Exploring the Sharp Rise in Dual-Career Families Essay

The biggest challenge for many of us is how to balance our studies, work and family demands. While we want happy fulfilling lives outside of family, work and school, we have to make personal sacrifices in order to be successful in life. Since time is precious, keeping a balance between three worlds can be a challenge. Fortunately, with proper planning, balance is possible. Every day, I have to make choices and manage my time incredibly well in order to be able to balance my online studies, my work and family demands. In my opinion family demands, work and studies balance are a process, not a static achievement. So, it is important to make the decisions selecting careers

mother in a two income family or if you're just living on your own. This career

Family and society have come across many changes during our history. Every change that occurred has affected what many people would call the "Benchmark Family" (Scanzoni #7). This is considered the perfect family or the norm. The Family would consist of the husband that is the breadwinner and the wife who is responsible for raising the children, and taking care of the home (Scanzoni #4). Society has changed dramatically from the 19th century. These changes in turn have affected Family. Many factors through the years have been responsible for these changes. Feminism is a tremendous factor that is still having its effect on family and society today. Another factor is employment. Women in the workplace have changed family structure

Both parents may work or 1 parent might do 2 job to secure their future

Both men and women hope to be parents someday, and both recognize the importance of working and parenting. While some are confident leaving their children with a nanny for extended periods of time, most students portrayed a desire to be financially stable and have time to cultivate memories with their family. They then went on to say that both parents would have to work at least part-time in order to make such a family dynamic work for the benefit of

Upon the development of theories, researchers have compiled two main sets that contain eight sub-theories; macro-level theories focus on how the family is a social institution-the organized pattern of statuses and structures, roles, and rules by which a society attempts to meet certain of its most basic needs (39)-and micro-level theories emphasize what happens within families, looking at everyday behavior, interaction between family members, patterns of communication, and so on (47). The family development theory addresses how patterned alterations that occur within families through set stages over a period of time are ever-changing. The stage is known as, the family life cycle, corresponds with how rearing children affects families throughout life. Developed by Roy Rodgers and Joan Aldous, the family career cycle, addresses how the marital and parental careers are furthermore affected by an individual's educational or occupational career. The development of the family life course characterizes a combination of all the events and stages that a family undergoes.

Gender roles is a problem that takes place in both the workplace, domestic conditions, and society. Often signified through the age-old stereotype. That men are required of the more "challenging" or more "advanced" jobs, while women restrict themselves to the less grueling and less beneficial positions. Terms such as "that 's a man 's job" is a leading cause of inequality in the workplace. Not to mention, gender roles and standards are set in the homes of many families everywhere. The so-called "picture perfect family" situation; the husband goes to work while the wife stays home to tend to the children. While romanticized as ideal, this concept is the very essence of a patriarchal society. Meanwhile, the brutally vicious society we live in often berates women 's self-esteems in more way than one. Stereotypes of beauty, or who are skinny, pretty, white, and wealthy, are unfortunately the ideal standard of women and

Barbara J. Risman’s book Families as They Really Are offers valuable insight into the nature of families and rebuts several myths that have been used to complicate the understanding of families or to simplify harder concepts. In the fourteenth chapter of the book, Risman delves into dual-earner couples and looks at the experience such families had during and after the Great Recession. The chapter deals with among other thing the influences that the economic downturn had on families, how parents felt the effects of this at the family level and the differences between single-earner families and the dual-earner families at this time. The thesis of this document is that dual-earner families are more resilient economically compared to single-earner

According to Mondy and Noe (2005), career is a job that has been chosen to be accomplished during one’s working life. Career is the progress and actions of the person’s occupations or sequence of jobs held by someone throughout a lifetime which is until that person end up the careers. Most of the situations, people do not just referring to one position only but often looking for another jobs which composed of the jobs held, titles earned and work accomplished over a long period of time. There is an increasing trend to employees changing jobs more frequently, while employees in some cultures and economies stay with one job during their career. For example, an individual's career could involve being an engineer, though the

For example, feminist traits are commonly thought of being such things as caring roles. In contrast, masculinity is paired with active and productive roles. That is why the man, a father, who is busy with his work after hours is "dedicated" and not "selfish" like a woman doing the same thing. The cultural norm is that a mother’s place is with her child, while a father provides for his family. It happens not only in a workplace, but also in normal, everyday life.

Dual career couple is when both partners are trying to achieve careers or have one. Having career driving can affect the children and the overall of the household. For example, if both parents have high demanding jobs with long hours, who will take care of the children and housed chores. Another example of the conflict that having parents that are career driving, what happens when one parents gets offered a job at another

In 1980, Donald Super introduced a theory that described career development in terms of life stages and life roles. Super was one of the first theorists to discuss the constantly evolving nature of career development, and the importance of finding a balance between career and personal life. Super’s developmental model emphasized how personal experiences interact with occupational preferences in creating one’s self-concept. Super discussed how each of us progress through various life and career development stages, including growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and disengagement. He also discussed that each of us take on different roles as we go through life, such as a child, student, leisurite, citizen, worker, parent, and spouse. Each of these roles has an impact on our personal and professional development, and on our work/life balance. Finally, his “archway” of career determinants detailed how both personality characteristics (intelligence, needs, values) and societal characteristics (labor market, school, family) influence our career choices and have a major impact on our career development.

There would be no opportunity for someone to pursue a career out of passion due to them being restricted to working in the field that they are most practiced. This is where the negative arguments against specialization in society may be derived. The options of the men and women living in the community are limited, and so are the options of the children. Due to the way of life, the children will most certainly follow in their parents path as a career.12 Each family has what it needs to survive thanks to the communities combined efforts. In the same way that classes are dependent upon each other, families are too. In such a lifestyle without any luxuries, the families are made to rely on each other for company and enjoyment. On a personal level the principle of specialization seems to dull the way one would spend a lifetime, simply spending each day by doing the same things as the rest without much variation in any aspect of life. However, with specialization the current community as a whole is as productive, efficient and unified as possible.

Upon choosing a career I see myself with a comfortable income, independent, in a very positive disposition. After I am able to be financially stable and independent, I see myself meeting my future life partner and settling down. I see this person as being not only my romantic partner, but also my best friend and most reliable support system. Starting a healthy, comfortable family would

Before this class I never put thought about my family goals because I believed it was not important at this point in my life. However, during the class after discussions and reading Meg Jay’s book especially, I started to understand the importance of work-life balance. Meg Jay’s advice and the story she shared about Emma really resonated with me. Meg Jay stated that, “the foregrounding of the individual in relationships has caused us to forget about one of our