings within each role are moderate (ranging from .40 to .67) and suggest that the three dimensions are tapping different identity meanings; so are the corre- lations of the same identity meaning across roles (.46-.67), which confirm that individu-

5 As suggested earlier, active parenting varies with stage in the life cycle. Among respondents with children, only 18 percent have children currently living at home and only 3.5 percent have children age 18 or less living at home.

als view themselves at least somewhat differently across different roles.

Worker commitment, spouse commitment, and parent commitment consist of a scale containing six items that are adapted to fit the worker, spouse, and parent roles6 (alpha= .67, .88, and .85 respectively) or worker commitment, spouse commitment, and parent commitment. To measure the importance or centrality of a role, we began with the list of 12 roles used to measure role accumulation and asked each respondent to identify his or her three most important roles. Worker centrality is scored 3 if the worker role is identified as the most important role, 2 if it is the second most important role, 1 if it is the third most important role, and 0 if it was not mentioned as one of the three most important roles. Spouse centrality and parent centrality are measured in the same way. Correlations between commitment measures across roles are moderate (ranging from .31 to .49). The correlations between centrality measures across roles are very low (- .05, .07, -.10), in part because they reflect a comparative ranking. The low correlations between com- mitment and centrality within each role (ranging from .09 to .30) suggest the distinctiveness of the two variables despite the apparent similarity between measures of attachment and importance.

FINDINGS

Gender Differences

The data analysis begins with Table 2 and the investigation of zero-order differences by gender in self-esteem, health and social background, role occupancy, and identities. First, we find no statistically significant differences in self-esteem between middle- aged working men and women. Thus in keeping with earlier studies (Antonucci and Akiyama 1987; Larson 1978) that reported no

6 The items include 1) "I feel I'm truly at home when I'm [at work/with my wife/with my children]"; 2) "I'm very committed to my [work/husband/children]"; 3) "It is important to me that I succeed [in my work/as a husband/as a parent]"; 4) "I would feel a deep sense of personal loss if I failed [in my work/as a wife/as a parent]"; 5) "I wish I were not [in this line of work/a husband/a parent]" (recoded); and 6) "If I could, I would give up being a [worker/wife/parent]" (recoded). The four response categories ranged from strongly agree (4) to strongly disagree (1).

MULTIPLE ROLES AND IDENTITIES 319

Table 1. Correlation for Identity Variables

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

1. Worker Competent 1.00 2. Worker Confident .44 1.00 3. Worker Sociable .40 .42 1.00 4. Worker Commitment .23 .24 .20 1.00 5. Worker Centrality .04 -.05 -.07 .09 1.00 6. Spouse Competent .49 .43 .39 .15 -.16 1.00 7. Spouse Confident .41 .55 .30 .22 -.11 .60 1.00 8. Spouse Sociable .38 .43 .54 .15 -.15 .67 .44 1.00 9. Spouse Commitment .12 .05 .05 .31 -.07 .26 .26 .24 1.00

10. Spouse Centrality .03 .01 .01 .07 -.09 .10 .10 .05 .30 1.00 11. Parent Competent .46 .35 .38 .15 -.10 .57 .40 .51 .09 -.01 1.00 12. Parent Confident .33 .51 .31 .14 -.10 .43 .60 .47 .16 .07 .60 1.00 13. Parent Sociable .40 .37 .49 .16 -.16 .50 .44 .67 .14 -.01 .63 .49 1.00 14. Parent Commitment .10 .09 .09 .37 -.09 .09 .14 .14 .49 .07 .26 .28 .29 1.00 15. Parent Centrality -.05 -.02 .04 -.05 -.13 -.01 -.02 .01 -.10 -.05 .09 .09 .09 .13 1.00

difference in well-being by gender, we find that before controls are added, there appears to be no difference in the self evaluations of working men and women. Gender differences in health and social background highlight the social status differences between men and women: middle-aged working men are health- ier, are better educated, have larger family

incomes, and have higher occupational pres- tige than middle-aged working women.

In role accumulation we find that employed men and women hold comparable numbers of the 12 common family and community roles. The men are more likely than the women to be married and/or to be parents. Among married persons, men and women are equally

