Journal of Organizational Behavior

J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)

Love and work: career±family attitudes of

new entrants into the labor force
MARTHA M. SANDERS1 , MARK L. LENGNICK-HALL1 ,
CYNTHIA A. LENGNICK-HALL1 AND LAURA STEELE-CLAPP 2
1
Department of Management, W. Frank Barton School of Business,
Wichita State University, Wichita, KS 67260-0088, U.S.A.
2
Paterson Division of Health, Paterson, NJ, U.S.A.

Summary This paper reports the development of the Career±Family Attitudes Measure (CFAM),
a new 56-item instrument for measuring individuals' attitudes towards managing the
career and family interface. The measure was administered to a large sample of high
school students and factor analyzed to reveal six dimensions of career and family
attitudes, which were then scaled. Females in the sample had signi®cantly more positive
attitudes towards Balance and Independence than did males, while males had
signi®cantly more positive attitudes towards Dominance and Spousal Support than
did females. Antecedents such as parental employment history and educational aspira-
tions were signi®cantly related to several of the scales. Results indicated that career±
family attitudes involve preferences for the integration of career and family rather than
for trade-o€s between them. Research to establish the validity and explore the many
applications of the CFAM is needed. # 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction
Individuals' attitudes towards managing the interface between career and family and the actual
realities of balancing work and home likely play an important role in determining satisfaction with
both career and family outcomes. Though the importance of researching and managing the work±
family interface appears to be growing (e.g. Hall, 1989; Hall and Richter, 1990), there are few
instruments available to comprehensively de®ne, measure, and model the various factors which
in¯uence the relationships between work life and home life. This paper describes the development
of an instrument that measures attitudes towards the career±family interface and reports the
career±family attitudes of a group of young people prior to their entry into the labor force.

Career±family attitudes
We de®ne the career±family attitudes construct as the pattern of preferences individuals have for
trade-o€s among a broad spectrum of work and family issues. This de®nition incorporates several
themes. The words `pattern' and `spectrum' indicate that the work±family interface is multi-
dimensional, having relevance to one's career, home, partner, children, education, and leisure


Correspondence to: Martha M. Sanders, Department of Management, W. Frank Barton School of Business, Wichita
State University, Wichita, KS 67260-0088, U.S.A.

CCC 0894±3796/98/060603±17$17.50 Received 14 November 1994

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 16 July 1996
604 M. M. SANDERS ET AL.

time. The word `preferences' is used to capture the a€ective and intentional components of
career±family attitudes (Triandis, 1971). Finally, the word `trade-o€s' is used to convey that the
work±family interface involves making choices.
The interface between work and family is important to organizational researchers and to
managers because of its potential to in¯uence job satisfaction, job involvement, and organiza-
tional commitment. For example, Burke and McKeen (1993) found that women who were trying
to balance managerial or professional careers with family obligations showed lower job satisfac-
tion, lower career satisfaction, and lower job involvement than did women who primarily empha-
sized their careers. A number of studies have found signi®cant spillover e€ects from one realm to
the other (Frone, Russell and Cooper, 1992; Higgins, Duxbury and Irving, 1992; Pittman, 1994;
Rice, Frone and McFarlin, 1992; Wiersma and Van den Berg, 1991; Williams and Alliger, 1994).
One study (Higgins and Duxbury, 1992) found that men with career wives as opposed to home-
maker wives experienced signi®cant negative impact of their work on their families.
Although research has established a positive relationship between satisfaction with work life
and satisfaction with family life, there is some evidence that the relationship is not causal (Frone,
Russell and Cooper, 1994). In other words, although they covary, dissatisfaction with one's job
may not directly cause dissatisfaction with one's family life. Conversely, dissatisfaction with one's
family life may not have a direct causal link with dissatisfaction with one's job. This raises a key
question: what third factor might be causing satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) in both realms?
We propose that the causal link may be the ®t between attitudes and experienced reality.
Person±environment ®t theory, as originated by French and Caplan and their associates
(Caplan, Cobb, French, Harrison and Pinneau, 1980; French, Caplan and Harrison, 1982), and
readdressed by Edwards and Harrison (1993), postulates that the size of the gap between the
needs and preferences of an individual and the ability of the environment to satisfy those needs
and preferences is a measure of person±environment ®t, and that mis®t leads to stress and strain
in psychological, physiological, and behavioral functioning. Based on P-E ®t theory and other
theories of ®t between expectations and reality (Porter and Steers, 1973; Vandenberg and
Scarpello, 1990), we would expect that if the expectations for role behaviors and family con-
®gurations fostered by work±family attitudes go unmet, then the gap between reality and
attitudes will lead to dissatisfaction, stress, strain, con¯ict, and similar undesirable outcomes.
To illustrate this point, many of the teenage boys interviewed for a New York Times and CBS poll
indicated that they believed in a traditional marriage. They de®ned this as a marriage in which the
wife stays home, raises children, cooks, and cleans, while the husband is responsible for `making the
money and mowing the lawn' (Lewin, 1994). Most of the girls interviewed, however, were `adamant
about their plans to have a career and an egalitarian marriage'. The gap between these young people's
attitudes and realities will be wide when they marry each other and ®nd that their expectations for
their own and their spouses' roles are directly contradictory. The gap will also be wide in the event
that they are able to ®nd partners who share their attitudes, but then ®nd that their economic survival
or the well-being of their children is threatened by realities not compatible with their attitudes.
Before the importance of a link between attitudes and experiences can be assessed, each must
be measured. The scale developed in this study focuses on de®ning the attitudes, expectations,
preferences, and trade-o€ patterns among new entrants into the workforce.

