Coping With Overload and Stress: Men and Women in Dual-Earner Families

CHRIS A. HIGGINS University of Western Ontario

LINDA E. DUXBURY Carleton University*

SEAN T. LYONS University of Guelph**

Coping With Overload and Stress: Men and Women

in Dual-Earner Families

This study tested gender differences in a modelpositing relationships between work and familydemands, overload, 4 coping mechanisms, andstress. The coping mechanisms were hypoth-esized to moderate the relationship betweenoverload and stress. The sample consisted of1,404 men and 1,623 women in dual-earner fam-ilies. Respondents relied on 2 coping strategies:scaling back and restructuring family roles. Menwere more likely than women to respond to over-load by scaling back and less likely to respondby work-role restructuring. Coping by family-role restructuring moderated the relationshipbetween role overload and stress for bothgroups; however, the gender difference was notsignificant. Coping by work-role restructuringmoderated the relationship between overloadand stress only for men.

Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario,1151 Richmond Street North, London, Ontario, N6A 3K7([email protected]).

*Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, 710Dunton Tower, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario,K1S 5B6.

**College of Management and Economics, University ofGuelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1.

This article was edited by Cheryl Buehler.

Key Words: coping, dual-earner families and work, multipleroles, resiliency, stress.

Recent decades have seen dramatic increasesin the demands placed on dual-earner families.Technology has made it possible for employ-ees to work any time, anywhere. Demands athome have increased, fueled by greater numbersof employed mothers, dual-earner families, andemployed individuals with elder care responsi-bilities. These changes have contributed to anincrease in role overload as employees struggleto accommodate the various demands placed onthem by their work and family lives (Duxbury& Higgins, 2003).

Role overload has been shown to have numer-ous stress-related outcomes, including anxiety,fatigue, burnout, and decreased satisfaction withfamily and work (Bacharach, Bamberger, &Conley 1991; Coverman, 1989; Frone, Yardley,& Markel 1997). It has also been linked to higherrates of absenteeism, lower levels of commit-ment, turnover intentions, and poorer physicaland mental health (Duxbury & Higgins, 2003).Given the prevalence of overload and its negativeconsequences, it is surprising that the concepthas garnered relatively scant research attention.

This study compares dual-earner men andwomen in terms of the coping mechanisms thatthey employ to deal with role overload. Wedefine role overload as a time-based form of roleconflict in which one perceives that the collec-tive demands of multiple roles exceed availabletime and energy resources, thereby makingan individual unable to fulfill adequately the

Journal of Marriage and Family 72 (August 2010): 847 – 859 847DOI:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00734.x

848 Journal of Marriage and Family

requirements of various roles. Role overload canbe distinguished from other types of time-basedconflict, which occur because of simultaneouslyoccurring demands from multiple roles, and fromstrain-based forms of role conflict, which occurwhen the strains of one role spill over into otherroles (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Furthermore,unlike role interference, which arises because ofmutually incompatible role demands from mul-tiple senders, role overload is related to thetotality of time demands placed on an individ-ual (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosenthal,1964).

Past studies incorporating the concept of over-load have largely focused on overload in theseparate domains of work and family (Bacharachet al., 1991). Although domain-specific overloadhas been shown to be important in its own right,there is value in considering overload in thetotal role set as a separate construct. Kahn et al.(1964) argued that overload in any single roleis not a necessary precondition for overload inthe total role set. Even when specific roles arenot overly demanding when considered in isola-tion, the combination of multiple roles can leadto perceived overload in total. In concordancewith Kahn et al.’s (1964) argument, we concep-tualize role overload as total role overload, theculmination of overdemand across one’s totalrole set.

A Model of Overload, Coping, and Stress

Our theoretical model (see Figure 1) posits thatincreased family and work demands lead to anincreased perception of role overload, as havingmore responsibilities in either or both of theseroles makes it more difficult to manage the totaldemands of the role set (Coverman, 1989; Froneet al., 1997; Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Weposit that gender affects the relationship betweenwork and family demands and perceivedoverload, as traditional gender-role expectationslead men to place more importance on theirwork role and women to place more importanceon family roles. According to the gender-role hypothesis, ‘‘time spent meeting roleresponsibilities in one’s prescribed gender-roledomain are not seen as an imposition as much asadditional hours spent in the domain associatedwith the other gender’’ (Korabik, McElwain, &Chappel, 2008, p. 218). This argument is thebasis for the following hypotheses:

H1: The relationship between family demandsand role overload will be stronger for menthan for women.

H2: The relationship between work demandsand role overload will be stronger forwomen than for men.

Our model further posits that role overload isassociated with higher levels of perceived stressbut that coping strategies moderate the overload-stress relationship. Stress can be defined as anegative physical and psychological reaction to alack of fit between individuals and their environ-ment, which results in the perception of a lack ofresources to cope with the demands of the envi-ronment (Havlovic & Keenan, 1991; Lazarus,1991; Pearlin & Schooler, 1978). Stress can beviewed as a cognitive-phenomenological pro-cess in which individuals evaluate the demandsplaced on them by their environment to deter-mine whether those demands pose a threat toindividual well-being, and if so, whether indi-viduals possess the ability and resources to dealeffectively with the threat (Lazarus, 1991).

Coping refers to strategies that people useto avoid being harmed by stressors (Pearlin &Schooler, 1978). In the context of this study,coping refers to the strategies that people use todeal with the strains of role overload. The vastmajority of coping research has focused on thecoping strategies that individuals employ (Bird& Schnurman-Crook, 2005). Although individ-ual coping is an appropriate concept in the studyof people’s reactions to stressors, the work-family interface is more complex, reflecting allthe demands, resources, and behaviors in thefamily unit (Bird & Schnurman-Crook, 2005;Middleton, 2004). This is especially true in thecase of dual-earner men and women, who oftenface the challenges of balancing two jobs withfamily demands. We therefore focus on the cop-ing strategies that families use.

