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As we began work on this chapter we were acutely aware of the current state of the economy in the United States as the backdrop for our review. With the highest unemployment rates since the early 1990s, record numbers of families facing foreclosures on their homes, and the demise of some of the countries’ most stable industries, citizens of the United States are facing economic challenges never before seen in our lifetimes. According to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that monitors economic issues, “This recession has become the longest and deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression” (Mishel & Shierholz, 2009). We begin our chapter describing this economic and social context because it highlights a primary theme of our comments, a theme highlighted long ago by Urie Bronfenbrenner in his Ecological Model, namely that the social contexts from the broadest level, a national recession, to the most proximal level, one’s parent losing their job, shape the path of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). As we consider how economic and work factors influence workers and their families we must also remain cognizant of a second premise of the ecological model, individuals can also shape their environments. It is with these two key notions in mind, that contexts can shape individual development and individuals can shape contexts, that we tackle the work and family literature from the 1960s through the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Work and Family Through Time and Space

The main tenet of the Ecological perspective is that human development is shaped by a multilevel complex of family, social, and historical contexts in our environments. Many scholars have argued that the two most salient contexts that shape human development are work and family. In a now seminal piece entitled “Work and Family through Time and Space,” Bronfenbrenner and Crouter (1982) reviewed the current state of the work and family literature with an eye towards the reciprocal relationship between the two, such that aspects of work can shape family functioning and families can affect work settings. In their paper, they highlighted the importance of understanding work and family phenomena within the historical, social, and family contexts, or what they referred to as “space,” within which they exist. They also emphasized the critical concept of time, at the broadest level being historical time and at the narrowest level, representing an individual’s life course. Thus, the concept of “time,” considered at multiple levels, plays a powerful role in human development. As a developmental psychologist, Bronfenbrenner focused much of his theory on the power of social contexts and social time to shape individual life course trajectories, but with equal attention to the role of the individual in influencing his or her environments.

As noted above, the concept of “time” refers to historical time, social time, family time, and individual time, all of which give shape and meaning to our lives. For example, our current historical time period is one of great economic upheaval, a historic event that has created a social time in which unemployment and underemployment are viewed less as personal failings and more as consequence of our failing economy. In turn, “family time” can be affected such that when a family member is unemployed or fears that their job may be at risk, family decisions such as when to marry, when to have a child, or when to retire may be affected. Finally, all of these events occurring outside of the individual can affect their developmental trajectory differently depending upon their age and life cycle stage.

The concept of “space” refers to those multiple levels of influence that are in place at any given time point. At the macro-level, we must consider the cultural and social values that guide a given society. For example, values such as individualism or collectivism that are embraced by a society, in turn, influence beliefs about the role of government or workplaces in the lives of individuals. At the level of the exosystem, we must assess those social settings that are not a part of our everyday life but have a clear influence on individual’s lives. So for example, how do social policies enacted at the state and federal level, such as determining minimum wage rates, parental leave policies, or health care policies, affect the well-being and development of workers and their families? Microsystems, the contexts most proximal to the individual, include those settings in which we have day-to-day experiences like at work, in our families, at school, and in our churches. Finally, mesosystems are those influences that comprise the interaction between our microsystems, such as the intersections of work and family in our lives and how that interrelationship shapes our development.

Our goal in this chapter is to review current theory and empirical research in the area of work and family with an eye towards how “time” and “space” provide important contexts for the questions that we ask, the answers we uncover, and the interpretations we place on our discoveries. Bronfenbrenner and Crouter provided a historical review of the work and family literature prior to the 1960s and from the 1960s to the 1980s, a time when work and family research became a recognized and vibrant field of inquiry. We plan to extend their vision to consider how the field of work and family has developed from the 1980s to 2010. As we consider how research and theorizing on work and family has progressed over the past 30 years, and as we consider key questions such as how does work affect individual well-being and development and how does an individual influence work, we will play close attention to the concepts of “time” and “space.” Specifically, we propose that shifts in ideology, government, policy, work settings, and family structure over the past three decades give new meaning to what we mean by “work” and “family,” which can, in turn, lead to new conceptualizations of how they influence each other and the meanings that we place on that relationship.

Work and Family Issues Through Time and Space: Before the 1960s

In the book entitled, Turning Points: Historical and Sociological Essays on the Family, Demos and Boocock (1978) pulled together an interdisciplinary team of scholars to consider the topic of families. This set of interdisciplinary chapters on the history of families highlighted the ever present role of the economy in shaping the lives of families. For example, Smelser and Halpern (1978) argued that the most popular formulation of work-family relations between the 1920s and 1950s was that industrialization resulted in the intensification of the nuclear family comprised of spouses and children. While these scholars presented some data to support this perspective, they also pointed to a more “flexible and interactive conception of the relations between the economy and the family” (p. s288) from very early on in American history. In addition, they went on to suggest that this relationship between the economy and families was influenced deeply by a third institutional factor—education. Thus, family historians placed great emphasis on the social context of the family-work connection, highlighting the critical role of education (a proxy for social class) as a moderator of these relations.

In this same volume, Kanter (1978) presents an equally strong argument for considering the family as an “independent variable” shaping economic life. A number of family historians have provided evidence to suggest that families are a force on economic life in several ways: (a) cultural traditions carried by the family and kin network shape family members decisions about work, (b) from an early time, merchants’ family and business decisions were often intertwined, and (c) a family’s structure and organization, emotional climate and demands influence the ways in which members become involved in organizations (Kanter, 1978). Thus, the bidirectional pushes and pulls linking economy and work settings and families’ lives has a long history in the annals of sociology prior to the overwhelming onset of empirical work that began to emerge in the 1960s. In addition, Kanter also highlighted the importance of time in considering work and family connections. As she notes, “Daily, weekly and yearly rhythms are not the only way work time and timing enter family life. There is also a longer term aspect: the way the timing of major career events over the life cycle of the worker and the major family events over its life cycle intersect and interact (p. s328).” For example, research by Hareven (1975) documented the way in which immigration patterns of French Canadian families to the textile mills of New Hampshire affected family roles, marriage, caregiving patterns, and the organization of the workplace. Thus, notions of “time” and “space” received great attention in the early sociological writings on work and family, however, as documented in the next section, the first wave of empirical studies that emerged in this field often lost sight of the ecological settings within which work and family relations exist.

Work and Family Issues Through Time and Space: 1960s–1980s

The period of 1960–1980 brought social changes that ultimately transformed the lives of many families. In the two decades following approval of the birth control pill in 1960 and no-fault divorce in 1961 (Pruitt & Rapoport, 2003), fertility rates fell by almost half (42%), ending the baby boom (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975, 1999), and the divorce rate doubled (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975, 1999). Thus, it is not surprising that labor force participation rates among married mothers of young children also doubled over this period (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975, 1999), and that extensive legislative initiatives related to employed parents, mothers in particular, were proposed, including the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Equal Pay Act, and the creation of Head Start (Pitt-Catsouphes, 2002). Job opportunities in the agricultural sector continued a long-standing decline, and the contraction of the manufacturing sector also accelerated. Meanwhile, the service sector continued rapid expansion during the 1960s and 1970s (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999). The unemployment rate rose and median earnings of men gradually stagnated during this period, although median family earnings continued to rise due largely to the rapidly increasing labor force participation of women (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999).

Bronfenbrenner and Crouter (1982) organized their review of research during the 1960s and 1970s into the following themes: the effects of maternal employment on children and their mothers; the effects of fathers’ occupations on family life; conflict and resolution in work and family roles; long-term effects of parental work on child development; and work and family in an ecological perspective.

