Full-time and Reduced-hours Work Schedules and Marital Quality

The hypothesis that the relationship between work hours and marital-role quality would be mediated by the proportion of low-schedule-control household tasks performed by the physicians was supported and physicians working longer hours reported higher marital- role quality.

Abstract

In this stratified random sample of 98 married full-time and reduced-hours female physicians with children, the authors tested the hypothesis that the relationship between work hours and marital-role quality would be mediated by the proportion of low-schedule-control household tasks performed by the physicians. The hypothesis was supported: Physicians working longer hours reported higher marital-role quality than those working fewer hours to the extent that they performed fewer low-schedule-control household tasks than did their reduced-hours counter-parts. Conversely, reduced-hours physicians, who, on average, performed more low-schedule-control tasks, reported lower marital-role quality.