Scaling back: Dual-earner couples' work-family strategies

Recent work has focused substantially on one subset of dual-earners, the hi gh-powered two-career couple. We use in-depth interviews with more than 100 people in middle-class dual-earner couples in upstate New York to investig ate the range of couples' work-family strategies. We find that the majority are not pursuing two high-powered careers but are typically engaged in wha t we call scaling back-strategies that reduce and restructure the couple's commitment to paid work over the life course, and thereby buffer the family from work encroachments. We identify three separate scaling-back strategie s: placing limits; having a one-job, one-career marriage; and trading off. Our findings support and extend other research by documenting how gender an d life-course factors shape work-family strategies. Wives disproportionatel y do the scaling back, although in some couples husbands and wives trade fa mily and career responsibilities over the life course. Those in the early c hildrearing phase are most apt to scale back, but a significant proportion of couples at other life stages also use these work-family strategies.