Method
Development of the instrument
The Career±Family Attitudes Measure (CFAM) used a 16-item marriage and career assessment
instrument developed by Hai (1986) as a starting point. Additional items were generated to

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
 LOVE AND WORK 605

accomplish several speci®c goals. First, the CFAM was constructed to be gender neutral. Unlike
several previous instruments (Burke, Weir and Duwors, 1980; Hai, 1986) which measured male
and female perspectives separately, we believe it is important to be able to directly compare male
and female responses to the same issues. Consequently, we replaced gender-related pronouns
(e.g. he, she) and descriptors (e.g. wife, husband) with `I' or `my spouse'.
Second, the CFAM was designed to assess not only what respondents expect for themselves,
but what they expect from their spouses in the realm of work±family issues. Consequently, we
created pairs of items re¯ecting these two perspectives. Throughout the measure, items measuring
attitudes towards one's own role are distinguished from items measuring attitudes relevant to
one's spouse's role. For example, two items inquire about relative ®nancial contribution to the
family: one asks respondents how they would feel about making more money than their spouses,
and another asks how respondents would feel if their spouses made more money than they. We
wanted to examine whether respondents held complementary and symmetrical views of their
roles and their spouses' roles, or whether they had di€erent expectations for themselves and their
spouses.
Third, additional items were generated to re¯ect a more comprehensive interplay of career
responsibilities, household responsibilities, and child care responsibilities, with such issues as
career dominance, decision-making, education levels, ®nancial achievement, and marital relation-
ships. Many of these additional items were generated through discussions with early respondents
to pilot tests of the instrument. As the instrument was developed, we used focus groups to
examine both the understandability and the scope of the items.
The ®nal 56 items (found in Appendix A) were randomly ordered and put into a Likert-type
format in which responses could range from 1, indicating strong agreement with the item, to 7,
indicating strong disagreement with the item. An example is item 7, `I expect my spouse to stay
home full-time with our children'.

Sample
The CFAM was administered to a sample of 837 junior and senior high school students enrolled
in 11 high schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Both rural and urban schools were represented.
The respondents ranged in age from 15 to 19 with a median age of 17. Approximately 10 per cent
of the sample indicated that they did not plan to marry (item 10 on the CFAM). These respond-
ents were eliminated from the rest of the analysis, since the vast majority of the items on the
CFAM refer to intentions for trade-o€s in the context of marriage. The resulting sample
consisted of 398 females and 348 males, for a total of 746.

The demographics and antecedents

In addition to the CFAM, respondents were asked to give information about various demo-
graphic and antecedent variables so that the relationships between attitudes and demographics
could be examined. These variables included sex, age, high school GPA, race, respondent's
employment status, parents' educational levels, and maternal and paternal employment histories.
Parental employment `history' refers to whether or not the parent worked outside of the home at
various times during the respondent's childhood. The parent-relevant data was gathered in order
to assess the impact of parents' roles on work±family attitudes, since a body of literature supports
the relationship between family interactions and occupational attitudes and decisions (see Betz
and O'Connell, 1989; Mannheim, 1988; Mannheim and Seger, 1993; Vangelisti, 1988).

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
606 M. M. SANDERS ET AL.

Analyses

The questionnaire data were analyzed using a principal axis analysis. Since no assumptions of
orthoganality among the factors could be made, a Harris±Kaiser orthoblique rotation was used
to reveal the structure among the factors. Table 1 presents the factor loadings that resulted from
the factor analysis on the CFAM.
Six factors were retained based on a combination of eigenvalue, eigenvalue discontinuity, and
interpretability. The coecient-alpha reliabilities of the items loading on each factor were then
calculated and items which reduced these coecients were eliminated. In all, 50 items were
retained. The factors were then named based on the retained items. Table 2 shows the results of
these analyses. The ®rst factor, Family Focus, was broken into two subscales for reasons that will
be explained later in this paper.
After the six factors were uncovered, scales were developed to represent each one. A score for
each respondent for each scale was calculated by averaging the responses on the items belonging
to the factor. Correlations between the scale scores and the various demographic and antecedent
variables were then calculated in order to assess the main e€ects of these variables on the scale
scores. However, since the potential for interactions among these correlates was high, multiple
regression and moderated regression analyses were used to determine the combinations of
correlates predicting each scale.

Results
The scales
Six 7-point scales were constructed from the factors as described above. Scores of 1 to 3 on any of
the scales indicate strong to moderate disagreement with the items in that scale, while scores of
5 to 7 indicate moderate to strong agreement. For example, a respondent who scored a 2 on the
Dominance scale and a 6 on the Balance scale has indicated disagreement with the items in the
former and agreement with items in the latter. The scales are described below, and their descrip-
tive statistics and intercorrelations can be found in Table 3. Table 4 presents the descriptive
statistics and scale intercorrelations for each gender separately.

Family focus
Items in this scale pertain to one partner deferring his or her career to focus on the family by
staying home to do housework and raise children. Since some of the items in this scale referred to
the respondents themselves deferring their careers and some items referred to one of the partners
deferring the career without stipulating which partner, two subscales were created. The `I defer'
scale (items 2, 8, 15, 23, 26, 27, 31, 33, 41, 42) refers to the former, and the `Someone defers' scale
(items 3, 22, 25, 48) refers to the latter.

Balance
Items in this scale (9, 14, 16, 37, 39, 43, 44, 46, 47, 55) pertain to sharing home-related chores and
decisions and equal emphasis on both partners' careers and educations.