Perhaps the most memorable conclusion of Bronfenbrenner and Crouter’s review of this period is that “Taken by itself, the fact that a mother works outside the home has no universally predictable effects on the child” (p. 51). This statement represents a turning point in the work-family literature. For decades, researchers had attributed differences between children of employed and homemaker mothers to mothers’ work status, but by 1980, the accumulated evidence made it clear that other factors were at least as important, including mothers’ work hours and schedules, education level, the family’s socioeconomic resources, and children’s age and sex. For example, positive outcomes for daughters suggested that their employed mothers served as positive role models, but young sons, especially of middle-class mothers, appeared to experience difficulties, such as in academic achievement. In one study (Bronfenbrenner, Henderson, Alvarez, & Cochran, 1982), mothers who were employed full-time and had sons were less likely than other mothers to portray their children positively. Maternal education also was important: less-educated mothers of both sons and daughters described their children less favorably than mothers with more education.

The patterns just described were observed only among middle-class families, or more precisely, families in which fathers worked in middle-class jobs. Bronfenbrenner and Crouter (1982) observed that the interpretation and consequences of mothers’ employment varied systematically as a function of social class. For example, working-class women’s employment could be seen by their families as improving their standard of living, but also as an indictment of their husbands’ ability to provide. In contrast, middle-class women’s employment might be seen as leaving children poorly supervised. These recognitions connected multiple kinds of spaces or contexts by recognizing that the connections between work and home might play out differently depending upon social class. The different interpretations of employment experiences as a function of social class reflect a complex set of contingencies that researchers were only just beginning to understand.

These speculations about the role of social class in shaping the consequences of mothers’ employment introduced a new dimension of “space” into discussions of work and family. Instead of focusing solely on the category or social address of employment status, researchers during this period began to identify the factors that gave the social address its meaning—such as the level of mothers’ involvement in employment, the degree to which they were satisfied with their circumstances, and the meaning of their employment to themselves and their families. For example, part-time work emerged during this period as a way for mothers to reap the benefits of employment while also minimizing the perceived costs to their children.

The findings just summarized focused primarily on patterns observed among White men and women than on other ethnic groups. African-American families, for example, have a long and continuous history of mothers’ employment that might have generated, had it been thoroughly studied, different implications of parental employment for their children. More specifically, counter to the trend for sons of middle-class White mothers, studies showed that children of low-income employed Black mothers did better in school than their counterparts with homemaker mothers (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1982). Studies during this period, however, rarely gave distinct attention to ethnicity, and even fewer examined confounds between family structure, social class, and job type. There were exceptions: Piotrkowski (1979) completed a rich qualitative examinations of life in working-class families, and Stack’s All Our Kin (1974) enriched understanding of family life among African-Americans.

A major contribution to the understanding of “space” from this period was Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) volume, The Ecology of Human Development. The ecological perspective provided a framework with which to consider the structure and function of both the proximal and distal contexts that affect the development of children. It made it easy to see that the effects of work-family relationships could depend not only on parents’ employment status, but also on the content of their experiences at work, as well as where children spent their time during parents’ absences. Even macro-level policies in organizations and the nation, such as access to job flexibility, could now be understood as potentially connected to the growth and development of individuals.

Bronfenbrenner and Crouter (1982) pointedly recognized the lack of parental leaves, high-quality child care, and family-responsive national policies in the United States relative to almost all of its industrialized peers, highlighting in particular the difficulties faced by families in gaining access to high-quality childcare. Not coincidentally, the first onsite corporate child care center in the United States was created at StrideRite corporation in 1975 (Pitt-Catsouphes, 2002).

Another theme in research during this period was the recognition that fathers’ experiences at work could affect their participation in family life, significantly shaping their children’s experiences. Innovative work by Melvin Kohn (1969) during this time highlighted the important role of the social context of work, specifically the job conditions of working- vs. middle-class occupations, identifying specific mechanisms through which experiences in one domain, such as work, could effect life in another domain, namely the family. Researchers recognized that fathers in working-class and middle-class jobs were systematically rewarded for different behavior and values. For example, obedience and conformity were valued more by working-class fathers, while self-direction and autonomy were valued more by fathers in middle- to upper middle-class occupations (Kohn, 1969). In turn, fathers tended to encourage similar behavior and values in their children, especially their sons. In addition, fathers’ psychological absorption in their work was recognized as a potential threat to the quality of their relationships with their children. Although some of these same dynamics were eventually found to apply to mothers’ occupations, most of this research was not conducted until much later (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1982). This line of work socialization research remains a key theme in the work-family field to this day.

Another milestone in the work-family literature during this period was the development and refinement of role conflict as a construct that could account for interdependence among settings. Seminal publications in both sociology (Goode, 1960) and psychology (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, & Snoek, 1964) drew attention to the ways in which multiple roles could be expected to pose competing and burdensome demands on individuals. In the most widely-cited article in the work-family literature between 1977 and 2000 (Mason, 2002), Pleck (1977) laid out the “work-family role system” as a framework for understanding role conflict as it pertained to the work and family responsibilities of employed partners. He used the term “work-family interference” to label the competition between work demands and family needs.

Later during this period, Marks (1977) proposed an expansionist view of involvement in multiple roles, work among them, arguing that involvement in multiple roles could bring positive resources to individuals and families. Consistent with Marks, both Piotrkowski (1979) and Crouter (1982) identified positive ways in which work and family could affect one another, including the transmission of skills and positive moods.

Both women’s roles and researchers’ perspectives about them were changing rapidly during this period. For example, women’s allocations of time to paid work increased and their time devoted to housework declined. The proportion of household work completed by men thus increased, but Pleck & Staines (1985) concluded that this was due almost entirely to women performing fewer household chores, presumably as a function of paid work demands, as opposed to men performing more chores. Studies during this period revealed “no appreciable change in fathers’ involvement with family work as a function of their wives’ employment status” (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1982, p. 58).

In terms of “time” or the developmental implications of work and family, the focus of work-family research during this period, as in prior decades, was primarily focused on parents with young children, although studies of older children also began to appear. A major leap forward was provided by Elder’s (1974) research using life course principles to understand the developmental implications for children of their parents’ job losses during the Great Depression. Children who were very young when the Depression began appeared to suffer more severely, and longer—well into adulthood—than adolescents, whose identities were more well formed and who were old enough to provide real help to their families. Although the developmental implications of work-family relationships for adults was not yet a major theme in this literature, Elder’s recognition of “linked lives,” or the processes that connect developmental trajectories within families over many decades laid a foundation for later examinations of intergenerational issues. In so doing, Elder significantly expanded the conceptualization of time as it related to the relationships between work and family.

In another expansion of the consideration of time, Kanter (1977) articulated an agenda for research on work and family in which she drew attention to both the duration and the timing of work, including not only when in the life course individuals are and are not employed (consistent with Elder’s approach above), but also the scheduling of work over the course of days or months. Research by Mott, Mann, McLoghlin, and Warwick (1965), for example, showed that fathers working evening shifts spent less time with their school-aged children and experienced tension with their wives.

Methodologically, Bronfenbrenner and Crouter (1982) lauded the research literature between 1960 and 1980 for including many more studies of work and family, as well as more rigorous designs (some longitudinal), more theory-driven testing of hypotheses, and greater attention to process as opposed to simple group comparisons. Researchers paid much more attention to what occurred inside contexts, such as what parents did when they were at work and how family responsibilities were allocated at home—for both men and women. Mothers’ employment status was recognized as having relatively little predictive power in the absence of other important variables like social class, although there was still relatively little attention to race, ethnicity, or diverse family structures as distinct and important factors in the work-family realm. Our understanding of space was further deepened by the full articulation of Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological perspective. Conceptions of time expanded to more fully include the duration and timing of employment, as well as the life course effects of major historical events. Finally, work-family conflict emerged as a distinct construct for the first time, part of a growing recognition of the potential for jobs to negatively influence family life.