Table 2. Means and Standard Deviations, by Gender

Men Women

Mean SD N Mean SD N

Self-Esteem 33.997 4.047 397 34.135 3.962 421 Poor Health 9.954*** 2.429 396 9.794*** 2.881 412 Age 60.667** 1.798 397 60.321** 1.868 421 White .833 .374 395 .795 .404 419 Income 5.310*** 1.632 339 4.372*** 1.533 398 Education 15.013*** 3.453 393 13.660*** 2.566 420 Occupation 51.464*** 14.243 397 46.152*** 11.983 421 Role Accumulation 9.675 1.592 397 9.641 1.403 421 Parent Role .952* .214 397 .914* .280 421 Spouse Role .912*** .284 397 .568*** .496 421 Worker Only .013*** .112 397 .052*** .223 421 Worker-Spouse .035 .185 397 .033 .180 421 Worker-Parent .076 *** .265 397 .378*** .485 421 Worker-Spouse-Parent .974*** .332 397 .532*** .500 421 Worker Competent 13.945 1.474 397 13.957 1.444 421 Workerl Confident 12.688 2.098 397 12.582 2.165 421 Worker Sociable 16.856 2.789 395 17.067 2.649 419 Worker Commitment 20.015 2.461 391 19.870 2.632 417 Worker Centrality .350* .782 397 .228* .658 421 Spouse Competent 13.396 1.909 376 13.586 1.876 266 Spouse Confident 13.0473 2.048 375 13.015 2.194 266 Spouse Sociable 17.155* 2.694 375 17.650* 2.523 266 Spouse Commitment 21.965** 2.387 370 21.398** 2.841 264 Spouse Centrality 1.877*** 1.238 397 1.209*** 1.311 421 Parent Competent 13.053*** 1.968 375 13.510*** 1.852 382 Parent Confident 12.858 2.213 374 12.992 2.215 284 Parent Sociable 17.582*** 2.559 373 18.308*** 2.111 383 Parent Commitment 21.530** 2.348 372 22.021** 2.350 381 Parent Centrality 1.458*** 1.023 397 1.781*** 1.095 421

tp < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.

320 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY

likely to be childless (worker-spouse); among parents, women are more likely than men not to be currently married (worker-spouse). Men are more likely to occupy worker-spouse- parent roles. Insofar as being married and being a parent complement each other by providing both emotional and financial re- sources, our working men appear to be advantaged.

The identity variables suggest some inter- esting challenges to taken-for-granted as- sumptions about gender. Despite the differ- ences in occupational status, employed men and employed women do not differ in their worker identity meanings or commitment to the work role. Yet men place greater centrality on the worker role. The men in our sample, however, not the women, perceive themselves as more highly committed to the role of spouse and as attaching greater centrality to the marital role. On the other hand, the women have higher scores as sociable spouses; in the parental role they perceive themselves as more competent, more sociable, and more strongly committed, and they place greater importance on being a parent.

The Influence of Role Occupancy on Self-Esteem

We begin investigating the influence of multiple roles on self-esteem with Table 3.7 In Hypothesis 1 we proposed that the greater the number of roles held by people, the greater their self-esteem. Equation (1) sug- gests that role accumulation does not directly influence self-esteem. We find, however, that when social background and role accumula- tion are controlled, women have higher self-esteem than men. In addition, poor health has a negative effect on self-esteem for both men and women; income, education, and occupational status have positive effects.

The second hypothesis focuses on the relationship between specific combinations of

7 Interaction terms (role accumulation x gender in Equation (1), worker-spouse x gender, worker-parent x gender, and worker only x gender in Equation (2), and parent x gender and spouse x gender in Equation (3) were entered in earlier analyses but they did not exert statistically significant effects; therefore they were not included in the final equations. We also coded missing values on the background variables (poor health, income, education, and occupation) to mean scores in order to facilitate the analysis.

family roles and self-esteem. Equation (2) shows that combinations of family roles do not influence self-esteem independently. Also surprising is the fact that there are no gender differences in the effect of combinations of spouse and parent roles on self-esteem. We had suspected that traditional normative expectations would center on the work role for men, but we thought that for women traditional normative expectations would cen- ter on family roles; in such a case, women who are employed but not married and who do not have children would be less consistent with gender expectations and would have lower self-esteem. Similarly, in Equation (3) we add dummy variables for occupying the spousal and parental roles but find that neither role influences self-esteem.

The Influence of Role Identities on Self-Esteem

Table 48 explores the relationship between subjective assessments of roles, outcomes of the "identification with" process, and self- esteem. Hypothesis 3 proposes that as indi- viduals invest their roles with greater commit- ment and centrality, they increase their self-esteem. Table 4 suggests support for the commitment hypothesis. For both men and women, commitment to the roles of worker, spouse, and parent is related to self-esteem. When all 15 role identity variables are included in the analysis, commitment to the worker and the spouse roles is one of the

8 Because not all members of our sample occupied the spousal and parental roles, we substituted mean values on spousal and parent identity dimensions, commitment, and centrality measures when respondents were not married or parents, and added dummy variables to measure occupancy of the spouse and parent roles (see Cohen and Cohen 1975; Ross and Mirowsky 1992). Also, we substituted mean scores for missing data among the social background variables, especially income (where a number of respondents refused to answer), and in the few cases in which we had missing data among the worker identity dimensions. The results do not differ substan- tially from those obtained in earlier analyses; those were limited to men and women who provided full information on all the variables.