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
 LOVE AND WORK 607

Table 1. Rotated factor pattern for the career±family attitudes measure

Item no. Factor
1 2 3 4 5 6
41 0.62 ÿ 0:09 ÿ 0:10 ÿ 0:17 0.07 0.01
42 0.55 ÿ 0:10 0.11 0.10 0.20 ÿ 0:16
22 0.50 0.20 ÿ 0:17 0.13 ÿ 0:04 0.10
15 0.50 ÿ 0:14 ÿ 0:06 ÿ 0:18 0.06 0.06
33 0.44 0:15 0.09 0.07 0.20 ÿ 0:10
31 0.43 ÿ 0:03 0.06 ÿ 0:03 0.26 0.11
48 0.42 ÿ 0:15 ÿ 0:09 0.21 ÿ 0:05 0.24
25 0.42 ÿ 0:17 ÿ 0:13 0.26 ÿ 0:07 0.15
26 0.38 ÿ 0:06 0.10 0.02 0.07 ÿ 0:01
8 0.38 ÿ 0:07 0.03 ÿ 0:11 0.29 ÿ 0:07
23 0.37 0.19 0.02 0.07 0.12 ÿ 0:03
27 0.34 ÿ 0:07 0.07 0.18 0.20 ÿ 0:12
20 0.19 0.16 ÿ 0:05 ÿ 0:03 ÿ 0:03 ÿ 0:13
1 ÿ 0:18 0.18 0.07 0.10 0.11 ÿ 0:00
50 ÿ 0:32 0.11 0.09 ÿ 0:22 0.27 0.19
2 ÿ 0:34 0.22 0.11 ÿ 0:06 0.23 0.02
3 ÿ 0:40 ÿ 0:06 0.20 ÿ 0:11 0.19 ÿ 0:07
47 ÿ 0:09 0.64 0.05 ÿ 0:01 ÿ 0:06 0.08
37 ÿ 0:01 0.63 ÿ 0:04 ÿ 0:05 ÿ 0:03 0.03
46 0.04 0.59 ÿ 0:02 ÿ 0:02 ÿ 0:11 0.09
44 ÿ 0:21 0.53 0.04 ÿ 0:07 0.10 0.02
39 ÿ 0:00 0.46 ÿ 0:02 ÿ 0:09 ÿ 0:07 ÿ 0:08
14 0:11 0.45 0.10 ÿ 0:07 0.01 ÿ 0:15
43 ÿ 0:25 0.38 ÿ 0:03 0.03 ÿ 0:07 0.20
16 ÿ 0:12 0.35 0.06 ÿ 0:11 0.05 ÿ 0:04
55 ÿ 0:09 0.31 ÿ 0:02 0.05 0.02 0.18
9 0.11 ÿ 0:28 ÿ 0:12 0.11 0.25 0.22
38 0.10 0.13 0.77 0.02 0.06 ÿ 0:03
24 ÿ 0:11 ÿ 0:03 0.71 0.06 0.00 0.14
49 ÿ 0:05 ÿ 0:01 0.70 0.03 0.02 0.13
19 0.03 0.15 0.64 ÿ 0:03 0.06 0.03
53 0.06 0.27 ÿ 0:53 0.02 0.10 0.03
34 0.17 0.24 ÿ 0:56 ÿ 0:00 0.15 ÿ 0:10
17 0.02 0.08 0.10 0.68 ÿ 0:02 ÿ 0:17
40 ÿ 0:00 ÿ 0:10 0.13 0.43 0.21 0.01
32 0.06 ÿ 0:15 ÿ 0:06 0.40 ÿ 0:04 0.10
54 ÿ 0:00 ÿ 0:03 0.06 0.39 0.21 0.16
7 0.07 ÿ 0:18 ÿ 0:11 0.38 0.13 0.14
28 0.02 ÿ 0:30 0.04 0.34 0.19 0.24
13 ÿ 0:07 ÿ 0:21 0.11 0.31 0.13 0.13
12 ÿ 0:18 0.18 0.09 ÿ 0:23 0.22 ÿ 0:01
29 0.03 0.20 0.04 ÿ 0:45 ÿ 0:06 0.12
36 0.05 ÿ 0:18 ÿ 0:02 0.08 0.61 0.09
45 0.18 0.07 0.06 0.08 0.60 ÿ 0:04
35 0.06 0.22 ÿ 0:08 ÿ 0:16 0.37 ÿ 0:21
18 ÿ 0:25 ÿ 0:04 ÿ 0:04 0.33 0.34 ÿ 0:01
6 ÿ 0:05 ÿ 0:08 0.00 0.16 0.32 0.15
51 0.27 ÿ 0:25 0.01 0.17 0.32 0.11
56 0.13 ÿ 0:05 ÿ 0:06 0.27 0.28 ÿ 0:04
4 ÿ 0:01 ÿ 0:27 0.02 0.26 0.27 0.12
30 0.02 0.04 0.16 ÿ 0:05 0.04 0.65
5 0.06 0.01 0.16 ÿ 0:08 0.05 0.53
21 ÿ 0:13 0.16 0.03 ÿ 0:09 0.15 0.41
52 ÿ 0:07 0.13 0.10 ÿ 0:22 0.05 0.38
11 0.06 ÿ 0:09 0.05 0.13 ÿ 0:03 0.32
10 0.08 ÿ 0:16 0.10 0.14 ÿ 0:07 0.30

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
608 M. M. SANDERS ET AL.

Table 2. Description of scales

Scale Eigenvalue Percentage of No. of items No. of items Alpha
variance in factor in scale
1. Family Focus 6.76 38 17 14 0.78
1a. I Defer 10 0.74
1b. Someone Defers 4 0.66
2. Balance 4.07 23 10 10 0.78
3. Career Focus 2.34 13 6 6 0.84
4. Dominance 1.88 11 9 8 0.75
5. Spousal Support 1.50 8 8 7 0.67
6. Independence 1.14 6 6 4 0.66

Career focus
Items in this scale (19, 24, 34, 38, 49, 53) pertain to paying more attention, on occasion, to one's
work than to one's marital relationship or children.

Dominance
Items in this scale (7, 12, 13, 17, 28, 29, 32, 40, 54) pertain to having a career and decision power
within the home while one's spouse defers her or his career in order to raise children.

Spousal support
Items in this scale (4, 6, 18, 36, 45, 51, 56) pertain to the intention that one's spouse will
be supportive by giving in during disagreements, moving if the respondent receives a good job
o€er elsewhere, doing housework if not employed, and keeping weekend distractions to a mini-
mum.

Independence
Items in this scale (5, 21, 30, 52) pertain to socializing and vacationing independent of one's
spouse.