Work and Family Issues Through Time and Space: 1980s–1990s

During the 1980s, the United States experienced a period of economic upheaval. A recession in the early part of the decade was accompanied by high inflation and unemployment. Growth in both earnings and productivity slowed, and stable, well-paying jobs in the manufacturing sector continued to decline, creating a structural mismatch between job-seekers and job opportunities (Menaghan & Parcel, 1990). The composition of the labor force also continued to shift during this decade, with men’s labor force participation falling and women’s rising past 60% (although this pattern applied mostly to white women; the labor force participation of black women declined rather sharply at least twice during this period) (DiCecio, Engemann, Owyan, & Wheeler, 2008). Over 50% of mothers with children younger than six had now entered the labor force (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2002). The rising proportion of women in the labor force also reduced the sex segregation of some occupations (Menaghan & Parcel, 1990).

In the family realm, one of the most notable changes was the high proportion of families who were headed by unmarried mothers or fathers—by 1985, single parents accounted for more than one in five families (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1987). Especially when headed by mothers, these single-parent families were significantly more likely to be poor than married-couple families, even when the mother worked full-time year-round (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1989).

Menaghan and Parcel’s decade review of the work-family literature in the 1980s focused on the influences of parents’ employment on their own well-being, the quality of their marriages, and the development of their children (Menaghan & Parcel, 1990). They organized the review around four perspectives: the “new home economics;” role conflict; work socialization; and the work stress perspectives.

In 1981 Gary Becker produced the Treatise on the Family, using economic principles to explain household decisions regarding the allocation of domestic labor. These principles led to the proposition that it was economically efficient for mothers to reduce their labor force responsibilities in favor of devoting time to raising children, because mothers’ disadvantage in the labor market constrained the economic return on the investment of their time relative to that of fathers (Becker, 1981).

Becker’s treatise energized the debate about men’s and women’s actual and ideal roles in families and in the economy, launching new discussions of gender as a “space” within which work and family occur. The recognition of gender as constructed, contested, and negotiated in the work-family domain led to examinations of cultural, couple, and personal expectations that shaped behavior at home and at work (Berk, 1985; Geerken & Gove, 1983), helping to produce the sex differentiation Becker observed. Geerken and Gove (1983), for example, pointed out that the arrangement of responsibilities at home lagged behind changes in economic responsibilities, suggesting that factors beyond basic economic principles were operating. Berk (1985) argued that Becker paid insufficient attention to gendered patterns of dominance and submission. Bielby and Bielby (1988) even questioned the degree of sex differentiation in the economy, pointing out that when family circumstances were controlled, women made greater contributions to market work than men.

In a way, these debates culminated at the end of the decade with Hochschild’s (1989) publication of The Second Shift, which “unpacked” men’s and women’s experiences of gender in negotiating work and family. Each chapter documented the processes through which a particular couple arranged work and family in their own lives, and the often convoluted stories they constructed to minimize disconnects between their gendered beliefs and behavior. In so doing, the “deep space” of gender was revealed within these couples.

Intra-couple dynamics also were revealed during this decade, as researchers began to adopt more parallel approaches to studying men’s and women’s employment, unemployment, and unpaid family work, in contrast to earlier approaches that problematized unemployment for men but employment for women. Attention to the content, perceptions, and meanings of experiences at work grew, and a new line of research recognized the connection between not only one’s own work experiences and well-being, but also the connection to spouses’ well-being. In particular, the implications of wives’ employment for their husbands’ well-being and husbands’ participation in family work for their wives’ well-being were considered, revealing small negative effects for the former and positive effects for the latter (Menaghan & Parcel, 1990).

A new innovation was recognition of the importance of the match between preferences and behavior, such that employment was associated with lower distress when it matched individual preferences. For wives, the net benefits of employment for their own well-being were usually positive, especially when consistent with their preferences. Some husbands whose wives were employed experienced more distress if they were doing more household work than they believed appropriate (Perry-Jenkins & Crouter, 1990). Another dimension of meaning associated with within-couple experiences of employment and distress was attitudes regarding breadwinning. The positive effects of employment and the negative effects of unemployment were particularly strong for workers who saw themselves as breadwinners, and the husbands of employed wives were more distressed when their wives’ employment threatened their sense of adequacy as breadwinners (Menaghan & Parcel, 1990).

During this period, men’s participation in child care and housework grew much more slowly than women’s rapidly rising participation in the labor force. Fathers’ interactions with children increased, though largely in a role secondary to that of mothers, while mothers’ involvement in household work declined. Studies suggested that wives (whether or not they were employed) were more distressed when their husbands’ participation in family work was lower (Parcel & Menaghan, 1994b).

In addition to delving more deeply into dynamics within families, researchers also delved more deeply into the dynamics within workplaces, “unpacking” the previously observed relationship between social class and job content. For example, working-class jobs were found to offer far less “substantive complexity” meaning or opportunities for workers to make decisions, to confront complexity, and to experience novel and stimulating environments. Instead, they were more likely than other workers to experience low autonomy, close supervision, and high routinization. As a result, their intellectual flexibility was eventually stunted and they developed guarded orientations to society (Kohn & Schooler, 1983). In contrast, in more participatory work environments, workers engaged in more problem-solving and in turn valued more self-directed qualities in their children (Crouter, 1982).

Experiences at work also were linked to workers’ experiences of strain. Several studies based on Karasek’s demand-control model supported the contention that workers experienced significant strain when they faced high demands combined with low control. Such conditions were found to be more common in women’s jobs (e.g., Karasek, Baker, Marxer, Ahlborn, & Theorell, 1981). Also especially important for women was the degree to which coworkers and supervisors were supportive of work and family issues—especially when women faced disproportionately heavy responsibilities at home (Menaghan & Parcel, 1990).

Mortimer and London (1984) combined characteristics of jobs with understanding of work-family conflict to predict how families in different ecological niches might experience relationships between work and family differently. For example, single-mother households might be preoccupied by financial problems, but managerial families might struggle more with psychological absorption in work. Dual-provider families would find themselves challenged by role overload. This work highlights the importance of “space” as it influences the types of problems families face as well as the solutions they devise to address their unique challenges.

In addition to delving deeply within the spaces of family and of work, researchers during this decade developed much deeper understanding of the nature of the mesosystem connecting these two domains. In the most influential scientific article about work and family published between 1977 and 2000 (Mason, 2002), Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) proposed that conflict between work and family would occur because the roles competed for time, or because they would generate strain or require behavior that would interfere with effective performance in the other domain. Most measures of work-family conflict are still grounded in this original conceptualization. Other researchers suggested additional nuances of this relationship. For example, Crouter (1982) acknowledged the possibility of positive influences traveling between work and family, such as problem-solving skills learned at work proving useful at home.

The largest “spaces” affecting work-family relationships are those defined by public policies enacted by nations, and the private policies created in workplaces. During this decade, recognition of the relevance of work and family policies expanded significantly. Kamerman and Kahn (1978) drew attention to the policy solutions being tried in industrialized countries around the world, almost all which were absent in US policy (and most remain absent to this day). Nonetheless, there were some changes in the private policy arena. The Conference Board launched its work-family research council. The consulting firm Work-Family Directions (now WFD) was founded, as were the Families and Work Institute and the Center for Work and Family at Boston College. Working Mother magazine published its first list of the 100 best companies for working mothers (Pruitt & Rapoport, 2003). Also, in one of the first empirical evaluations of work and family policy, Bohen and Viveros-Long (1981) published an evaluation of an experimental effort to evaluate the ability of work schedule flexibility to reduce work-family conflict.