Although there is great variation in cop-ing strategies, two broad categories can beidentified. Problem-focused coping is aimedat taking action or altering cognitions toaffect the nature of the person-environmenttransaction. In the context of family cop-ing, problem-focused strategies might includerestructuring family roles to accommodate fam-ily members’ demands (Elman & Gilbert, 1984;Skinner & McCubbin, 1987; Wiersma, 1994),restructuring work roles to accommodate fam-ily demands (Elman & Gilbert, 1984; Hall,

Coping With Overload and Stress 849

FIGURE 1. MODEL OF OVERLOAD, COPING AND STRESS.

* p < .05. ** p < .01.

Family Demands

Work Demands

Perceived Overload

Support Seeking

Family Role Restructuring

Perceived Stress

Scaling Back

Work Role Restructuring

M = .08* W = .03

M = .23** W = .15**

M = .14** W = .16**

M = –.02 W = –.09**

M = –.12* W = –.09*

M = –.06 W = .01

M = –.06* W = –.05

M = .49** W = .41**

M = –.14** W = –.08**

Note: All paths are standardized path coefficients. The dashed lines indicate relationships forwhich the path is significantly different between men and women.

1972; Middleton, 2004; Skinner & McCubbin,1987), and/or hiring outside help (Havlovic& Keenan, 1991; Middleton, 2004; Wiersma,1994). Emotion-focused coping, however, isaimed at reactively regulating one’s emotions inthe face of a stressful situation (Kahn et al., 1964;Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Middleton, 2004).Emotion-focused family coping strategies mightinclude avoiding the problem or engaging inescapism (Havlovic & Keenan, 1991), thinkingpositively (Havlovic & Keenan, 1991), and man-aging psychological strains by working harderand sacrificing personal well-being for that ofthe family (Hall, 1972; Skinner & McCubbin,1987). Although both forms of coping are wor-thy of study, our research focuses on the efficacyof problem-focused coping strategies, as it isthese that help employees become ‘‘activistswith respect to their own well being’’ (Thoits,1994, p. 144).

Gender-related differences in stress and cop-ing are well documented. In a meta-analysis of50 coping studies, Tamres, Janicki, and Helge-son (2002) found that women tended to employcoping strategies with greater absolute frequencythan men. This is not surprising, as women tendto report higher levels of stress than men do(Anderson & Leslie, 1991; Thoits, 1991). This isparticularly true with respect to caregiving roles,which tend to be assigned to women and carrywith them strains related to time demands, worry,and loss of social interaction (Worters, 1994).

In terms of the type of coping strategy that isused, research indicates that men are more likelyto engage in problem-focused coping (Folkman& Lazarus, 1980; Pearlin & Schooler, 1978;Ptacek, Smith, & Zanas, 1992), whereas womenare more likely to employ emotion-focusedcoping (Billings & Moos, 1981; Folkman &Lazarus, 1980; Tamres et al., 2002) and to seek


social support (Thoits, 1991). Furthermore, inthe context of dual-earner families, Becker andMoen (1999) found that wives disproportion-ately coped through scaling-back strategies, suchas placing limits on work responsibilities; defin-ing their work as a job rather than a career; andtrading off as primary breadwinner, particularlyduring childrearing years.

Theorists have posited a number of reasons forgender-related differences in coping strategies.Some argue that gender-role stereotypes andgender-role expectations have socialized men tocope instrumentally with stress and women toemploy emotion-focused coping and seek thesupport of others (i.e., the dispositional hypoth-esis) (Ptacek et al., 1992; Tamres et al., 2002).Others have argued that gender differences incoping behaviours result from differences in theroles that men and women assume in society andin the number and kinds of stressful situationsthat men and women typically encounter—anargument referred to in the literature as the sit-uational hypothesis (Anderson & Leslie, 1991;Billings & Moos, 1981). Tamres, Janicki, andHelgeson (2002) noted that the gender differ-ences in coping observed in their meta-analysiswere consistent with both the dispositional andsituational hypotheses.

Given these theoretical arguments, we expectto find gender differences in the strength of therelationship between overload and the problem-focused coping mechanisms explored in thisstudy. Women will be more likely to seek thesupport of others and scale back. Men will bemore likely to restructure their roles. This givesrise to the following hypotheses:

H3a: Women will be more likely than men to copeby seeking support.

H3b: There will be a stronger relationship betweenoverload and coping by seeking support for womenthan men.

H4a: Men will be more likely than women to copeby restructuring family roles.

H4b: There will be a stronger relationship betweenoverload and coping by restructuring family rolesfor men than women.

H5a: Women will be more likely than men to copeby scaling back.

H5b: There will be a stronger relationship betweenoverload and coping by scaling back for womenthan men.

H6a: Women will be more likely than men to copeby restructuring work roles.

H6b: There will be a stronger relationship betweenoverload and coping by restructuring work rolesfor men than women.

There is some debate concerning the role ofcoping strategies in affecting the overload-stressrelationship (Pearlin, 1991). Some authors haveargued that coping strategies act as a mediator(Guelzow et al., 1991), such that overloadtriggers the use of coping strategies, which thenreduce stress. This has found limited support(Guelzow, Bird & Koball, 1991). Researchershave more frequently hypothesized that copingstrategies moderate the relationship betweenthe stressors and stress (Cohen & Wills, 1985;Pearlin, 1991). Moderation suggests that peoplewho employ coping strategies would experienceless stress at a given level of perceived overloadthan would people who do not employ them.This is often referred to as the bufferinghypothesis (Billings & Moos, 1981; Cohen &Wills, 1985). Paden and Buehler (1995) foundlimited evidence of direct effects of copingon physical or emotional symptomatologybut found that coping strategies moderatedthe relationships between role overload andphysical and emotional symptoms. Similarly,Yip, Rowlinson, and Siu (2008) found thatcoping strategies attenuated the relationshipbetween role overload and symptoms of burnout.Aryee, Luk, Leung, and Lo (1999) found somesupport for a moderating effect of copingon the relationships between stressors andstress, as spousal support (a coping mechanism)attenuated the relationship between parentaloverload and family-to-work conflict.