Table 3. Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of scales

Whole sample, N ˆ 669
Scale Mean S.D. Range 1 1a 1b 2 3 4 5 6
1. Fam Foc 2.71 0.79 1±5.86
1a. I Defer 2.59 0.82 1±5.40 0.92{
1b. One Def 3.01 1.16 1±7.00 0.74{ 0.43{
2. Balance 6.10 0.75 3±7.00 ÿ0:38y ÿ0:35y ÿ0:27y
3. Car Foc 3.83 1.26 1±7.00 ÿ0:15y ÿ0:10y ÿ0:18y 0.00
4. Domin 2.76 0.93 1±5.75 0.31{ 0.26{ 0.27{ ÿ0:50y 0.10{
5. Spou Sup 3.21 0.98 1±6.57 0.35{ 0.35{ 0.21{ ÿ0:39y 0.06 0.55{
6. Indep. 4.27 1.22 1±7.00 ÿ0:09z ÿ0:09z 0.04 0.12{ 0.27{ ÿ 0:01 0.01

1. Family Focus; 1a. I Defer; 1b. Someone Defers; 2. Balance; 3. Career Focus; 4. Dominance; 5. Spousal Support; 6.
Independence.
{ p <ˆ 0:01.
{ p <ˆ 0:05.

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
 LOVE AND WORK 609

Scale intercorrelations

As can be seen from Table 3, Family Focus (and its subscales) and Dominance had the lowest
mean scores, indicating collective negative attitudes towards one partner's career being deferred
or emphasized over the other's. Balance and Independence earned the highest scores, indicating
that most of the respondents hold positive attitudes towards making decisions jointly with their
spouses, sharing household responsibilities, emphasizing both careers, and maintaining some
independence in regard to vacations and socializing.
The Spousal Support scale is signi®cantly positively correlated with most of the other scales,
indicating that whatever else, respondents prefer a partner who is willing to try to make the
career±family interface more comfortable. However, the correlation between Balance and
Spousal Support is a signi®cantly negative one, indicating that the respondents may have seen
one-sided support as a violation of the spirit of mutual support and jointly made decisions.
There were many di€erences in the ways that the males' and females' scores intercorrelated
(Table 4). For the females, the negative relationship between Family Focus and Career Focus
(I can really only focus on family or career, not both) was signi®cant, whereas it was not for the
males (ÿ 0:19 and ÿ 0:09). The signi®cant correlation for the females appeared to be due to the
females' negative relationship between the I Defer subscale and the Career Focus scale.
The pattern of relationships between the I Defer subscale and all of the other scales appeared
somewhat di€erent for the di€erent gender groups. Those females with low scores on the I Defer
subscale (I do not intend to defer my career) tended to score high on the Balance, Career Focus,
and Independence scales, and low on the Someone Defers, Dominance, and Spousal Support
scales. A similar pattern was seen for males who scored low on the I Defer scale, but the
magnitudes of the correlations were lower for the males, and the relationships of I Defer with

Table 4. Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of scale scores by gender

Scale Mean S.D. Range 1 1a 1b 2 3 4 5 6
Females, N ˆ 373
1. Fam Foc 2.66 0.88 1±5.86
1a. I Defer 2.56 0.91 1±5.40 0.95{
1b. One Def 2.91 1.19 1±7.00 0.79{ 0.55{
2. Balance 6.26 0.66 4±7.00 ÿ 0:41{ ÿ 0:44{ ÿ0:22{
3. Car Foc 3.82 1.27 1±6.83 ÿ 0:19{ ÿ 0:16{ ÿ0:18{ 0.10
4. Domin 2.27 0.65 1±4.38 0.35{ 0.39{ 0.15{ ÿ 0:43{ 0.15{
5. Spou Sup 3.02 0.97 1±6.57 0:38{ 0.44{ 0.15{ ÿ 0:28{ 0.04 0.44{
6. Indep 4.40 1.24 1±7.00 ÿ0:13{ ÿ 0:15{ ÿ0:07 0.20{ 0.27{ 0.02 0.00
Males, N ˆ 299
1. Fam Foc 2.77 0.65 1.1±4.5
1a. I Defer 2.62 0.70 1±4.90 0.88{
1b. One Def 3.14 1.11 1±6.50 0.67{ 0.23{
2. Balance 5.90 0.80 3.10±7 ÿ0:34y ÿ 0:26y ÿ0:30y
3. Car Foc 3.83 1.24 1±7.00 ÿ0:09 ÿ 0:00 ÿ0:19y 0.09
4. Domin 3.38 0.87 1±5.75 0.34{ 0:21y 0:37y ÿ 0:49y 0.09
5. Spou Sup 3.44 0.95 1±5.86 0.30{ 0.22{ 0.27{ ÿ 0:45y 0.08 0.66{
6. Indep 4.12 1.17 1±7.00 0.00 0.04 ÿ0:06 ÿ 0:01 0.27{ 0.12{ 0.07

1. Family Focus; 1a. I Defer; 1b. Someone Defers; 2. Balance; 3. Career Focus; 4. Dominance; 5. Spousal Support; 6.
Independence.
{ p <ˆ 0:01.
{ p <ˆ 0:05.

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
610 M. M. SANDERS ET AL.

Career Focus and Independence were not signi®cant at all. In particular, the positive correlation
between the I Defer and Spousal Support scores (if I am going to focus my energy on the family
while you go have a career, I am going to need your support) indicated that there was much more
variance in common between these two variables for the females (R2 ˆ 0:19) versus the males
(R2 ˆ 0:05).
Other di€erences between the genders appeared in relation to Career Focus and Balance.
Though the correlations (0.10 females and ÿ 0:09 males) were not signi®cant at p ˆ 0:05 for
either gender, their opposite directions appeared to be telling about di€erent attitudes across
gender: if I am going to defer attention to my family because of work I am going to need a
partner who is willing to pitch in at home and be supportive of my career (females) and, if I am
going to concentrate on my career, I cannot be distracted by having to pitch in at home and
participate in daily decision making (males).
For the females, Independence was negatively correlated with Family Focus and its two
subscales, and positively correlated with Balance and Career Focus. For the males, Independence
was positively correlated with Career Focus and Dominance, and uncorrelated with any of the
other scales.
The relationships that were signi®cant for the males but not the females were a positive one
between Independence and Spousal Support (if I want to vacation or socialize without her I need
a supportive wife), and a negative one between Balance and Spousal Support (if my wife is
supportive I won't have to share the housework).

