Employment Effects on Relationships

Boundaries between Employment and Personal Life

Though workers have been socialized to “act as though” they had no other commitments, indeed work and personal life have always affected each other, if for no other reason than that paid work provides income for personal life, to be used by those in a worker's household. Also, it has long been assumed that time in paid work represents time away from home. To work or not to work has been considered differentially problematic depending on gender: Men's work has been seen as fulfilling a traditional relationship role of provider, whereas women's work has been seen as competing for her time, attention, and commitment in fulfilling relationship roles such as care provider. Two frequently studied phenomena include relationship problems associated with men's unemployment and problems posited as resulting from maternal employment (such as mother/infant attachment disorders). Joseph Pleck coined the term asymmetrically permeable boundaries to refer to how women are thought to bring their relationship concerns and statuses into the workplace (e.g., working mother), whereas men are thought to bring their work home (in actual work performed at home and in their financial rewards from work affecting the family's social status).

How work affects relationships varies according to a person's place in the life course and the relationships that are prominent in the person's life at that time. A life course perspective applied to the work and family fields suggests that children and youth are affected by parental work. Youth can be affected by their own work in ways that may constrain their close relationships. Adults' work can also shape their opportunities and time for relationships with family members.

The work and personal life field of study had its genesis in Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) at large corporations that were faced with employees coping with childcare concerns. But a growing number of men and women in the labor force [Page 521]today are from the baby boomer generation and may be faced with issues concerning care of aging parents. These workers are also faced with a labor market in which traditional retirement pathways are disappearing, and the literature shows that couples tend to plan joint or sequential retirement transitions together and that spouses and partners strongly influence retirement decisions.

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