In addition, we found significant identity by gender interaction among the worker (competent x gender, confident x gender, commitment x gender, and centrality x gender) and spouse measures (competent x gender, confident x gender, and sociable x gender) but not among the parent identity variables. For ease of presentation, we therefore present separate equations for men and for women when dealing with worker and spouse identity variables (see Simon 1992; Thoits 1986).

MULTIPLE ROLES AND IDENTITIES 321

Table 3. The Influence of Roles on Self-Esteem

( 1 ) ~~~~~~(2a (3a

Female .114b*** (.91 1)

Age -.034 (-.074)

White .016 (.169)

Poor Health -.141*** (- .210)

Income .102** (.369)

Education .081 * (.105)

Occupation .061 *** (.048)

Role Accumulation .023 (.077)

Worker-Spouse .021 (.456)

Worker-Parent .017 (.162)

Worker Only -.077 (- .149)

Parent Role -.006 (- .095)

Spouse Role -.009 (-.085)

R 2 .09 .10 .09 N 818 818 818

t p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01; * p < .001. a Equation controls for female, age, white, poor health, income, education, and occupation. b Standardized coefficients are presented with unstandardized coefficients in parentheses.

strongest variables influencing self-esteem, as is commitment to the parent role for women.

Centrality, the importance that an individ- ual places on a role, generally is not related to self-esteem for men or for women. Although this finding does not support our expecta- tions, it is consistent with Thoits's (1992) discovery that a measure similar to centrality does not affect psychological well-being. An unanticipated finding is that the centrality of the work role influences self-esteem nega- tively for men. Attributing greater promi- nence to work may create pressure to succeed in a competitive role, and thus may inadvert- ently depress men's self-esteem.

Individuals infuse roles with self meanings and subjective responses. Hypothesis 4 pro- poses that as individuals view themselves as more competent, more confident, and more so- ciable in their roles, their self-esteem will in- crease. Beginning with the work role, we find that an identity meaning as competent has a positive influence on self-esteem for both men and women. For men, the confident dimension also exerts a positive effect when only the worker

role identity variables are considered (Equation (1). In the spousal role, we find that for men, self-esteem is increased by perceiving oneself as a competent spouse and is reduced by per- ceiving oneself as a sociable spouse. An iden- tity meaning as a confident spouse influences self-esteem only when the analysis is limited to the spousal role. For women, none of the spou- sal identity meanings influence self-esteem. Ap- parently self-esteem for middle-aged women is influenced by commitment to the role of spouse, not by variations in identity meanings. Finally, the relationship between parental identity mean- ings and self-esteem is modest. In Equation (3), when only the parent identity meaning dimen- sions are included in the analysis, confident and sociable are related positively to self-esteem. The effect of the sociable dimension is elimi- nated, however, when other identities are in- cluded in the analysis.

Taken as a whole, the findings suggest that the influence of identity meaning dimensions on self-esteem does not appear to be general but varies by gender and role. The self-esteem of middle-aged working men is influenced more

322 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY Table 4. The Influence of Identities on Self-Esteem

(l)a, b (2) (3) (4)

Men Women Men Women Men Women

Worker .248*** .133** .207*** .103* Competent (.681) (.365) (.568) (.284) Worker .122** ..062 (.042 (.022 Confident .236 (.114) (.080) (.039) Worker .059 .023 .111* -.009 Sociable (.086) (.035) (.161) (- .013) Worker .319*** .245*** (.251*** .197*** Commitment (.529) (.370) (.416) (.298) Worker - .118** -.034 - .068t .006 Centrality (-.613) (-.206) (-.353) (.038) Spouse .366*** .056 .253*** .097 Competent (.798) (.148) (.551) (.257) Spouse .125** .025 .014 - .065 Confident (.254) (.057) (.029) (- .149) Spouse - . 135** .079 - .227*** .024 Sociable (-.209) (.369) (-.350) (.048) Spouse .191*** .209*** .121** .142** Commitment (.336) (.155) (.212) (.251) Spouse - .015 - .023 .004 .005 Centrality (-.050) (-.068) (.013) (.014) Spouse .056 - .048 .034 - .065

(.795) (-.388) (.480) (-.52) Parent Competent .046 -.056 -.067

(.100) (-.119) (-.155) Parent Confident .139*** .107t .115*

(.261) (.203) (.215) Parent Sociable (.072t - .006 .039

(.127) (- .010) (.077) Parent Commitment (.201*** .082t .128*

(.355) (.145) (.226) Parent Centrality .010 .033 .060

(.036) (.132) (.217) Parent -.013 -.031 -.029

(-.209) (-.598) (-.415) Female .061t

(.492) R 2 .37 .23 .30 .19 .22 .44 .30 N 397 421 397 421 818 397 421

a Equations control for age, white, poor health, income, occupation, and role accumulation. b Standard coefficients are presented with unstandardized coefficients in parentheses. t p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.

strongly by identity meanings than is that of their female counterparts. When all the vari- ables are included in the analysis, identity mean- ings as a competent and sociable worker in- crease self-esteem; perceiving oneself as competent in the role of spouse increases self- esteem; perceiving oneself as sociable in the spouse role lowers self-esteem; and a parental identity meaning as confident increases self- esteem. Middle-aged working women are in- fluenced much less strongly by their identity meanings. In the role of worker, the competent identity meaning is related to self-esteem, as is the confident identity in the parent role.