Although dimensions of space received more attention during this decade than dimensions of time, the development of methods to study daily stress was an important innovation. For the first time, researchers were able to track in chronological order the emergence of stressors, over the course of days or weeks, in one domain and their connection to later feelings or behavior in the other (Bolger, DeLongis, Kessler, & Wethington, 1989; Repetti, 1989). Repetti (1989) found that after especially busy or stressful days at work, male air traffic controllers were likely to socially withdraw from their families in the evening. Bolger et al. (1989) added a gender dimension by showing that wives adjusted their evening activities to accommodate their husbands’ stressful work days more than they did their own and more than their husbands did for them. Interpersonal conflicts both at work and at home emerged as a potent source of daily fluctuations in emotional distress and depressed mood.

Staines and Pleck (1983) continued to expand considerations of time at work by examining relationships among nonstandard work schedules, schedule flexibility, and work-family conflict. In particular, they focused on the implications of parents’ schedule demands for time with their children. For example, to the extent that low-wage jobs demanded more work hours during the evening or weekends, children could be deprived of time with their parents. Moen and Dempster-McClain (1987) expanded thinking about time in another way by recognizing that employed parents may need to develop ways to arrange roles sequentially across the life course, adjusting their involvement across the role system to achieve their family goals.

During the 1980s, work-family research focused more on space than on time. Researchers paid considerable attention to the construction of gender and its intersection with economic opportunities (Spitze, 1988). Researchers also generated many useful insights about systematic variations among work settings, as well as the relationship between spouses’ employment experiences and distress. The conceptualization of work-family conflict expanded, including the recognition that the reciprocal influences between work and family may be positive as well as negative. Conceptualizations of time also expanded to include greater recognition of the duration and timing of parents’ work and its implications for behavior at home, as well as attention to the daily processes connecting work and home. Studies, however, most often examined these questions for working families with young children. Although there was expanded attention to social class as a context during this decade, there still was relatively little attention to ethnic variations in work-family relationships. Also remaining to be developed more fully were the developmental implications of parents’ work for themselves and their children, and the role of other settings such as child care, school, and community.

Work and Family Issues Through Time and Space: 1990s–2000

In comparison to the 1980s, the nation experienced a period of economic calm in the 1990s. “Prices were stable, unemployment dropped to its lowest level in 30 years, the government posted a budget surplus and the stock market experienced an unprecedented boom” (Conte & Karr, 2001). It was a time of dramatic technological advances in computer and communication technologies that brought advances such as cell phones, pagers, and wireless computing; it was also a time where the income gap between the rich and poor, the skilled and the unskilled worker widened (Mishel, Bernstein, & Schmitt, 1999). With these broader economic and social conditions as the backdrop, the work-family literature continued to expand and crossed multiple disciplines including sociology, developmental psychology, family science, organizational behavior, economics, and occupational health. In an effort to review this sprawling, multidisciplinary literature, Perry-Jenkins, Repetti, and Crouter (2000), in their decade review of the work and family literature in the 1990s, outlined four main themes in the field: (a) maternal employment literature, (b) work socialization literature, (c) occupational stress literature, and (d) multiple roles literature. Our aim is to briefly explore these four topics with an eye towards those aspects of time and space that were addressed in the 90s and what aspects deserve greater attention.

The maternal employment literature has a long tradition in developmental psychology with an initial aim of understanding how mothers’ employment affected young children. As early as the 1980s, a focus solely on maternal work status as the predictor of child outcomes declined and more attention was turned to “how much” and “when” parents worked (Hochschild, 1997; Presser, 1994; Schor, 1991). Researchers found, for example, that parental overwork and underwork mattered for children such that fathers working less than full-time during their children’s early years were more likely to have children with behavior problems, whereas fathers’ overwork was linked to children’s decreased verbal facility.

During this decade research began to play closer attention to the temporal patterning of work hours with studies indicating that nondaytime work shifts were associated with higher divorce rates (White & Keith, 1990). Temporal variations across seasons of the year, days of the week, and hours of day also became the focus of research studies recognizing that patterns and hours of employment are rarely stable phenomenon and patterns of change in work hours can affect family life in multiple ways (Crouter & Larson, 1998; Crouter & McHale, 1993; Larson & Richards, 1994). For example, Moorehouse (1991) was one of the first to identify multiple changes in employment status as a risk factor for children’s social and cognitive competence; but she also found that the negative effects of maternal employment changes could be mitigated by mothers’ frequent involvement with her child in shared activities such as reading books and telling stories.

From a “time” perspective, a strength of research in the maternal employment tradition is its focus on children’s “individual time,” more specifically their developmental outcomes. For example, many studies explored parental work as it affects children’s social and cognitive outcomes. A shortcoming, however, was its emphasis on the development of very young children with far less attention to how school-aged or adolescents fared. Moreover, the concept of “family time” received little attention, however, it is likely that the timing of parenthood, meaning whether parents were still in school (teenage parenting), starting their first jobs, or well-established in their career, could affect their ability and availability to parent and, ultimately, influence child outcomes.

The concept of “space,” meaning the broader social context surrounding work and family processes, did not receive a great deal of attention in the maternal employment literature of the 1990s. Presser and Cox (1997) did emphasize that less-educated parents are more likely to work nonstandard hours than more highly educated parents, highlighting differences by social class. Few studies, however, examined how unique conditions of high-wage and low-wage work might differentially affect child outcomes, and there was surprisingly little attention to how race and ethnicity might intersect with social class to create distinct ecological niches for child development.

The second theme of work-family research in the 1990s was the continued emphasis on the work socialization perspective. Research in this tradition, which blossomed in the 1980s, explored how conditions of employment, such as occupational self-direction, job complexity, and control, influenced life off the job. Building on Kohn’s early work, Menaghan and Parcel published a number of studies in the 1990s demonstrating that higher levels of occupational complexity in mothers’ jobs was related to more positive home environments that provided greater cognitive stimulation, emotional support, and safety (Menaghan & Parcel, 1991; Parcel & Menaghan, 1994a, 1994b). Menaghan and Parcel’s work points to the value of looking beyond work status, to explore conditions of employment as they affect children. As important, were their efforts to explore how family contexts, such as family structure (e.g., single- vs. two-parent) and socioeconomic status, might moderate work-family linkages. For example, they found that the mothers who experienced the greatest gains from highly complex work were continuously employed, single mothers (Menaghan & Parcel, 1995). They also found that mothers who began employment in jobs characterized by low to average complexity showed decrements over time in the quality of the home environment they provided to their children, introducing the importance of lagged effects whereby work has greater effects over time, than concurrently, on child development. The program of research conducted by Menaghan and Parcel across the 1990s highlights the importance of considering both issues of time and space in the work-family relationship. In terms of time, they documented, with longitudinal data, that early work experiences can influence later child developmental outcomes. From a social context, or space, perspective, they showed that linkages between work and family may differ for single-parent and two-parent families. Important questions still remain from the work socialization perspective as to how the intersection of multiple contexts, such as family structure, race, ethnicity, and social class create unique multidimensional, ecological niches that shape work-family process in distinct ways.

Turning to the third work and family theme in the 1990s, we focus on the occupational stress literature, yet another consistent theme from the 80s. Work stress received a great deal of attention from work and family scholars in the 1990s. In terms of time, researchers began to distinguish between the effects of short-term fluctuations in stress vs. long-term, or chronic, work stressors. Distinctions were also drawn between objective, stressful conditions of the job (e.g., time pressures, noisy, high job demands) vs. individuals’ internal responses to work conditions.