Our model hypothesizes that the use of copingstrategies will moderate the relationship betweenoverload and stress, such that the overload-stressrelationship will be attenuated when the use ofcoping mechanisms increases. However, unlikeprevious studies (Aryee et al., 1999; Paden &Buehler, 1995), our model also hypothesizes(H3b, H4b, H5b, and H6b) a direct, positiverelationship between perceived role overloadand the coping strategies. Thus, when oneperceives overload, one draws on resources tobuffer the harmful impacts of excess demands.

Findings with respect to the gender differ-ences in the effectiveness of coping strategiesare mixed and seem to depend on the contextin which the strategy is used (Darch-Zahavy &


Somech, 2008). The research that has been done,however, is consistent with gender-role theory,which suggests that strategies such as structuraland personal role redefinition will benefit womenmore than men when the role responsibilitiesbeing shed or delegated are in the domes-tic domain (Darch-Zahavy & Somech, 2008).Similarly, we expect that coping strategies thatreduce work-role demands will benefit men morethan women. Accordingly we hypothesize thefollowing:

H7a: Coping by seeking social support willmoderate the relationship between overload andstress, such that it will reduce stress more forwomen than for men.

H7b: Coping by restructuring family roles willmoderate the relationship between overload andstress, such that it will reduce stress more forwomen than for men.

H7c: Coping by restructuring work roles willmoderate the relationship between overload andstress, such that it will reduce stress more for menthan for women.

Extant theory does not support hypothesesregarding gender differences in the effectivenessof coping by scaling back.

METHOD

The sample was drawn from a database of 31,571workers employed in 100 large (i.e., 500 ormore employees) Canadian organizations in theprivate, public, and not-for-profit sectors. Datafrom those individuals were collected as partof a national study of work and family issues(Duxbury & Higgins, 2003). We limited ouranalysis to individuals who met three criteria:(1) they were married or living common law;(2) both spouses or partners were employedfull-time (i.e., 37.5 hours per week or more); and(3) they had dependent children living at homeand/or were the primary caregivers of elderlydependents (i.e., they spent at least 14 hoursper week in child care or elder care). Usingthose criteria, 1,623 women and 1,440 men wereretained.

The average age of men and women was quitesimilar (42.2 years old for men and 40.3 yearsfor women). In terms of education, 68.1% ofmen had a college diploma or higher, comparedto 69.3% of women. Total family income wasvirtually identical for men and women: 68.1%

of men had family incomes greater than $80,000per year, compared to 64.9% of women.

Measures

As Table 1 shows, we operationalized our con-structs with both reflective and formative indica-tors. A construct with reflective indicators is onein which the direction of causality flows fromthe construct to the items (i.e., the variablesreflect the construct). Bollen (1989) called theseeffect indicators. A construct with formativeindicators, however, is one in which the indica-tors determine the construct (i.e., causality flowsfrom the indicators to the construct). Bollen(1989) called these cause indicators. Formativeindicators are becoming increasingly importantin research studies (Petter, Straub, & Rai, 2007).

We operationalized work role demands andfamily role demands as formative constructswith three items each (see Table 1). Wemeasured perceived role overload as a reflec-tive construct using the five-item Overloadof Role Obligations subscale from Bohenand Viveros-Long’s (1981) Job – Family RoleStrain Scale. The construct was measured ona 5-point scale, where 1 = strongly disagreeand 5 = strongly agree, with higher scoresindicating more overload. Cronbach’s alpha was.86 for the male sample and .85 for the femalesample.

We measured perceived stress as a reflectiveconstruct using Cohen, Kamarck, and Mermel-stein’s (1983) Perceived Stress Scale, a 10-itemmeasure designed to assess a person’s percep-tual appraisals of the extent to which his or hercurrent life situation is unpredictable, uncontrol-lable, and burdensome. Four of the questionsin this scale were stated in such a way thathigh scores on them indicated low stress (i.e., ahigh score meant the person was experienc-ing low stress). The other six were wordedin such a way that high scores indicated highstress. Recent research (Weems, Onwuegbuzie,& Lustig, 2003) has suggested that mixing ques-tions this way is not ideal in terms of constructoperationalization. Thus, we selected the sixitems that were worded in such a way that higherscale scores indicated higher levels of perceivedstress. We used a 5-point scale that ranged from1 = never to 5 = always, with higher scoresindicating higher perceived stress. Cronbach’salpha was .85 for the male sample and .83 forthe female sample.


Table 1. Constructs and Indicators Included in the Measurement Model

Men WomenFormative Construct Indicators Beta Beta

Work Demands Hours per week: Commuting to work 0.34 0.50Hours per week: Paid employment 0.52 0.49Hours per week: Working at home outside regular hours 0.76 0.79

Family Demands Hours per week: Child care 0.45 0.96Hours per week: Elder care −0.44 −0.11 ns

Hours per week: Home chores and errands 0.69 0.31

Support Seeking Hiring help to care for elderly relatives 0.28 0.14Hiring help to care for children 0.29 0.23Relying on extended family members 0.26 −0.07 ns

Relying on friends for help 0.25 −0.10 ns

Buying more goods and services 0.44 0.84

Family Role Restructuring Getting children to help with household tasks 0.09 0.20Specifically planning family time together 0.75 0.39Covering family responsibilities for each other 0.25 0.51Encouraging children to help out 0.17 0.20Identifying one partner as primarily responsiblefor household tasks Dropped

