Review:
Based upon a study of 300 full-time employed, dual-income couples, She Works/He Works shows that despite warnings that children need the full-time attention of a parent, working families are flourishing. While some conservatives would go back to man as breadwinner and woman as homemaker, Barnett's studies show that employed wives are not as depressed as were the fabled wives of the 1950s and that children do not suffer when both parents are employed. Furthermore, if one partner loses a job, it is less stressful to the family than if only one person had been working. Barnett and Rivers argue that couples who share household and child rearing responsibilities are actually healthier than those who espouse "traditional" family dynamics.
From Kirkus Reviews:
A significant and unabashedly optimistic assessment of two- income families, expressed in lively, straightforward prose. The stressed-out, harried working wife and mother so often reported in the media is a myth, according to Harvard psychologist Barnett and journalist Rivers, who have written several books on women and society. Based on the findings of a study of 600 working- and middle-class subjects in the Boston area, Barnett and Rivers (coauthors of Beyond Sugar and Spice: How Woman Grow, Learn, and Thrive, 1979, etc.) contend that husbands, wives, and children in two-income families are doing just fine. Unlike 40 years ago when the male breadwinner and the female homemaker were the ``natural order of things,'' today 60 percent of all couples are two-earner couples, and traditional roles have relaxed. Men today are contributing more to housework and are more involved in day-to-day child-rearing tasks; the result is happier fathers. As for working mothers, they are for the most part less stressed than stay-at-home mothers and don't spend any less ``quality'' time with their children. Instead of two separate halves with distinct roles, today's dual-earner marriage is a partnership wherein husband and wife ``enrich their respective lives.'' And, of course, the increased income that a two-earner family provides is often a necessity in today's shaky economy. Given this reality, the authors further explore what steps may be taken to help dual-earner couples deal with the pressures that inevitably arise. Their proposals include encouraging parental leave; developing a sick-leave policy that includes fatherhood in the equation; providing extended vacation time; and creating workplaces free of sexual harassment. With striking statistics and engrossing case studies, Barnett and Rivers deliver a timely and lucid exposition of the contemporary American family. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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