DISCUSSION

We began our inquiry into the influence of multiple roles on self-esteem with the hypoth- esis that role accumulation encourages self- esteem. Among our middle-aged working men and women, however, the accumulation of common adult roles did not influence self-esteem. Occupying multiple roles may increase social integration, as Gove and Geerken (1977) suggest, but we suspect that the effects operate only indirectly, through social network or social support patterns.

In regard to the impact of the combination of marital and parental roles with the work

MULTIPLE ROLES AND IDENTITIES 323

role, we thought that the normative expecta- tions to be married and to be a parent would be especially strong for women, so that the role combinations of worker only, worker- spouse, or worker-parent would have a less positive effect on women's self-esteem than would the worker-spouse-parent role combi- nation. Alternatively, holding all three roles in combination might be stressful for women because of the competing demands of family and work roles (Thoits 1992). We found that none of the three combinations exerted a statistically significant effect on self-esteem. In this respect the preretirement status of our sample may have constrained the findings. Menaghan (1989) found that in her study of 18- to 65-year-old men and women, psycho- logical symptoms of distress tended to be lowest when role combinations included work. In our study of employed men and women, however, we could vary only the family roles. In addition, for our respondents (unlike samples including men and women of all ages and especially younger adults), being parents of older children or of children who no longer live at home might have moderated some of the stresses of parenthood, especially combining work and parent roles.

Inspired by symbolic interaction theory, we next probed the influence of identity pro- cesses on self-esteem. We recognized that the relationship between identity and self-esteem is probably reciprocal but argued that the specific and situated character of role-related identities serves as data for the creation, maintenance, and change of global or general self-evaluation. We hypothesized that role- related commitment and centrality would influence self-esteem. The commitment por- tion of the hypothesis is one of the major findings of our research: commitment to the worker, spouse, and parent roles was related positively to self-esteem for both men and women. We did not find that commitment to the role of worker influenced self-esteem only for men or that commitment to the family roles had a stronger influence on women. This finding suggests that commitment oper- ates as the antithesis of alienation. As individuals attribute commitment-a sense of attachment or belonging-to their work and family roles, they appear to view themselves more positively.

The influence of identity meanings on self-esteem varies by role and gender, but not in the expected manner, whereby men should

be influenced by instrumental meanings, such as competence, while women should be influenced by the affective and social identity meanings of confidence and sociability. In the role of worker, self-esteem for both men and women is influenced by identity meanings of being competent. Identity meanings in the role of spouse are related positively to self-esteem only for men; being a confident and sociable parent is related positively to self-esteem for both men and women.

CONCLUSION

Individual roles and the set of roles that individuals occupy provide material re- sources, status and prestige, and opportunities for social interaction and integration. Roles are not merely external positions, however. Individuals actively make roles as well as taking them on (Turner 1956). This "identifi- cation with" process (Stone 1962) includes the cognitive construction of identities, self meanings in a role, and the linking of self to role by commitment. Roles are not only external and objective, but also personal and subjective; and the subjective responses contribute to a person's sense of self-worth.

Our findings suggest that self-esteem in middle age for working men and women does not depend on occupying more roles or even holding specific combinations of spouse and parent roles. Self-esteem is tied in part to a person's sense of commitment to adult roles and to identity meanings in work and family roles. Thus a sense of belonging to the worker, spouse, and parent roles, and of being a competent worker and a confident parent, seems to provide intrinsic satisfaction or a foundation for enhanced self-esteem. It remains to be seen, as we follow our sample of workers into retirement, whether men and women who are committed to their work roles in preretirement will suffer an especially difficult transition as they face the loss or alteration of their worker roles. On the other hand, men and women who are committed to spouse and/or parent roles may find that the transition into retirement is less traumatic for them than for other workers because they have retained the sense of purpose or direction associated with commitment to a role.

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Donald C. Reitzes is Professor of Sociology at Georgia State University and co-principal investigator of a five-year study of the transition between employment and retirement among middle-aged men and women. His current research interests center on the application of symbolic interaction theory to issues in retirement and aging.

Elizabeth J. Mutran is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focus is on the relationships among role transitions, mental health and physical health of mature persons.