Scaling Back Getting by on less sleep 0.42 0.50Leaving some things undone around the house 0.38 0.36Leaving work-related problems at work −0.47 −0.43Cutting down on outside activities 0.26 0.35Trying to be flexible Dropped

Work Role Restructuring Modifying my work schedule 0.58 0.75Planning work changes 0.46 0.35Limiting my job involvement 0.19 0.07

Men WomenReflective Construct Indicators Loading Loading

Overload More to do than can comfortably handle 0.78 0.79Feel physically drained when get home from work 0.79 0.78Feel emotionally drained when get home from work 0.80 0.77Feel have to rush to get everything done each day 0.81 0.81Feel don’t have enough time for myself 0.78 0.77

Stress Been upset because something happened unexpectedly 0.76 0.76Felt unable to control important things in your life 0.83 0.85Felt nervous or stressed 0.82 0.81Found could not cope 0.73 0.75Been angered because of things outside of your control 0.70 0.68Felt difficulties so high could not overcome them 0.82 0.80

Note: ns = not significant.

We measured coping strategies using itemsadapted from Skinner and McCubbin’s (1987)Dual-Employed Coping Scale (DECS). TheDECS was developed to identify the copingbehaviors that dual-earner families employ to

manage multiple roles. The original DECSmeasures five types of coping strategies thatdual-employed couples employ: (1) developingsocial support and procuring support from out-side the family (i.e., Cope-Support Seeking); (2)


maintaining, strengthening, and restructuringthe family system (i.e., Cope-Family RoleRestructuring); (3) managing psychological ten-sions and strains (i.e., Cope-Scaling Back);(4) modifying conditions of the work-familyinterface (i.e., Cope-Work Role Restructuring);and (5) perceptually controlling for the meaningof the lifestyle. We did not include the latterform of coping, perceptual control, as this studyfocused on tangible coping actions.

We modeled the coping constructs as for-mative. Cope-Support Seeking, Cope-FamilyRole Restructuring, and Cope-Scaling Backwere operationalized with five items each,and Cope-Work Role Restructuring with three.Respondents were asked, on a 5-point Lik-ert scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagreeto 5 = strongly agree, to indicate how oftenthey used each of the strategies to manage thedemands associated with work and personal orfamily life.

Procedure

We tested the hypotheses using partial leastsquares (PLS) (Barclay, Higgins, & Thompson,1995). Testing models in PLS, as with anystructural equation modeling (SEM) technique,involves testing the measurement model first.For formative constructs, we report the betaweights. For reflective constructs, we assessedindividual item reliability, internal consistency,and convergent validity. We tested discriminantvalidity for all constructs.

There were six formative constructs (seeTable 1). All items, with the exception of thosenoted herein, had significant beta weights in bothsamples. For family demands, the item measur-ing elder care was significant for men but notfor women. It was left in the model for com-parability across the samples. For Cope-SupportSeeking, two items were nonsignificant in thefemale sample (i.e., ‘‘relying on extended fam-ily members’’ and ‘‘relying on friends’’) butwere significant in the male sample. We retainedthem for purposes of comparison. For the con-struct Cope-Family Role Restructuring, the item‘‘Identifying one partner as primarily responsi-ble for household tasks’’ was weak, and thus wedropped it. The Cope-Scaling Back item ‘‘tryingto be flexible’’ had a nonsignificant beta weightin both samples, and thus we also dropped it.

There were two reflective constructs. Bothoverload and stress passed the usual tests of

internal consistency and convergent validity, asFornell and Larcker (1981) outlined. Discrim-inant validity was not an issue in our model.The highest cross-loadings occurred betweenthe constructs of perceived stress and overload.In the male sample, the largest cross-loadingbetween items and constructs was .50. All oth-ers were less than .45. In the female sample, thelargest cross-loading was .44. We deemed ourmeasurement model to be acceptable.

The next step was to conduct a PLS analysisestimating the model shown in Figure 1 sepa-rately for men and women. To compare the pathcoefficients from the two samples, we used boot-strapping with 500 subsamples to generate pathestimates and standard errors. We then com-pared the path coefficients using an independentsamples t test.

RESULTS

Table 2 reports descriptive statistics. We calcu-lated total hours in work and family roles by sum-ming hours spent in each of the activities used tomeasure the construct. For stress, overload, andeach of the four coping strategies, we computedan average score using the scale items. Table 2provides the intercorrelations of the variables.

The data do not support Hypothesis 1, whichposited that family demands would be a strongerpredictor of role overload for men than forwomen (see Figure 1). Hypothesis 2, whichstated that work demands would be a strongerpredictor of role overload for women than formen, was also not supported, as the relationshipwas significantly stronger for men (t = 3.42,p < .001).

Hypotheses 3a and 5a were both supported, aswomen were significantly more likely than mento cope by seeking support and by scaling back.Hypotheses 4a and 6a, however, were not sup-ported, as men and women were equally likelyto cope by restructuring work and family roles.

Hypotheses 3b, 4b, 5b, and 6b tested genderdifferences in the relationships between over-load and coping strategies. Although most ofthe individual paths were significant in bothsamples, we noted only two gender differ-ences. Contrary to Hypothesis 5b, the rela-tionship between overload and Cope-ScalingBack was significantly stronger for men than forwomen (t = 17.48, p < .01). The path betweenoverload and Cope-Work Role Restructuring(Hypothesis 6b) was significant and negative for


Table 2. Descriptive Statistics and Correlations Between Study Variables (Female Sample Above Diagonal, n = 1,440;Male Sample Below Diagonal, n = 1,623)

Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Family role demands — −.09∗ −.02 −.04 .02 −.02 .01 .042. Work role demands .01 — .10∗ −.01 .22∗ −.10∗ .15∗∗ .09∗

