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Much sociological research focuses on employed women's strains in negotiating paid work and family demands. Yet few studies examine women's subjective sense of success in balancing these spheres, especially compared with men. Using a sample of married, employed Americans from the 1996 General Social Survey, we examine feelings about work-family balance, and we find, unexpectedly, that women and men report similar levels of success and kinds of work-family tradeoffs. We find some gender differences, however. For men, imbalance is predicted by longer work hours, wives who work fewer hours, perceived unfairness in sharing housework, marital unhappiness, and tradeoffs made at work for family and at home for work. For women, only marital unhappiness and sacrifices at home are imbalancing, and for women who are employed full-time, young children are.
The growing social science literature focusing on the intersection of work and family, as well as much media attention to this issue, testify to how balancing the competing and often overwhelming demands of paid work and family commitments is perhaps the most central challenge in women's lives as we enter a new century (Spain & Bianchi, 1996, p. x). Much recent scholarship has concentrated on the experiences and consequences of the second shift put in by employed women and the balancing act between work and family roles that women negotiate throughout their lives (Becker & Moen, 1998; Hochschild, 1989). Although the nature and consequences of employed women's negotiation of family and work have been well documented, we know less about how these women feel they are doing in balancing the two central roles of work and family and about the factors that affect their feelings of success. Additionally, there is little research that compares women's and men's perceptions of balance and the factors that relate to successful balance. To examine such perceptions, we use a gender perspective (Fenstermaker, West, & Zimmerman, 1991; Ferree, 1990; Pyke & Coltrane, 1996; South & Spitze, 1994), focusing on gender as a hierarchical structure that infuses everyday relations in the family and workplace. This perspective suggests that employed women and men have different role qualities-actual and felt expectations and demands-and that women's demands are higher overall. Additionally, women's location in the social structure affords them less power and control in...