The demographics and antecedents

The demographic and antecedent variables used in this analysis were sex, school setting (rural or
urban), mother's and father's employment histories, race, educational aspirations, and school
GPA. Two types of analyses were done. First, correlation coecients were calculated to examine
the direction of relationships between each variable and each CFAM scale. Next, multiple
regression analyses were performed to determine the predictability of the scale scores by the
antecedent variables. The correlation coecients are found in Table 5 and the results of the
multiple regressions are found in Tables 6 and 7.

Gender
As can be seen in Table 5, the females had signi®cantly more positive attitudes than the males
towards Balance and Independence, while the males scored signi®cantly higher than the females
on the Dominance and Spousal Support scales. Males also scored somewhat higher on the
Someone Defers subscale (one of us should defer a career in order to be at home). Note, however,
that though there were signi®cant di€erences between males' and females' scale scores, the mean
scores for each group were not at opposite ends of the scales in any case. The largest di€erence
was for Dominance, on which the males scored higher than the females 2.76 versus 2.27), but still
scored below the midpoint of the scale (see Table 4).
Moderated regression procedures revealed that some of the antecedent variables interacted
with respondent sex such that they predicted the scale scores for the females versus the males
signi®cantly di€erently. For example, school setting was an important predictor of the males'
Family Focus scores, but did little to account for variance in the females' Family Focus scores.
F-ratios for those antecedents which did not predict scale scores di€erentially across sex are

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Table 5. Correlations of scale scores with demographic and antecedent variables, whole sample{
Scales
Antecedent 1 1a 1b 2 3 4 5 6
Sex (male ˆ 1, female ˆ 0) 0.07 0.04 0.10 ÿ 0:24z 0.00 0.59{ 0.21{ ÿ 0:11z
Setting (rural ˆ 1, urban ˆ 0) 0.10{ 0.12{ 0.05 ÿ 0:15z ÿ0:07 0.12{ 0.07 ÿ 0:08}
Mom worked (throughout ˆ 1, some ˆ 0, ÿ0:19z ÿ 0:14z ÿ0:21z 0.08} 0.11{ ÿ 0:04 ÿ0:11z 0.10{
not at all ˆ ÿ 1)
Dad worked (throughout ˆ 1, some ˆ 0, 0.02 0.02 ÿ0:01 0.03 ÿ0:03 0.06 ÿ0:00 0.02
not at all ˆ ÿ 1)
Race (white ˆ 1, non-white ˆ 0) ÿ0:12z ÿ 0:12z ÿ0:09} 0.23{ 0.03 ÿ 0:10z ÿ 0:10 0.02
Educational aspirations ÿ0:30z ÿ 0:31z ÿ0:16z 0.16{ 0.10{ ÿ 0:05 ÿ0:15z 0.12{
GPA ÿ0:20z ÿ 0:25z ÿ0:04 0.14{ 0.10} ÿ 0:06 ÿ0:14z 0.08}

1. Family Focus; 1a. I Defer; 1b. Someone Defers; 2. Balance; 3. Career Focus; 4. Dominance 5. Spousal Support 6. Independence.
{ N ˆ 669.
J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)

{ p <ˆ 0:01.
} p <ˆ 0:05.

LOVE AND WORK

611
612 M. M. SANDERS ET AL.

shown in Table 6. F-statistics for those antecedents that did predict scale scores di€erentially
across respondent sex are shown in Table 7.

Urban versus rural

About 42 per cent of the respondents were from urban schools, and 58 per cent were from rural
schools. Overall, rural respondents scored signi®cantly higher on Family Focus, I Defer, and
Dominance and signi®cantly lower on Balance and Independence than did those from urban
schools. However, this variable was a powerful predictor of the scale scores for the males only,
accounting for signi®cant variance in their Family Focus, I Defer, Balance, Dominance and
Spousal Support scores (Table 7).

Parents' employment histories

Thirteen per cent of the respondents had mothers who were not employed at any time during the
respondents' childhoods. Forty-nine per cent had mothers that were employed throughout the
respondents' childhoods and the mothers of the remaining 38 per cent were employed for some of
the respondents' childhoods. As can be seen from Tables 5, 6 and 7, the more the respondents'
mothers had worked as they were growing up, the higher the respondents scored on Balance,
Career Focus, and Independence, and the lower they scored on Family Focus, the two subscales,
and Spousal Support. Mother's employment history accounted for signi®cant variance in the
females' versus males' Family Focus, I Defer, and Career Focus scores, and in the males' versus
females Spousal Support scores. It appears as though mothers' roles as career women or
homemakers strongly in¯uence their children's attitudes about work and family.
Ninety per cent of the respondents' fathers were employed throughout their childhoods, while
9 per cent and 1 per cent were employed part of the time and none of the time respectively.
Fathers' employment history was a much weaker, almost nonexistent predictor of respondents'
attitudes. It accounted for noticeable variance in only the Spousal Support scores, with a positive
correlation for the males (0.08, p ˆ 0:14) and a negative correlation for the females (ÿ 0:07,
p ˆ 0:17). The lack of ®ndings for this antecedent is more likely due to its own lack of variance in
this sample.

Race
Fourteen per cent of the sample was non-white. Non-whites included mostly African-Americans
and Native Americans, with only a few respondents of Asian or Hispanic heritage. Overall, the
white respondents' attitudes were signi®cantly more positive toward Balance and more negative
toward Family Focus, I Defer, Someone Defers, Dominance, and Spousal Support than were the
attitudes of the non-white respondents. This demographic accounted for much more variance in
Balance and Dominance for the females than for the males.