The chronic stress literature is fairly consistent in documenting that the relationship between job stress and individual or family outcomes is mediated through individual well-being, such as role strain or emotional distress (Barling & MacEwen, 1992; Crouter, Bumpus, Maguire, & McHale, 1999; Galambos & Maggs, 1990; Greenberger, O’Neil, & Nagel, 1994). A shortcoming of this research, however, is the assumption of causal priority. In fact, little research during the 90s on chronic stress has been devoted to testing the effects of emotional distress and family dysfunction on job stress. To date, even less research has questioned the effects of chronic stress on workers at different stages of the life course, or the effects of these stressors on children of different ages.

From a social contextual perspective, it is argued that the lack of “uniform, across-the-board chronic stress transfer effects” (p, 287, Perry-Jenkins et al., 2000) in studies that use heterogenous samples is because individual, family and social context differences exert important influences on the work stress to family functioning relationship. For example, vulnerability to role strain has been shown to vary as a function of job hours, family size and ages of children, and occupational prestige (Guelzow, Bird, & Koball, 1991; Marshall & Barnett, 1991; O’Neil & Greenberger, 1994). Another key moderating variable appears to be relationship quality, however, the moderating effect is complex. On the one hand, Rook, Dooley, and Catalano (1991) found that stress transfer between spouses may occur more readily between spouses in close, stable relationships. On the other hand, an unhappy marriage can exacerbate the effects of job stressors (Bumpus, Crouter, & McHale, 1999). These studies begin to highlight the importance of social contextual factors as they give different meaning to the connections between job stress and family life.

In the 1990s, we began to see evidence to suggest that race, ethnicity, and social class may also be important moderators of the chronic job stress-family connection. Marshall and Barnett (1991), in their study of 229 Black and White, female social workers and licensed practical nurses (LPNs) found that LPNs were less likely to report rewards from decisions authority on the job and more likely to report concerns about lack of advancement and exposure to illness and injury. Black LPNs in particular reported less challenging jobs, poorer supervision, and fewer job rewards. In a related study, Frone, Russell, and Cooper (1992) found social class differences between work-family conflict and family distress and between job involvement and work-family conflict. The authors offered no explanation for why work-family conflict predicted family distress for blue-collar but not white-collar workers. Perhaps, white-collar families have more resources to buffer the conflict such as one “at-home” parent, services such as child care and house cleaning, or extra vacation time. In terms of the finding linking job involvement and work-family conflict that only emerged for white-collar workers, the authors posit that this finding might reflect differences in structural characteristics of jobs such that those in white-collar occupations may spend more discretionary time on work matters and may bring work home more than their blue-collar counterparts. These two studies begin to highlight the importance of social context, or “space” as it serves to moderate work-family connections.

The final theme underlying research in the 1990s focused on the implications of managing the multiple roles of worker, spouse, and parent for parents’ well-being and for the quality of family relationships. Although some research suggests that the demands of multiple roles have the potential to increase stress and undermine mental and physical well-being (O’Neil & Greenberger, 1994; Repetti, 1993), the majority of studies in this area find that multiple roles often bring rewards such as monetary gain, enhanced mental health, power to delegate tasks, and opportunities for social relationships (Barnett, 1994, 1999). The discrepancy in findings, however, may best be explained by examining social class as a moderator of these relationships. For example, managing multiple roles that includes a worker role where one has job autonomy, complexity, and control may indeed enhance worker well-being but a worker role where one has little control with monotonous job tasks may undermine well-being.

From a theoretical perspective, Marks and MacDermid (1996) have critiqued the multiple roles literature for assuming a hierarchical structure to roles from most important to least important. They argue that individuals may organize roles in a more holistic, balanced approach. It may also be the case that there are individual differences in how individuals coordinate multiple roles and some of these differences may be understood by social contextual factors and/or timing issues. In addition, attention to the meaning that men and women attach to their roles is a critical mediating factor that links role behaviors to individual and family functioning. Employment status alone reveals little about the meaning and value a role holds for an individual, however, research on provider-role beliefs and attitudes has shown that beliefs about men’s and women’s provider-role attitudes affects division of labor and marital quality outcomes (Perry-Jenkins & Crouter, 1990).

Research on multiple roles often views work and family roles as fairly static and unchanging. A life course perspective would challenge researchers to consider how role demands and negotiation fluctuates over a lifetime. For example, during times of extreme pressure, such as when one has very young children and is balancing a high pressure job, individuals may feel the need to prioritize role demands, even in cases where they aim for balance. In contrast, “empty nesters” may have more freedom to create a balance among their roles. From a social contextual perspective, the ability to balance roles is likely to be enhanced for more affluent individuals who can buy goods and services to ease role pressures, such as quality child care, takeout food, or housecleaning services.

A number of methodological advances occurred through the 1990s. More longitudinal studies emerged, allowing researchers to examine change in both work and family processes as well as to begin to examine the thorny issue of causality. For example, Rogers (1999) in a longitudinal study of work and marriage found that as marital discord increased so did wives’ income because increases in marital conflict increased the likelihood that unemployed women would enter the labor force. Greater use of structural equation modeling (SEM) and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) made it possible, in the absence of random samples and nonexperimental designs, to use the individual as their own “control” by examining individual change trajectories over time.

To summarize, by the end of the 1990s, the work and family literature had become a recognized area of study in multiple disciplines. This diversity of thinking on the topic is both a strength and weakness. Given the wide variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of work and family and the rich array of studies, some with great benefits in terms of either work constructs or family constructs, some with large representative samples, some with qualitative stories, much has been learned. Conversely, the sprawling literature makes it difficult to summarize consistent findings and accept or reject theoretical assumptions. In terms of “time and space” issues, we would argue that during the 1990s more advances were made addressing the issue of time than space. For example, more studies arose that examined work-family phenomenon for families with older children as well as families coping with retirement. More attention focused on short-term processes that could examine bidirectional connections between work and family. Although there was greater acknowledgement of the importance of social contextual factors such as social class, race, ethnicity, and family structure, few studies explicitly explored how these constructs may moderate the very nature of work-family connections. In the handful of studies that did explore these issues directly, almost all found evidence for moderation of work-family linkages by social class, fewer findings emerged for race and ethnicity.

Work and Family Issues Through Time and Space: 2000–2010

As we ushered in the new millennium the US economy appeared to be on relatively strong footing and the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s projections for the upcoming decade predicted continued growth during the 2000–2010 decade (Su, 2001). Few projections predicted the global financial crisis that shocked the world in 2008 where we witnessed the collapse of the housing market, the demise of some of the largest banks in the United States and Europe, a 40% plunge in the stock market, and the near financial collapse of the US car industry (Conte & Karr, 2001). Over the course of this decade, Bianchi and Milkie (2010) also noted two other important demographic shifts relevant to the work-family agenda, specifically (a) increasing diversity in the structure and ethnicity of American families and (b) the stagnation of married women’s employment rates coupled with an increase in single mothers’ employment rates (Hoffman, 2009). All of these broader macro-level events created an interesting “time and space” for the study of work and family issues.

In their 2010 decade review of the work and family literature, Bianchi and Milkie (2010) provided a broad overview of the key topics that were researched over the past decade and highlighted the key strengths and insights that emerged over this decade. They organized their review around six main topics: (a) Gender, time and the division of labor in the home, (b) Paid work: Too much or too little?, (c) Maternal employment and child outcomes, (d) Work-family conflict, (e) Work, family, stress and health, and (f) Work-family policy. Building upon this excellent review of work and family research during the first decade of the twenty-first century, our goal is not to recreate the wheel but to use the ecological constructs of time and space to consider what new knowledge has emerged while considering new areas for development.

