Role Changes and Psychological Weil-Being: Variations in Effects by Gender and Role Repertoire

Abstract

This analysis examines the relationship between multiple social roles and psychological well-being by focusing on specific combinations of the normatively expected social roles of spouse, childrearer, and worker in a large representative sample of urban adults. Cross-sectional analyses of current role repertoires and current psychological symptoms are supplemented by consideration of how changes in role repertoires are related to changes in symptom level. For both men and women, marriage and employment have positive effects, but the impact of childrearing responsibilities ranges from neutral to negative. The advantages of employment are most pronounced for married fathers and unmarried mothers, those of marriage strongest for mothers without jobs; the disadvantages of childrearing are strongest for unemployed husbands and unemployed unmarried women. Specific role combinations, not summary role counts, are meaningfully associated with psychological symptoms: distress is most likely when one's role repertoire departs from the normal expectable situation for one's age and gender.

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