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Micro work‐family decision‐making of dual‐income couples with young children: What does a couple like us do in a situation like this?
Author(s) -
Cluley Heather,
Hecht Tracy D.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of occupational and organizational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.257
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 2044-8325
pISSN - 0963-1798
DOI - 10.1111/joop.12282
Subject(s) - construals , psychology , social psychology , work (physics) , identity (music) , thematic analysis , perspective (graphical) , qualitative research , construal level theory , sociology , computer science , mechanical engineering , social science , physics , artificial intelligence , acoustics , engineering
The goal of this study was to address the following research question: How do couples with young children make micro work‐family decisions? Using a qualitative approach, we interviewed 29 couples, both together and apart, about work‐family decision‐making, including common routines (work hours, childcare/school drop‐offs, and pickups) and daily decisions (dealing with sick kids and unexpected work). We analysed over 200 decisions using thematic and critical incident analysis, and came to understand the stories in our data from the lens of decision logics. We observed that different types of couples made different choices because they had different rules for appropriate behaviour guiding their decisions. This way of making decisions is consistent with the logic of appropriateness model of decision‐making, in which decisions are made by following rules that are derived from identity construals. We observed that couples’ rules emanated from their joint family identity construals, rather than their individual construals. This is a novel finding that drives theory on decision‐making forward by showing how this decision logic can apply when couples are the decision‐making unit. Practically, our results can be applied to broaden employers’ awareness of how work and family responsibilities can be met by different employees and to increase couples’ knowledge of alternative approaches. Practitioner points Employees who are part of dual‐income couples make work‐family decisions based on their family identities, but there are numerous ways to construe family identities and employers should not assume that all men see their family roles as providers, nor do all women see their family roles as caregivers. Employers should welcome employees’ suggestions about how they can best complete their work and should recognize that employees can be creative when it comes to managing work and family demands. Employers should promote a more open environment in which employees and managers can discuss their work and family situations, and how they approach meeting family demands. Interventions could be designed to help dual‐income couples increase their own understanding of their family identities and their awareness of different ways to be a dual‐income couple.