In reviewing the literature on gender, time and the division of labor in the home, Bianchi and Milkie (2010) point out that men’s and women’s allocation of time to paid and unpaid work has become more similar over time, with the gender gap in household and childcare tasks narrowing. From a time and space perspective, some intriguing questions arise. For example, how does the allocation of paid and unpaid work differ by social class and for families of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds? It also becomes important to consider the fairly dramatic change in family structures in the United States with more single-parent households, grandparent households, and step family households than ever before. How does the allocation of labor differ across different types of households? How do we assess the division of paid and unpaid labor when grandmothers, sisters, or extended kin share the work load? From a time perspective, how do patterns of allocation change across the life course? Is the gender gap most apparent for families with young children? Also, how have generational shifts in attitudes about egalitarianism and father involvement affected time allocation trends across generations?

Bianchi and Milkie (2010) next addressed the topic of paid work and the issue of time. Unique and different issues arise for those working too many hours and experiencing overwork vs. those who are underemployed and cannot secure enough paid work. Jacob and Gerson (2001) found that too many hours and inflexible hours leave little time and energy for family life. Many jobs began to demand more of workers beyond the traditional work day and given new technology work was accessible 24/7, a phenomenon more common in higher prestige jobs. At the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, a common problem was the lack of full-time, benefitted employment. Bianchi and Milkie point out that unemployment and underemployment for men, in particular, disconnected them from family life, and researchers found a father’s financial contribution was almost a precursor to active parenting (Coley & Morris, 2002; Landale & Oropesa, 2001). Thus, research has shown that the social context within which we study the time and timing of work reveals quite different problems.

Of course, in the current economic context the issue of overwork, underwork, and unemployment have taken on new meaning. More individuals from every walk of life are currently unemployed in the United States, approaching a 10% unemployment rate. Unemployed individuals are less stigmatized than in the past given the volatility of the economy. In contrast, many of those who are employed feel grateful to have a job and perhaps are less likely to complain or feel dissatisfied. In terms of time and timing, beyond issues of overwork and underwork is the stability of work. More attention needs to be paid to the trajectories of individual work lives and the notion that movement into and out of jobs can be as disruptive to family life as over- and under work. Moreover, much of this literature has focused on mother and father as the primary earners in families when, in fact, given new family structures and living arrangements, extended family and relatives often contribute to the economic security of families. Our lens must broaden to consider all those members of the family that extend beyond the nuclear constellation of mother, father, and children.

The literature on maternal employment produced a number of more nuanced and complex studies that paid greater attention to issues of “space.” For example, maternal employment was shown to have the strongest, positive effects for children in low-income households, in part by improving the home environment and providing stability. In contrast, the few negative effects of maternal employment seemed to arise in the area of cognitive development and placed White boys from middle-class families at greatest risk (Brooks-Gunn, Han, & Waldfogel, 2002). The issue of time arises here in a number of ways. First, are these effects long-lasting, and still present in adolescence and early adulthood? Are we seeing effects of early maternal work patterns or concurrent work patterns in these studies? In fact, a handful of studies began to explore developmental issues past early childhood. For example, Gennetian et al. (2004) report that maternal employment may hold small, but negative, effects for adolescents’ school performance. Chase-Lansdale et al. (2003) however, found no positive or negative effects of employment on adolescents’ academic outcomes. The question of how and under what conditions parents’ early and current employment affects the lives of their adolescent children is an area ripe for development. Of course, a key criticism of studies that focus solely on parental work hours is the lack of attention to the actual conditions and experiences of employment that can enhance or undermine parental well-being, which in turn affects parenting ability.

Interestingly and importantly, Bianchi and Milkie (2010) raise child care as an important issue to explore when understanding work and family phenomenon, “in part because it forms the nucleus of what much “work-family” conflict is about—how to care for children adequately when parents need or want to work outside of the home” (p. 15). Social contextual factors play an important role in understanding the effect of child care on parents and children. Child care is expensive and was often a barrier to employment for low-income mothers (Baum, 2002). In addition, since many low-income jobs require shift work, including hours in the evening or overnight, securing child care becomes even more challenging. Data also indicate that African-American and Mexican mothers are more likely to use relative care as compared to European-American mothers (Uttal, 1999).

Studies in the area of maternal employment and child care began to move the clock forward to examine issues for school-aged children and adolescents (Heyman, 2000; Kurtz, 2002). This relatively new avenue of study examines the self care and supervised care for children before and after the school day when parents are employed. As Barnett and Gareis (2006) point out, little research has focused on the unique demands faced by working parents who have school-aged and adolescent children. With a scarcity of after-school options, and a school schedule that includes numerous holidays, vacations and summer breaks, working parents face great challenges in securing child care. Yet, unsupervised children are at higher risk for juvenile crime, substance abuse, and sexual activity (National Center for Schools and Communities, 2010). In addition, parental after-school stress is related to parents’ psychological well-being. As we pay closer attention to issues of “time,” in this case child’s developmental age and family’s life stage, we will broaden our view of work and family issues over the life course

Work-family conflict continued to be a major topic of study and in this area we saw a number of advances in terms of time and space. Specifically, studies began to document how work-family conflict varied as function of family size, family socioeconomic status, and earner status (dual- vs. single earner, single employed parent). In addition, the use of a life course perspective and longitudinal study designs highlighted work and family trade-offs that families make at different life stages. Bianchi and Milkie (2010) identified a handful of studies that have begun to examine cultural and ethnic differences in experiences of work-family conflict. For example, Wharton and Blair-Loy (2002) found that workers in Hong Kong, who feel high levels of obligation to family and relatives, reported higher work-family conflict than Western workers due to stronger cultural norms related to family caregiving. Roehling, Jarvis, and Swope (2005) found that in the United States, Hispanics report higher work-to-family and family-to-work spillover than either Whites or Blacks. They surmise that more traditional gender roles among Hispanics may explain these differences, although research is needed to test this hypothesis.

The family-to-work connections, though acknowledged by many researchers, still received far less attention than the work-to-family connections. Having young children and/or children with developmental or behavioral problems was associated with more family-to-work conflict (Hyde, Else-Quest, Goldsmith, & Biesanz, 2004; Lewis, Kagan, & Heaton, 2000); and women were shown to experience more family-to-work conflict than men (Keene & Reynolds, 2005). This is clearly an area where research would benefit from attention to issues of space and time. For whom and under what conditions is family-to-work spillover more likely to occur? In addition, is family-to-work spillover more likely to occur at different life course junctures, such as for families with young children or families caring for elderly parents and relatives?

Work, family, stress, and health remained another theme in the field over the past decade, underscoring the findings that work and family experiences influence physical and mental health. An intriguing line of research examined mastery, or sense of control, as an outcome of work-family stress and a possible mediator of the relationship. For example, a sense of mastery was enhanced by marriage but diminished by the presence of children (Reynolds & Aletraris, 2007). As Bianchi and Milkie (2010) point out, gender and cohort effects play an important role in shaping workers’ sense of self and mastery of their lives (Carr, 2002).