3.Cope-Support Seeking −.03 .10∗ — .06 .24∗∗ .07 .16∗∗ .10∗

4. Cope-Family Role −.02 .01 .10∗ — −.04 .17∗∗ −.09∗ −12∗∗

Restructuring5. Cope-Scaling Back .04 −.13∗∗ .22∗∗ −.13∗∗ — −.12∗∗ .41∗∗ .37∗∗

6. Cope-Work Role −.03 .19∗∗ −.11∗∗ .19∗∗ −.16∗∗ — −.08∗ −.08∗

Restructuring7. Overload .08∗ −.02 −.14∗∗ −.02 .49∗∗ −.14∗∗ — .48∗∗

8. Stress .12∗∗ −.11∗∗ .44∗∗ −.11∗∗ .44∗∗ −.11∗∗ .52∗∗ —

Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

MenM 27.22 52.22 2.78 3.44 3.72 2.91 3.68 2.74SD 9.42 11.18 .86 .57 .56 .92 .79 .68WomenM 27.34 49.90∗∗ 2.85∗ 3.48 3.85∗∗ 2.97 3.90∗∗ 2.84∗

SD 10.16 10.33 .90 .66 .59 .96 .78 .65

Note: p value indicates that there are significant gender differences.∗p < .05. ∗∗p < .01.

both men and women. The fact that the negativecoefficient was significantly greater for men thanfor women (t = 2.82, p < .01) is contrary to ourhypothesis.

Hypotheses 7a, 7b, and 7c posited thatthree coping mechanisms (i.e., Support Seek-ing, Family-Role Restructuring, and Work-RoleRestructuring) would moderate the relation-ships between overload and stress. Teasing outmoderating effects with continuous variablesis often difficult. To test our hypotheses, wedichotomized the coping strategies into thosewho used the strategy often (mean scores of4 and above on the 5-point scale) and thosewho did not use the strategy (mean scores of3 and below). Cope-Support Seeking did notmoderate the relationship between overload andstress—thus Hypothesis 7a was not supported.Cope-Family Role Restructuring was a signifi-cant, negative moderator for women (t = 2.38;p < .05) and for men (t = 2.11; p < .05). Inother words, coping by restructuring familyrole responsibilities helps overloaded men andwomen cope with stress. Hypothesis 7b wasnot supported. The gender difference in thatrelationship was not significant. For Hypothesis7c, we found a significant, negative moderating

effect of Cope-Work Role Restructuring formen (t = 2.08; p < .05) but not for women.In support of Hypothesis 7c, there was a sig-nificant gender difference; the coping strategyhelping men more than women.

DISCUSSION

Our model is unique in that it has modeledtotal role overload as a predictor of stress. Ourreview of the literature did not reveal any priorempirical studies that established this relation-ship. The little research that exists has focusedon domain-specific forms of overload (e.g.,work-role overload, family-role overload) aspredictors of interference and/or domain-specificstress (see Aryee et al., 1999; Frone et al., 1997).In addition, most of the research has employedperceptual measures of work-role overload andhas used parental overload to assess family-roleoverload. Although researchers such as Froneet al. (1997) have speculated that role overloadmay cause elevated levels of stress that canundermine an individual’s ability or motivationto meet the obligations of other roles, we couldnot find any empirical work linking the twomacro-level constructs.


Gender Differences in Demands, PerceivedOverload, and Stress

Our results indicated that women in dual-earnerfamilies reported higher levels of overloadand stress than men, despite the fact thattheir objective work demands were lowerand their family demands were equivalent tomen’s (see Table 2). There are a number ofpossible explanations for this finding. First, it ispossible that men chose more effective copingstrategies than women. Men were less likelythan women to use coping strategies that wereassociated with increased stress (e.g., scalingback) and strategies that did not moderate theoverload-stress relationship (e.g., Cope-SeekingSupport). Second, it may be that demandsother than those included in this model createmore stress for women than men. This isconsistent with Thompson’s (1991) argumentthat the quantitative aspect of the distributionof time and task does not adequately tap familydemands. Third, it may be that the nature of thedemands that men and women face differ bothqualitatively and structurally. Blair and Johnson(1992) reported that wives assume the mostresponsibility for traditional female tasks andthat men spend most of their time on householdchores defined as masculine tasks. Thosemasculine tasks, such as household maintenanceand playing with the children, are more likelyto have a well-defined beginning and end, toallow personal discretion as to when the task isperformed, and to combine work with leisure.

Gender Differences in the RelationshipBetween Demands and Overload

There are several reasons that family demandsmight have predicted role overload for menbut not for women. First, it may be that timespent in home chores and dependent care is nota good predictor of role overload for women.Rather, it may that be the type of task (Blair& Johnson, 1992), the tendency to multitask(Beaujot, 2000), responsibility for family roles(Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1999), or parentaloverload (Frone et al., 1997) are better predic-tors of total-role overload for women. Second, itmay be that time spent performing family rolespredicts family-role overload but not total-roleoverload for women. Third, it may be that timespent in work roles is more strongly associ-ated with perceived overload for women, as it

takes time away from their traditional role ofcaregiver. This would also explain why fam-ily demands had a significant association withtotal-role overload for men, as time spent in fam-ily activities would take away from time spentin their traditional breadwinner role.

The path between work demands and roleoverload was significant and positive for bothmen and women. In fact, our findings indicatethat work rather than family demands are theprimary source of total-role overload for dual-earner men and women. Contrary to Hypothesis2, work demands were a significantly strongerpredictor of role overload for men. It is unclearwhy men perceive greater role overload thanwomen at a given level of work demands. Itmay be that men placed greater salience on theirwork role as part of their life and were thereforemore affected by demands in that role (Jick &Mitz; 1985).

The lack of support for Hypotheses 1 and 2suggests that gender-role theory does not explainthe reality of people in dual-earner families.Perhaps Barnett and Hyde (2001) are correctin their assertion that the factors underlyinggender-role theory have changed radically overtime.

