A Minnesota researcher says middle-class couples are struggling to balance work and family in jobs designed for the days when men were the breadwinners.
Phyllis Moen, who holds a chair in sociology at the University of Minnesota, tracked 1,060 couples. She found that only one in six qualified as super couples -- with both partners reporting a good quality of life -- while more than half reported that neither was getting much enjoyment out of life.
Moen said couples are "stretched thin by 'work-friendly' jobs."
She presented her paper -- "Dual-Earner Middle-Class Time Convoys, Ecologies, and Life-Course 'Fit': Super Couples or Couples Stretched Thin?" -- at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