Educational aspirations and GPA

The higher respondents' own projected educational levels and GPAs, the more positive their
attitudes towards Balance, Career Focus, and Independence, and the more negative their
attitudes towards Family Focus and Spousal Support. Educational Aspirations accounted for
more variance in the females' Family Focus, I Defer, Balance, and Career Focus scores than it
did in the males' scores. GPA was similar, accounting for more variance in the females' Family

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
 LOVE AND WORK 613

Table 6. F-statistics for multiple regressions of antecedent variables on the scale scores for antecedents not
moderated by sex, whole sample
R2 Sex Rural/ Mom Dad Race Educ GPA
urban worked worked aspirs.
Family Focus 0.02 2.84 6.62{
I Defer 0.01 0.79 6.47{
Someone Defers 0.08 5.55{ 0.13 11.34{ 1.50 1.76 12.37{ 1.16
Balance 0.07 37.65{ 2.83 0.72
Career Focus 0.00 0.17 2.69
Dominance 0.37 287.31{ 0.87 2.55 1.25
Spousal Support 0.06 29.65{ 3.48{ 3.50{
Independence 0.05 7.84{ 3.41 4.19 0.44 4.94{ 0.03

N females ˆ 337, N males ˆ 281.
{ p <ˆ 0:05.
{ p <ˆ 0:01.

Table 7. F-Statistics for multiple regressions of antecedent variables on the scale scores by sex for those
antecedents moderated by sex
Sex R2 Rural/ Mom Dad Race Educ GPA
urban worked worked aspirs.
Family Focus F 0.19 0.12 9.41{ 19.02{ 4.39{
M 0.10 8.55{ 1.67 9.47{ 0.08
I Defer F 0.21 0.90 7.33{ 21.90{ 9.67{
M 0.09 8.55{ 0.21 5.12{ 2.44
Balance F 0.18 3.20 27.69{ 9.75{ 5.11{
M 0.05 10.50{ 4.21 0.00 0.10
Career Focus F 0.06 5.48{ 5.32{ 0.23
M 0.04 1.13 1.54 8.03
Dominance F 0.04 0.20 4.30{ 5.42{
M 0.05 8.13{ 0.54 2.29
Spousal Support F 0.07 0.63 1.70 3.48 6.55{
M 0.06 3.77{ 5.52{ 0.27 0.37

N females ˆ 337, N males ˆ 281.
{ p <ˆ 0:01.
{ p <ˆ 0:05:

Focus, I defer, Balance, Dominance and Spousal Support scores. For Career Focus, however,
GPA accounted for more variance in the males' scores than in the females'.
For antecedents that interacted with gender (Table 7), the females' scores were most often
predicted by GPA, educational aspirations, and mother's employment history. Race was
important in predicting females' Balance and Dominance scores. By contrast, six of the scales
were predicted for the males by the rural or urban setting, with only a smattering of signi®cant Fs
for the other antecedents. For each scale in Table 7, the antecedent variables accounted for more
variance for the females versus the males.

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
614 M. M. SANDERS ET AL.

Discussion

One intriguing ®nding from this study is that, at least for these high school students, attitudes
towards having a career and having a family are not negatively correlated, such that the more
positively individuals feel about one, the more negatively they feel about the other, or the more
individuals choose one, the less they feel they can choose the other. Throughout multiple
factorings of the CFAM, the Balance factor consistently appeared as evidence that career±family
attitudes involve not so much preferences for trade-o€s among choices as preferences for the
integration of choices. If the issue was one of trade-o€s, Dominance and Family Focus might well
have appeared as opposite ends of the same factor, and Balance might never have appeared at all.
This suggests that we may want to re-examine some of the assumptions we make when exploring
career±family relationships.
The greater variance in the Family Focus scale (which represents the traditional role for
women) attained by the females compared to the males helps to explain why this scale was so
much more predictable from the antecedents for the females than for the males. Since it used to
be that females, if married, had little choice but to defer careers in favor of homemaking, the
wider variance in females' responses to these items may re¯ect a relatively newer and wider range
of attitudes towards the career versus homemaking decision. Likewise, the smaller degree of
variance in this scale for males may re¯ect acceptance of more traditional male career dominance
attitudes by the males.

Sources of work±family attitudes

Based on the research that has been done in this area, we can conclude that there are at least three
sources of work±family attitudes. One source appears to be personal factors, including the
individual's abilities, interests, personality, and aspirations. In the present study, personal factors
are measured by GPA and educational aspirations were found to correlate with measures of some
attitudes.
A second source of work±family attitudes and socialization history includes such factors as
family, parental employment history, parental roles, and cultural and religious upbringing, along
with such factors as educational institutions, the mass media, peers, and part-time jobs (Jablin,
1985). In the research reported here, the Family Focus scale, which embodies the traditional role
for women, was predicted for the females by the con®guration of roles in their own homes:
positive attitudes towards the traditional female family role were associated with homemaker
mothers and breadwinner fathers. By the same token, males' positive attitudes towards Spousal
Support, which embodies the traditional roles for men and men's wives, also appear to have been
modeled by the respondents' own breadwinner fathers and homemaker mothers.
For the males in this study, rural versus urban socialization appears to have in¯uenced
attitudes toward work and family. Findings showed that the rural males were more likely than the
urban males to endorse the traditional male role, indicated by lower scores on Balance and higher
scores on Dominance. At the same time, the rural males appeared much more family oriented,
with higher scores on Family Focus than the urban males. These ®ndings may indicate stronger
gender role de®nitions in rural populations and stronger emphasis on the family as the basic unit
of rural as opposed to urban community.
A third source of work±family attitudes, not addressed in the current study, is the speci®c
situation in which an individual is functioning. Situational factors include the actual

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
 LOVE AND WORK 615

requirements of tasks on the job (Hackman and Oldham, 1976) and in the home, as well as the
behaviors and contributions of the partner. Situational factors would not only provide the
context in which work±family attitudes are developed, but would also determine the realities of
the work and family interface that individuals actually experience.