Although work-family policy became an area of increased attention over the past decade, many critics continued to emphasize lack of a coherent approach to “family-friendly” work-life policies in the United States (Gornick & Meyers, 2003). Davis and Mitchel (2009) argued that, “In the United States today, not only are our work-life policies limited, especially compared to other industrialized countries (Kelly, 2006), but they are also mismatched with the needs of workers and are unequal in availability and use.” (p. 323). At the same time, it appears these criticisms have sparked both national and international research that has highlighted different challenges facing families of different social class levels and the recognition that the “success” of any given policy or intervention often depends on the desired outcome of either the worker or employer (Bianchi & Milkie, 2010). In an edited volume by Crouter and Booth (2009) published by the Urban Institute, a number of new intervention studies evaluating the consequences of work place polices were highlighted. These projects are only now coming to fruition and may offer some of the best insights as to how policy change as well as informal changes in organizational culture may affect employers, employees, and employees’ families

Work and Family Through Time and Space: 2010 and Beyond

Over 25 years ago, Bronfenbrenner and Crouter (1982) made 15 recommendations for future directions in research and policy on the impact of maternal employment. Using our review of the past three decades of research on work and family, the aim in this final section is to explore how far we have come in achieving some of the goals set out by Bronfenbrenner and Crouter as well as to make suggestions and recommendations for the next quarter century.

Bronfenbrenner and Crouter’s first recommendation in the early 80s focused on moving past simple “social address” research models that compare, for example, the children of employed and unemployed mothers, to explore processes whereby work conditions affect a family process, such as parenting or shared time, which in turn affects some aspect of child development. Our review of research over the past 25 years clearly indicates that this recommendation was heeded; with much research emerging through the 1980s and 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century addressing the processes linking work-to-family functioning and child development. For example, multiple studies by Parcel and Menaghan revealed how complexity of thinking at work was related to more positive home environments created by mothers which in turn benefitted children’s cognitive development. Numerous studies by Crouter and colleagues highlighted how parents’ overwork, underwork, and work stress are related to parents’ effectiveness in monitoring their school-age and adolescent children leading to different socio-emotional outcomes for children. For higher SES workers, job absorption interfered with time for children and other family members (Blair-Loy, 2003), for lower-income workers, varying shift schedules diminished mental health and was linked to more marital discord (Perry-Jenkins, Goldberg, Pierce, & Sayer, 2007). As specific processes are documented and replicated in our studies, key areas ripe for interventions and policies arise.

The second recommendation of Bronfen-brenner and Crouter highlights the importance of the mediating, and we would argue moderating, effects of child’s age and sex, race and ethnicity, family structure, social class, hours of employment, mothers’ work preferences, satisfaction with work, and gender attitudes on work-family relationships. The authors also recommended that specific attention be paid to conceptualizations of social class that include not only occupational status but education, and income of both parents, if present, or the economic contributions of other family members in the household. Although numerous studies have emerged that attend to some aspects of this recommendation, we would suggest we still have far to go in understanding how multiple social contexts and the intersection of those contexts shape the nature of work-family connections and ultimately hold implications for children’s developmental outcomes. A common analytic strategy has been to statistically control for variation that may emerge from constructs such as age, race, ethnicity, class and family structure, an assumption being that there are “universal” work-family processes that occur outside of these social contexts. As noted in this review, however, studies that have specifically examined how race, family structure, and social class moderate relationships between work and family often uncover unique relationships, especially by social class. For example, as noted earlier Frone et al. (1992) found work conditions and links between work and family life differed for Social workers and LPNs (class differences) and for Black and White LPNs (race differences). In addition, work by Goldberg and Perry-Jenkins (2004) revealed that the unequal division of household labor in working-class households held negative implications for mental health only for those wives with more egalitarian attitudes. More studies are starting to emerge that look within specific ecological niches defined by race, ethnicity, class and family structure, and child age (e.g., see Burton, Lein, & Kolak, 2005; Chase-Lansdale et al., 2003; Crouter, Baril, Davis, & McHale, 2008; Henley & Lambert, 2005; Perry-Jenkins, 2005) to explore work and family issues.

Recommendations 3 and 4 point to the importance of using both short-term and long-term longitudinal research designs to understand how decisions to enter and leave the labor force are influenced by preexisting conditions related to work and family life. Bronfenbrenner (1979) emphasized the importance of “ecological transitions” as times when children and families experience movement into and out of different microsystems. These represent “natural experiments with considerable scientific power since subjects serve as their own controls and the direct and indirect effects of change can be assessed as they evolve in a variety of domains” (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1982, p. 72). Great methodological advances have occurred over the past quarter century in the quality and number of longitudinal data sets that have emerged. From a developmental perspective, studies that follow the same individuals over time provide the greatest insights into developmental trajectories as we can explore patterns of change within and across individuals. Advances in statistical software, such as SEM and HLM have enhanced our ability to examine bidirectional relationships and growth curve trajectories in individual developmental outcomes while also examining multiple levels of context (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002).

Recommendations 5 and 6 challenged researchers to take into account the nature of the child’s experiences when the mother is at work. Thus, more knowledge about child care situations, after-school supervision, school experiences, and peer friendships are all key proximal settings in the child’s life that can shape development. In addition, Bronfenbrenner and Crouter recommended examining the specific nature of parent–child activities engaged in by employed and nonemployed mothers. In future writings, Bronfenbrenner pointed to the importance of proximal processes, those daily and weekly consistent events and interactions in one’s microsystem, as they can shape one’s life and developmental outcomes. In addition, linkages among those key settings in a person’s life, such as linkages between school and family, peer group and family, or work and family also have unique effects on the developing individual. These recommendations received some much needed attention by researchers over the past two decades. For example, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care followed more than 1,300 children from their birth in 1991 to the present, marking the largest national undertaking ever to examine the effects of early child care on child development (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1997, 1998). A number of studies have begun to emerge examining the effects of after-school supervision, or lack thereof, on children’s risky behaviors and development. A large literature on peers as socializers in children’s lives has also emerged (Ladd, 2005) and provided insight into the role of friends, bullies, and group behavior as it influences children’s development. Interestingly, the question of how parents’ work hours, schedules, and experiences affect the time and nature of children’s experiences in these multiple other settings has received less attention.

Recommendations 7, 8, and 9 pointed to the critical role of fathers in children’s lives, a neglected topic up to that time in child development research. How does fathers’ parental role change as function of mothers’ employment? How does a father’s work hours and schedule taken alone, and in combination with mothers’ work, influence family life and child well-being? Bronfenbrenner and Crouter also pushed for more research on conditions of fathers’ employment, such as job absorption, complexity, and organization, as they influence the mother, family routines, and child outcomes. The literature on fathers and fathering burgeoned through the late 80s, 90s, and in the first decade of this century with an entire journal devoted to the topic of Fathering established in 2003. Research emerged that examined how fathers’ work status, job hours, and job conditions shaped family involvement and child outcomes (Crouter, Bumpus, Head, & McHale, 2001; Repetti, 1993). One line of research with lower-income families and divorced or separated families suggests that often a precondition of fathers staying involved with their children was that he be employed and paying child support (Carlson & McLanahan, 2002; Johnson, Levine, & DooLittle, 1999). The link between economic providing and fathering has been a topic of empirical investigation and the research suggests that economic providing remains a key characteristic of fathering in our society, binding work and family roles differently for men than for women. The multiple roles literature has done much to illuminate how both mothers and fathers juggle the demands of spouse, parent, and worker but we know far less about how those negotiations differ as a function of “space,” social class, race, ethnicity, and “time,” meaning families with infants, toddlers, school-aged children, or adolescents. In addition, methodological advances have made it possible to examine dyadic, dependent processes between mothers and fathers and parents and children. Future research will greatly benefit from research efforts that capture the mutual influence that occurs within families and describes these processes over time (Helms, Walls, Crouter, & McHale, 2010; Perry-Jenkins et al., 2007).

