Working Relationships: Communicative Patterns and Strategies among Couples in Everyday Life

Abstract

The recent growth in dual-income families has led to new configurations of domestic work distribution among family members. Because working parents are required to spend a great deal of time and energy at their respective jobs outside the home while also managing parenting responsibilities and household tasks, a high premium is placed on how partners negotiate and enact the division of labor inside the home. This paper draws from videotaped interviews and naturally occurring interactions in the home to explore working couples' perspectives on the challenges of managing household work and parenting. Transcripts of these videotapes are presented to examine couples' ongoing negotiation of responsibilities and expectations, with particular reference to the requests that partners make of one another and subsequent responses to these requests. Findings suggest that the degree of ambiguity in the models governing couples' expectations for and performance of housework responsibilities affects the behaviors that working parents exchange. Clear models appear to facilitate efficient management of household tasks, minimize bids for influence, and enable partners to feel effective and respected, while ambiguous models entail continued negotiation of responsibilities, repeated demands and directives, and tension within the dyad. The value of studying marital interaction in natural settings with observational methods, using principles from psychology and anthropology, is emphasized.

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