Coping

Respondents relied on two main coping strate-gies (see Table 2): scaling back (e.g., leavingthings undone at home) and restructuring familyroles (e.g., covering family responsibilities foreach other). The other two coping strategies,coping by restructuring work roles (e.g., mod-ifying work schedule) and coping by seekingsupport (e.g., hiring outside help), were used lessfrequently, which suggests that when perceivedoverload is high, dual-earner employees, regard-less of gender, cope by sacrificing their ownneeds (i.e., scaling back) and expecting theirfamilies to accommodate their work demands(i.e., restructuring family roles). These findingsimply that many people still ascribe to the mythof separate worlds, which puts work first andfamily and personal life second—at least whenit comes to coping with role overload. Alter-natively, the results may reflect the fact thatmany workers do not have the opportunity torestructure their work role or do not have accessto extended family or financial resources thatwould enable them to hire external help. It maybe that scaling back and restructuring within


the family role are the only coping strategiesavailable to many families.

Our results indicated that, in absolute terms,women were significantly more likely than mento cope by obtaining support from outsidethe family, which is consistent with previousresearch (Tamres et al., 2002; Thoits, 1994) andmay be attributable to differing socialization pat-terns for men and women. Specifically, researchhas shown that women are more likely to besocialized to ask for and accept help from oth-ers, whereas men are judged on their ability to beself-sufficient and in control (Beaujot, 2000). It isalso possible that, because women’s traditionalrole responsibilities are those that are purchased(e.g., house cleaning), it becomes their respon-sibility to secure support for those activities.

Women were also significantly more likelythan men to cope by scaling back (see Table 2). Itis possible that the modern view of gender roles,which suggests that housework and child careshould be shared equally when the wife worksoutside the home, is far from reality. Beaujot(2000) argued that, although the public spherehas progressed in the direction of equality, theprivate institution of the family has tended toretain the traditional behavioral roles of wivesand husbands, mothers and fathers. Coltrane(2000) pointed out that it is in the family, ratherthan the workplace, where we insist that men andwomen are fundamentally different. Women areexpected to act as men’s equals in the workdomain but to ascribe to traditional gender-role identities at home, which gives them feweroptions when it comes to coping with overload.Reducing contributions at work can be a career-limiting move, whereas rejecting responsibilitiesat home goes against societal expectations ofmothers and wives (Allan & Crow, 2001). Ourstudy suggests that, in the face of competingexpectations, women attempt to cope by cuttingback on the time they have for themselves.

Despite the fact that women are more likely tocope by scaling back, our results show a strongerrelationship between perceived overload andcoping by scaling back for men than for women.This suggests that, at a given level of overload,men report greater use of reactive behaviorssuch as sleeping less, leaving things undone,and cutting down on outside activities. Futureresearch is needed to untangle these findings.

The use of restructuring strategies to copewith role overload varies with gender and therole that is being restructured. Contrary to our

hypothesis, higher levels of total-role overloadwere associated with a reduced tendency torestructure family roles for the dual-earnerwomen in the sample. Total-role overload did nottrigger the use of family restructuring strategiesfor dual-earner men. Similarly, higher levelsof total role overload were associated witha reduced tendency to cope by restructuringwork roles, rather than greater use, as wasexpected. The dual-earner men, in particular,appeared to be loath to cope with overload byreducing commitments at work, as role overloadwas significantly less likely to trigger the useof work-restructuring strategies for men thanwomen. These findings suggest that traditionalgender-role socialization still has a powerfulinfluence on the dual-earner employees of today.Historically, women were socialized to judgetheir worth on their performance of the familyrole. In contrast, men were socialized to evaluatetheir self-worth through their performance ofthe breadwinner role. Such socialization isconsistent with the fact that women are less likelythan men to cope with overload by outsourcingfamily activities to others (i.e., restructuringfamily roles), in contrast to men, who are lesslikely to cope by reducing their commitment towork and limiting their involvement with theirjob (i.e., restructure work roles). It should benoted, however, that both men and women placeprimacy on their work, as neither coped withperceived overload by cutting back at work.This may be because both men and women fearnegative consequences of restructuring workroles, whereas women are more concerned withthe consequences of doing less at home.

Coping as a Moderator of the RelationshipBetween Overload and Stress

We quantified both perceived role overload andperceived stress using self-report measures andcross-sectional data. As such, there were mul-tiple ways to interpret the findings from thisresearch. The approach taken here to interpret thedata is consistent with that espoused by Thoits(1994). Specifically, we assumed that people aremotivated to act deliberately to resolve role-related stressors such as overload (i.e., that therewould be a significant path between overload andthe coping strategy). We then inferred copingefficacy in those situations where psychologi-cal symptoms decreased in the presence of acoping strategy. In other words, we assumed


that existing levels of role overload triggeredour respondents’ coping strategies and that theuse of those coping strategies attenuated thestrength of the overload-stress relationship. Todetermine which of the coping strategies wereeffective at moderating the relationship betweenoverload and stress, we looked at the interactionof overload and coping (i.e., the paths betweenthe coping strategies and the overload-stressrelationship in Figure 1).

The data indicate that seeking support fromothers does little to alleviate the overload-stress relationship. It may be that the demandsassociated with obtaining support, such as hiringand monitoring outside help, counterbalance thedemands one has outsourced.

Coping by restructuring family roles atten-uated the overload-stress relationship for bothmen and women. This suggests that dual-earnermen and women can reduce stress associatedwith greater role overload by getting their fam-ily to do more at home. Thoits (1991) has labeledsuch a strategy of voluntarily relinquishing theproblematic role as ‘‘extrication.’’