Limitations
Since no single study can establish the reliability and validity of a new instrument, this research
must be viewed as the beginning of a construct validation process. Future studies need to be
conducted to further assess the factor structure of the CFAM within di€erent populations.
Additional studies assessing the convergent, discriminant and criterion-related validities of the
CFAM are also needed to establish that the instrument is indeed measuring what it is intended to
measure.
The CFAM was worded in such a way as to assess career±family attitudes within the context of
heterosexual marriage. Future versions might use the word `partner' to include family con®gura-
tions not captured by the use of such terms as `marriage' and `spouse'.

Future research
Since this study and past research have indicated that work±family attitudes are a function, at
least in part, of personal, socialization, and situational factors, the next logical step would be to
develop a theoretical model of work±family attitudes and their outcomes that could be tested and
used in a variety of ways. The development of a comprehensive model of career±family attitudes
would direct further research into workforce entry and adjustment, allow for tests of the
relationships between work and family constructs, and help identify the antecedents and
consequences of these attitudes.
The e€ects of the match or mismatch between attitudes and realities should continue to be
explored to determine the nature of the relationship between gap size and levels of experienced
satisfaction, stress, and con¯ict. Research into the mechanisms by which organizations shape
attitudes, signal organizational realities, accommodate di€erent attitudes among employees, and
mitigate the more deleterious e€ects of attitude±reality gaps should also continue.
The CFAM, and similar instruments designed for other uses, should be further developed.
These instruments could be used by practitioners and researchers for a variety of purposes: to
determine the range of career±family attitudes, to help individuals identify their own attitudes in
regard to career and family in order to make better career and organization choices, to advance
theories of career decision-making and career±family balance, and to pinpoint problematic
issues for clients who are attempting to cope with work±family con¯icts (see Stoltz-Loike, 1992;
Wiersma, 1994).
Since it appears that some organizations currently do recognize the impact that family has on
career and that career has on family, and do consider this interface when making decisions
regarding employees (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985; Simmonetti, Nykodym and Goralske, 1988;
Taylor and Martin, 1987), employers will also ®nd this type of instrument useful. It could be used
to provide data for pro®ling current and future employees' attitudes, to determine how current
employees deal with these issues, to examine how work and family attitudes a€ect performance,
and to adopt or adjust human resource practices to ®t employees' needs. As Solomon (1992)
points out, programs that help employees manage the interplay between work and family may be
the most underrated and cost-e€ective type of compensation available to ®rms of all sizes.

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
616 M. M. SANDERS ET AL.

References

Betz, M. and O'Connell, L. (1989). `Work orientations of males and females: Exploring the gender
socialization approach', Sociological Inquiry, 59, 318±330.
Burke, R. J. and McKeen, C. A. (1993). `Career priority patterns among managerial and professional
women', Applied Psychology: An International Review, 42, 341±352.
Burke, R. J., Weir, T. and Duwors, R. E. (1980). `Work demands on administrators and spouse well-being',
Human Relations, 33, 253±278.
Caplan, R. D., Cobb, S., French, J. R. P., Jr., Harrison, R. V. and Pinneau, S. R. (1980). Job Demands and
Worker Health: Main E€ects and Occupational Di€erences, Institute for Social Research, Ann Arbor, MI.
Edwards, J. R. and Harrison, R. V. (1993). `Job demands and worker health: Three-dimensional reexamina-
tion of the relationship between person±environment ®t and strain', Journal of Applied Psychology, 78,
628±648.
French, J. R. P., Jr., Caplan, R. D. and Harrison, R. V. (1982). The Mechanisms of Job Stress and Strain,
Wiley, New York.
Frone, M. R., Russell, M. and Cooper, M. L. (1992). `Prevalence of work±family con¯ict: Are work and
family boundaries asymmetrically permeable?', Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 723±729.
Frone, M. R., Russell, M. and Cooper, M. L. (1994). `Relationship between job and family satisfaction:
Causal or noncausal covariation?', Journal of Management, 20, 565±579.
Greenhaus, J. H. and Beutell, N. J. (1985). `Sources of con¯ict between work and family roles', Academy of
Management Review, 10, 76±88.
Hackman, J. R. and Oldham, G. R. (1976). `Motivation through the design of work: Test of a theory',
Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16, 250±279.
Hai, D. M. (1986). Organizational Behavior: Experiences and Cases, West, St. Paul.
Hall, D. T. (1989). `Promoting work/family balance: An organization-change approach', Organizational
Dynamics, 18, 5±18.
Hall, D. T. and Richter, J. (1990). `Career gridlock: Baby boomers hit the wall', The Executive, 4, 7±22.
Higgins, C. A. and Duxbury, L. E. (1992). `Work±family con¯ict: A comparison of dual-career and
traditional-career men', Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 389±411.
Higgins, C. A., Duxbury, L. E. and Irving, R. H. (1992). `Work±family con¯ict in the dual-career family',
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 51, 51±75.
Jablin, F. M. (1985). `Task/work relationships: A life-span perspective'. In: Knapp, M. L. and Miller, G. R.
(Eds) Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA.
Lewin, T. (1994). `Boys, girls have di€erent ideas of family, poll shows'. From the New York Times News
Service, reported in The Wichita Eagle, Wichita, Kansas, July 14.
Mannheim, B. (1988). `Social background, schooling, and parental job attitudes as related to adolescents'
work values', Youth and Society, 19, 269±293.
Mannheim, B. and Seger, T. (1993). `Mothers' occupational characteristics, family position, and sex role
orientation as related to adolescents' work values', Youth and Society, 24, 276±298.
Pittman, J. F. (1994). `Work/family ®t as a mediator of work factors on marital tension: Evidence from the
interface of greedy institutions', Human Relations, 47, 183±209.
Porter, L. W. and Steers, R. M. (1973). `Organizational, work, and personal factors in employee turnover
and absenteeism', Psychological Bulletin, 80, 151±176.
Rice, R. W., Frone, M. R. and McFarlin, D. B. (1992). `Work±nonwork con¯ict and perceived quality of
life', Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 155±168.
Simmonetti, J. L., Nykodym, N. and Goralske, J. M. (1988). `Family ties: A guide for HR managers',
Personnel, 1, 37±41.
Solomon, C. M. (1992). `Work/family ideas that break boundaries', Personnel Journal, 10, 112±117.
Stoltz-Loike, M. (1992). `The working family: Helping women balance the roles of wife, mother, and career
woman', Career Development Quarterly, 40, 244±256.
Taylor, S. E. and Martin, J. (1987). `The present-minded professor: controlling one's career'. In: The
Complete Academic: A Practical Guide for the Beginning Social Scientist, Random House, New York,
pp. 23±60.
Triandis, H. C. (1971). Attitudes and Attitude Change, Wiley, New York.
Vandenberg, R. J. and Scarpello, V. (1990). `The matching model: An examination of the processes
underlying Realistic Job Previews', Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 60±67.