Recommendation 10 addressed the issue of the bidirectionality of effects and challenged researchers to examine how family life and conditions can affect mothers’ role at work. As we have reviewed above, the work-family conflict area has probably been the one most focused on exploring work-to-family spillover and family-to-work spillover (Frone et al., 1992; Grzywacz & Marks, 2000). Not surprisingly, they have found some consistent gender effects whereby family-to-work spillover is more robust for women than men. Our research in this area has grown much more sophisticated with studies examining short-term bidirectional linkages between work and family and longer term linkages. In addition, researchers have looked at both men and women and explored gender differences in the nature of work and family spillover (Grzywacz & Marks, 2000). From a “time” and “space” perspective, many intriguing questions remain to be examined. Do family-to-work and work-to-family spillover processes peak at certain times over the life course, such as when families are raising young children and/or caring for aging parents (Grzywacz, Almeida, & McDonald, 2002)? Do these processes differ for low-wage vs. high-wage workers? In what ways are there positive linkages between work and family life that have the potential to enhance both adult and child development?

The 11th recommendation challenged researchers to dig into the perplexing finding that maternal employment appears to have negative effects on one specific subgroup of children, namely middle-class, White boys. This finding emerged in a number of studies in the 1970s, however, during the 80s and 90s the result appeared to dissipate. Very recently, however, we saw again in research that White, middle-class boys seemed to be the most vulnerable to mothers’ work (Brooks-Gunn et al., 2002). Researchers are uniquely poised to address this question given recent efforts to explore how intersections of race, ethnicity, class, and family structure create unique contexts for development. Given the number of readily available national data sets it seems likely that some more definitive studies with representative samples could address this finding.

Recommendations 12, 13, and 14 all address, in some way, issues of social policy and the group or groups who may be in need of the greatest supports. Specifically, in recommendation 12, it is suggested that research needs to tease apart how the effects of mothers’ employment may differ in single-parent families, two-wage households, families where mothers work part time, and possibly a new and vulnerable minority in the United States—mothers who are not employed outside of the home. Of course, family structure is highly related to issues of social class, thus researchers face challenges determining whether it is family structure issues or depleted financial resources that may be affecting children’s developmental outcomes. With that said, a great deal of research has emerged from the mid-90s to present examining issues of family structure, race, ethnicity, and social class as they shape families’ experiences of both work and family (Chase-Lansdale et al., 2003; Raver, 2003). Much of this research emerged in response to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 which placed a 5-year lifetime limit on receipt of government benefits for unemployed individuals and stricter sanctions for noncompliance. It is important to note that this legislation passed during a time marked with the steady erosion in the quality of jobs available to workers with less than a college degree. Unionized jobs that offer benefits, training, and security had been replaced with employment opportunities in the service and health care sectors which, at the lowest levels, offer few benefits, little security and variable, non-day work schedules (Wilson, 1997). Thus, this unique confluence of events in the 90s resulted in many young mothers with children being forced into some type of employment. One consequence of these events is that although the welfare rolls plummeted across the country, the “working poor,” a well-worn term in the media increased in alarming numbers. Chase-Lansdale et al. (2003) found few negative effects for mothers’ transition to employment for preschoolers and modest effects on teenagers. The question, however, of how conditions of low-wage work can have positive and negative effects on workers and their children is still in need of attention. Specifically we need to examine the potentially deleterious effects of mothers moving into low level, low-paying, routinized work with little support on children’s development. Thus, the questions raised by Bronfenbrenner and Crouter over 25 years ago about the needs of vulnerable families remain as important today.

The final recommendation posed by Bronfenbrenner and Crouter, which they argued at the time should be given the highest priority, is “research on the environmental stresses and supports experienced by working mothers and their families both within and outside the home and job” (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1982, p. 75). They argued that research needed to identify key sources of stress and support in family and work settings and appropriate workplace policies and practices must be put in place to support these families. It is encouraging to be able to report, that in fact, efforts to explore the effects of various workplace interventions on workers’ lives have begun as a result of an initiative funded through the NICHD to examine workplace policies and interventions as they influence the lives of workers and their children. It is interesting that these projects only got under way over the past 5 years, however, the very fact that the National Institutes of Health recognized the importance of studying workplace interventions and policies for working families is a remarkable milestone. Early reports from some of these intervention projects show promise in developing effective workplace interventions, while also documenting the complexity of modifying workplace cultures (Lambert, 2009; Moen, Kelly, & Chernak, 2009). As we await the final reports and papers from these projects, it is instructive to see what can be learned from the process prior to finding out the results.

Time and Space have changed quite a bit since Bronfenbrenner and Crouter published their agenda for work and family research in 1982. A number of new issues have emerged over these past three decades that have changed the work and family landscape in the United States. First, as we have already noted in this review, the US population is aging. The number of Americans 65 and older is expected to double over the next 20 years. At the same time, the health of older Americans is improving and they are engaged in the work force for more years than ever before. The aging of the US population has led to a new set of work-family issues that include the challenges facing working adults caring for elderly and ill parents, and employed workers caring for ill and aging spouses. Szinovacz and Davey (2008) highlight the complexity of issues that surround these topics, not the least of which focus on gender ideologies about who should provide care and cultural mandates about kinship obligations; all dimensions of family caregiving that are likely to conflict with workplace demands. If we extend this topic to include cultural contexts such as race, ethnicity, and class as they provide different meanings to caregiving for the elderly, we have an area ripe for new investigations.

In terms of new “spaces” within which the study of work and family must move, the issue of immigration is critical. Suarez-Orozco and Suarez-Orozco (2001) highlight the fact that the United States is in the midst of the largest wave of immigration in our nation’s history. In their longitudinal study of immigrant children these scholars highlight the ways in which forces outside of families, a key one being work, shape children’s sense of identity in their new country. New research should explore work-family issues among immigrant workers and their families with special attention to “generational” time as it differentially affects parents’ and children’s views of and acculturation into their adopted country.

With an even broader view, most family scholars are aware of the rapidly shifting racial and ethnic demography in the United States. As of 2008, 66% of the population was non-Hispanic White, 15% Hispanic, 14% African-American, and 5% Asian American; by 2050 the U.S. Census Bureau projects the population will be 46% non-Hispanic whites, 30% Hispanic, 15% African-American, and 9% Asian (U.S Census Bureau, 2008). Thus, the cultural context of work and family life will be changing over the next half century and important questions as to how sociocultural contexts shape the nature of work-family relations will need to be addressed.

Couple the changing racial and ethnic profile of the United States with the long running income inequality that persists (U.S Census Bureau, 2008; Weinberg, 1996) and it is clear that the social and ecological niches that define the work and family lives of workers and their families are quite unique and variable. According to Bronfenbrenner, it is these unique sociocultural contexts that are likely to promote distinct types of work-family processes and relationships. Moreover, these processes may differ across the life course and affect parents and children differently as a function of developmental stage, age, and personal characteristics. It should not be surprising that the nature of these relationships that occur within contexts and over time are complex and dynamic and it will take combined efforts across disciplines and using multiple methods to develop the full story. As Bronfenbrenner and Crouter (1982) pointed out long ago, “The impact of parental work on family functioning and the development of children cannot be understood without taking into account the larger context of which both work and family are a part.” (p. 78), yet, at the same time they cautioned, “There is a danger that in our recognition of the broader contexts of human development we forget about the human beings themselves (p. 78).” An ecological perspective challenges work and family scholars to be acutely sensitive to issues of “time” and “space” as they provide meaning and context for arguably the two most important “human” pursuits of all: to work and to love.