Coping by restructuring work roles attenuatedthe overload-stress relationship for men but notfor women. This finding is particularly poignant,because men, who are most likely to benefitfrom cutting back at work, appear to be the leastlikely to cope by restructuring their work role. Itwould appear that both men and women benefitby restructuring their family roles, but only menbenefit from restructuring work.

Although we did not hypothesize that copingby scaling back would moderate the relationshipbetween overload and stress, for completenessit is worth noting that the paths for bothmen and women were not significant, whichsuggests that this strategy does not moderate therelationship between overload and stress. Thisfinding is particularly troublesome when onerecalls that this is the coping strategy of choicefor dual-earner men and women.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

There are a number of limitations to the presentstudy. First, this study focused only on behav-ioral coping strategies. As such, we know littleabout the relationship between total-role over-load and psychological forms of coping, such asreappraisal.

Second, although we observed several reliablegender differences in our study, the mechanisms

responsible for those differences require furtherexploration. The cross-sectional nature of thedata means that the differences could be due todifferences in appraisal. For instance, one gendermay be socialized to view particular situationsmore negatively than the other. Similarly, menand women could be socialized to view overloaddifferently or to have a different perception ofwhether a stressor is amenable to individualcoping efforts. Alternatively, socialization mayaffect both the enactment and the reporting ofcoping efforts, such that men and women differonly in the coping strategies they report that theyare using, not in what they actually do (Ptaceket al., 1992).

Third, more detail is needed with respect to themeasurement of both work and family demands.This recommendation is consistent with work byBoyar et al. (2008), who noted that more explicitdefinition of the concepts of work demands andfamily demands would facilitate measurementin this area.

Fourth, our analyses relied on cross-sectionaldata. As Thoits (1994) pointed out, such adesign may be problematic when examiningrelationships that occur over time. For example,it is theoretically possible to hypothesize thatlower levels of stress preceded the use of thecoping strategy, thus enabling individuals toovercome the overload they were experiencing.Similarly, employees with high levels of stresscould cope by getting less sleep, which couldreduce their efficiency at work and at home,thereby leading to higher levels of role overload.Only longitudinal research can clarify thetemporal relationships between the variables inour model.

Although the results of this study were counterto many of our hypotheses, this study has severalstrengths. First, our sample size was very large,with 1,440 women and 1,623 men all in full-timejobs with significant work and family demands.Second, our sample was diverse, coming fromthe private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. Itincluded individuals in both lower-level earnerjobs and higher-level career jobs. Third, weintegrated theoretical approaches from the cop-ing, gender, and work-life arenas to help usunderstand the demands to coping to stress rela-tionships for men and women. The fact thatmany results were contrary to theory speaks tothe contradictory nature of many of these theo-ries and the fact they have received ambivalentsupport in the literature.


The role that gender plays in the relationshipsamong demands, overload, stress, and coping isone of the key contributions of this study. Theinvestigation of possible gender differences incoping is important for several reasons. First,it is possible that differences in coping mayhelp explain gender differences that have beenshown to exist in the incidence of various stress-related physical and psychological disorders(Ptacek et al., 1992). Second, establishing therelationship between coping strategies andadjustment outcomes can have implications forteaching people more effective coping skills(Ptacek et al., 1992). Several researchers have,in fact, speculated that differences in copingmay play a causal role in the relative frequencywith which men and women experience specificpsychological disorders (Billings & Moos, 1981;Pearlin & Schooler, 1978; Ptacek et al., 1992).The findings from this study inform both of thesediscussions.

REFERENCES

Allan, G., & Crow, G. (2001). Families and house-holds in society. New York: Palgrave.

Anderson, E., & Leslie, L. (1991). Coping withemployment and family stress: Employmentarrangements and gender differences. Sex Roles,24, 223 – 237.

Aryee, S., Luk, V., Leung, A., & Lo, S. (1999). Rolestressors, inter-role conflict and well-being: Themoderating influence of spousal support andcoping behaviors among employed parents inHong Kong. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 54,259 – 278.

Bacharach, S. B., Bamberger, P., & Conley, S. (1991).Work-home conflict among nurses and engineers:Mediating the impact of role stress on burnout andsatisfaction at work. Journal of OrganizationalBehavior, 12, 39 – 53.

Barclay, D. W., Higgins, C. A., & Thompson, R. L.(1995). The partial least squares approach to causalmodeling: Personal computer adoption and use asan illustration. Technology Studies, 2, 285 – 324.

Barnett, R., & Hyde, J. (2001). Men, women andfamily: An expansionist theory. American Psy-chologist, 56, 781 – 796.

Beaujot, R. (2000). Earning and caring. Peterbor-ough, ON: Broadview Press.

Becker, P. E., & Moen, P. (1999). Scaling back: Dual-earner couples’ work-family strategies. Journal ofMarriage and the Family, 61, 995 – 1007.

Billings, A., & Moos, R. (1981). The role of copingresponses and social resources in attenuatingthe stress of life events. Journal of BehavioralMedicine, 4, 139 – 157.

Bird, G. W., & Schnurman-Crook, A. (2005). Profes-sional identity and coping behaviors in dual-careercouples. Family Relations, 54, 145 – 160.

Blair, S. L., & Johnson, M. P. (1992). Wives’ percep-tions of the fairness of the division of householdlabor: The intersection of housework and ideology.Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54, 570 – 581.

Bohen, H. H., & Viveros-Long, A. (1981). Balancingjobs and family life: Do flexible work scheduleshelp? Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Bollen, K. (1989). Structural equations with latentvariables. New York: Wiley.

Boyar, S., Maertz, J., Mosley, D., & Carr, J. (2008).The impact of work-family demand on work-family conflict. Journal of Managerial Psychol-ogy, 23(3), 215 – 235.

Cohen, S., & Wills, T. A. (1985). Stress, social sup-port, and the buffering hypothesis. PsychologicalBulletin, 98, 310 – 357.

Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983).A global measure of perceived stress. Journal ofHealth and Social Behaviour, 24, 385 – 396.

Coltrane, S. (2000). Research on household labor:Modeling and measuring the social embeddednessof routine family work. Journal of Marriage andthe Family, 62, 1208 – 1233.

Coverman, S. (1989). Role overload, role conflict,and stress: Addressing consequences of multiplerole demands. Social Forces, 67, 965 – 982.

Darch-Zahavy, A., & Somech, A. (2008). Copingwith work-family conflict: Integrating individualand organizational perspectives. In K. Korabik,D. S. Lero, & D. L. Whitehead (Eds.), Handbookof work-family integration: Research, theoryand best practices (pp. 267 – 286). New York:Academic Press.

Duxbury, L., & Higgins, C. (2003). Work-life conflictin Canada in the new millennium: A status report.Ottawa: Health Canada.

Elman, M. R., & Gilbert, L. A. (1984). Copingstrategies for role conflict in married professionalwomen with children. Family Relations, 33,317 – 327.

Folkman, S., & Lazarus, R. S. (1980). An analysisof coping in a middle-aged community sample.Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 21,219 – 239.

Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. (1981). Evaluating struc-tural equation models with unobservable variablesand measurement error. Journal of MarketingResearch, 18, 39 – 50.

Frone, M. R., Yardley, J. K., & Markel, K. S. (1997).Developing and testing an integrative model ofthe work-family interface. Journal of VocationalBehavior, 50, 145 – 167.

Greenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources ofconflict between work and family roles. Academyof Management Review, 10, 76 – 88.


Greenhaus, J. H., & Parasuraman, S. (1999). Researchon work, family, and gender: Current status andfuture directions. In G. N. Powell (Ed.), Handbookof gender and work (pp. 391 – 412). Newbury Park,CA: Sage.

Guelzow, M. G., Bird, G. W., & Koball, E. H. (1991).An explanatory path analysis of the stress processfor dual-career men and women. Journal ofMarriage and the Family, 5, 151 – 164.

Hall, D. T. (1972). A model of coping with roleconflict: The role behaviour of college educatedwomen. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1,471 – 486.

Havlovic, S. J., & Keenan, J. P. (1991). Copingwith work stress: The influence of individualdifferences. Journal of Social Behavior andPersonality, 6, 199 – 212.

Jick, T., & Mitz, L. (1985). Sex differences in workstress. Academy of Management Review, 10,408 – 420.

Kahn, R. L., Wolfe, D. M., Quinn, R. P., Snoek, J. D.,& Rosenthal, R. A. (1964). Organizational stress:Studies in role conflict and ambiguity. New York:Wiley.

Korabik, K., McElwain, A., & Chappel, D. (2008).Integrating gender-related issues into researchon work and family. In K. Korabik, D. S. Lero,& D. L. Whitehead (Eds.), Handbook of work-family integration: Research, theory and bestpractices (pp. 215 – 232). New York: AcademicPress.

Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Psychological stress in theworkplace. Journal of Social Behaviour andPersonality, 6, 1 – 13.

Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress,appraisal and coping. New York: Springer.

Middleton, L. J. A. (2004). Individual work-familycoping types: Gender differences in their useand effectiveness (Unpublished doctoral disser-tation). Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland,Australia.

Paden, S. L., & Buehler, C. (1995). Coping with thedual-income lifestyle. Journal of Marriage and theFamily, 57, 101 – 110.

Pearlin, L. I. (1991). The study of coping: An over-view of problems and directions. In J. Eckenrode

(Ed.), The social context of coping (pp. 261 – 275).New York: Plenum.

Pearlin, L. I., & Schooler, C. (1978). The structure ofcoping. Journal of Health and Social Behavior,19, 2 – 21.

Petter, S., Straub, D., & Rai, A (2007). Specifyingformative constructs in information systemsresearch. MIS Quarterly, 31, 623 – 656.

Ptacek, J., Smith, R., & Zanas, J. (1992). Gender,appraisal and coping: A longitudinal analysis.Journal of Personality, 60, 747 – 770.

Skinner, D. A., & McCubbin, H. I. (1987). DECS:Dual-employed coping scales. In H. I. McCubbin& A. Thompson (Eds.), Family assessment inven-tories for research and practice. Madison: Univer-sity of Wisconsin – Madison.

Tamres, L., Janicki, D., & Helgeson, V. (2002). Sexdifferences in coping behaviour: A meta-analyticreview and an examination of relative coping.Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6,2 – 30.

Thoits, P. A. (1991). Gender differences in copingwith emotional distress. In J. Eckenrode (Ed.),The social context of coping (pp. 108 – 138). NewYork: Plenum.

Thoits, P. A. (1994). Stressors and problem solving:The individual as psychological activist. Journalof Health and Social Behaviour, 35, 143 – 160.

Thompson, L. (1991). Family work: Women’s senseof fairness. Journal of Family Issues, 12, 181 – 196.

Weems, G., Onwuegbuzie, A., & Lustig, D. (2003).Profiles of respondents who respond inconsistentlyto positively- and negatively-worded items on rat-ing scales. Evaluation and Research in Education,17, 45 – 60.

Wiersma, U. J. (1994). A taxonomy of behaviouralstrategies for coping with work-home role conflict.Human Relations, 47, 211 – 221.

Worters, P. B. (1994). Adding elder care to women’smultiple roles: A critical review of the caregiverstress and multiple roles literatures. Sex Roles, 31,597 – 616.

Yip, B., Rowlinson, S., & Siu, O. L. (2008). Copingstrategies as moderators in the relationshipbetween role overload and burnout. ConstructionManagement and Economics, 26, 871 – 882.

Date post:	03-Dec-2023
Category:	Documents
Upload:	uoguelph
View:	0 times
Download:	0 times

Coping With Overload and Stress: Men and Women in Dual-Earner Families

Documents