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
 LOVE AND WORK 617

Vangelisti, A. L. (1988). `Adolescent socialization into the workplace: A synthesis and critique of current
literature', Youth and Society, 19, 460±484.
Wiersma, U. A. (1994). `A taxonomy of behavioral strategies for coping with work±home role con¯ict',
Human Relations, 47, 211±221.
Wiersma, U. J. and Van den Berg, P. (1991). `Work±home role con¯ict, family climate, and domestic
responsibilities among men and women in dual-earner families', Journal of Applied Social Psychology,
21, 1207±1217.
Williams, K. J. and Alliger, G. M. (1994). `Role stressors, mood spillover, and perceptions of work±family
con¯ict in employed parents', Academy of Management Journal, 37, 837±868.

Appendix AÐCFAM Items

(For ease, the items have been grouped according to factor)

Family focus
I defer
2. I expect to go as far as I can in my career and expect encouragement from my spouse (reverse
scored)
8. I would like for my spouse to make most of the ®nancial decisions regardless of who makes
the most money
15. I do not expect to have a career
23. I would like for my spouse to have more education than I do
26. It would bother me a lot if I make more money than my spouse does
27. If my spouse and I can't agree on something, I think I should most often give in to my spouse
31. I will be mostly responsible for raising our children, regardless of whether or not I work
outside the home
33. If I do not work outside the home, I will do all the housework
41. I expect to stay home full-time with our children
42. My spouse's career is more important than mine

Someone defers
3. Professional child care providers (day care, sitter) will take care of our children while my
spouse and I work (reverse scored)
22. I expect that either my spouse or I will be home during the day with our children
25. Marriage and two careers do not mix
48. Children and two careers do not mix
(The following items loaded on this factor but were not included in the ®nal scale)
1. I would like for my spouse and me to have the same level of education
20. It does not matter to me whether or not my spouse and I have the same level of education
50. I would be able to go to school as long as I wish, whether or not we have children

Balance
9. I expect my spouse to be mostly responsible for raising our children, regardless of whether or
not my spouse is employed (reverse scored)

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
618 M. M. SANDERS ET AL.

14. If my spouse works outside the home, I will help somewhat with the housework
16. My career and my spouse's career will be equally important
37. I expect my spouse and I to share responsibility for raising our children
39. I don't care whether my spouse or I make the most money
43. If I am employed, I expect my spouse to help with the housework
44. I intend to encourage my spouse to fully develop his or her career
46. I would like my spouse and me to make ®nancial decisions together regardless of how much
money we each make
47. If both my spouse and I are employed, I expect housework to be a jointly shared responsibility
55. I would like to take some vacations with my spouse but no children

Career focus
19. I expect that there will be times when my spouse will have to pay more attention to job
problems than to our relationship
24. Sometimes I will have to pay more attention to my job than to my family
34. I do not expect to ever have to pay more attention to my job than to my relationship with my
spouse (reverse scored)
38. I expect that sometimes my spouse will have to pay more attention to his or her job than to
our family
49. I expect there will be times when I will have to pay more attention to my job than to my
relationship with my spouse
53. I expect that neither my spouse nor I will pay more attention to our careers than to our family
(reverse scored)

Dominance
7. I expect my spouse to stay home full-time with our children
12. My spouse should be able to go to school as long as he or she wishes whether or not we have
children (reverse scored)
13. It would bother me a lot if my spouse makes more money than I do
17. Yard work and ®x-it tasks will mainly be done by me
28. My career will be more important than my spouse's career
29. I would like my spouse and I to share yard-work and ®x-it tasks (reverse scored)
32. I do not expect my spouse to have a career
40. I would like to make most of the ®nancial decisions regardless of how much money my
spouse makes
54. I would like to have more education than my spouse

Spousal support
4. If my spouse and I can't agree on something, I think my spouse should give in to me
6. If my spouse is not employed, he or she should do all the housework
18. If I get an excellent job o€er elsewhere, I will expect my spouse to move to the new place
36. Weekends will be time for me to relax, watch TV, etc., and I expect my spouse to keep
distractions (i.e. visitors, children, chores) to a minimum

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)
 LOVE AND WORK 619

45. Weekends will be time for my spouse to relax, watch TV, etc., and I expect to keep
distractions (i.e. visitors, children, chores) to a minimum
51. Yard work and ®x-it tasks will mainly be done by my spouse
56. Both on the job and at home, some tasks are `men's work' and some tasks are `women's
work'
(The following item loaded on this factor but was not included in the ®nal scale)
35. If my spouse gets an excellent job o€er elsewhere, I will move to the new place

Independence

5. I expect my spouse to take some vacations alone

21. I would like to occasionally go out in the evening without my spouse
30. I would like to take some vacations by myself
52. I expect my spouse to occasionally go out in the evening without me
(The following items loaded on this factor but were not included in the ®nal scale)
10. I do not expect to get married
11. We may not want children since both my spouse and I will work outside the home

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 19, 603±619 (1998)