PsychologicalReports, 1990, 67, 523-527.
O Psychological Reports 1990
RELATIONSHIP OF AGE A N D SEX-ROLE CONFLICT FOR PROFESSIONAL WOMEN I N HUMAN SERVICES ' SUZANNE WEGENER SOLED AND EILEEN DUFFY BLAIR University of Cincinnati Summary.-This study provides external validation of the Sex-role Conflict Scale. The relationship between age and sex-role conflict among women with educational interests was investigated. 128 female students i n education were assessed on the conflict they experienced in various settings. The mean sex-role conflict scores, although hypothesized to be significantly different, were not among women ages 25 yr. and below, ages 26 to 39 yr., and ages 40 yr. and over. Also investigated was the relationship between age and sex-role conflict in dual-career respondents. Of the 29 respondents who met the criterion for classification, mean sex-role conflict scores were not significantly different for the three age groups. The nonlinear relationship between sex-role conflict and age does not have support for professional women who work in fields other than business.
Further research examining a wider range of respondents to increase the external validity of the Sex-role Conflict Scale has been suggested. Utilizing a group of 556 persons working in a range of organizations and industries in a major western metropolitan area, Chusrnir and Koberg (1987) showed the mean sex-role conflict scores for both men and women were significantly greater at age 26 to 39 yr. than at age 40 yr. and over. The majority of these respondents held positions which were supervisory, managerial, or professional, and worked mainly in business and industrial (77.7%) areas as opposed to education and social service (22.3%) placements. This investigation employed women from different occupations with educational interest in the s o c d science fields to further external validation of the Sex-role Conf i c t Scale. Chusrnir and Koberg (1987) proposed that the time at which someone is socialized, either before, during, or after the advent of the feminist movement might influence one's sex-role conflict. The nonlinear relationship found by these researchers was expected to be noted in the population in this study, so it was hypothesized that women's sex-role conflict scores would be significantly greater among workers aged 26 to 39 yr. than among younger (25 yr. and below) and older (40 yr. and over) workers. I n addition, we investigated the relationship between age and sex-role conflict in dual-career respondents. Hall and Hall (1978) stressed the importance of dual-career couples reevaluating definitions of their own roles and 'We gratefully acknowledge the partici ation of the instructors and students in this study, and James Stevens and Patricia 0 ' ~ e d f for ~ comments on a draft of this article. Address correspondence to S. W. Soled, College of Education, U ~ v e r s i t yof Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0002.
524
S. W. SOLED AND E. D. BLAIR
spouses' roles especially since more dual-career couples have been noted to experience more sex-role conflict given daily demands at home and work. Berman, Sack, and Lief (1975) described a new conflict syndrome occurring in dual-career couples in which the husband and wife are experiencing different growth rates-two varying transitional sets of emotions, responses, and expectations during their thirties. Beutell and Greenhaus (1982) noted that more sex-role conflict occurs during the thirties than the early twenties and forties. Based on this earlier research, it was hypothesized that dual-career couples who are respondents have Sex-role Conflict Scale scores which also would have a n o d n e a r relationship with age, that is, the Sex-role Conflict Scale scores would be significantly higher among workers aged 26 to 39 yr. than among younger and older workers.
METHOD Subjects, in summer classes in a College of Education at a large urban university in the midwestern USA, were asked to participate in a research study to validate externally a sex-role conflict scale. Atl volunteered. All subjects signed a letter of informed consent. Of the 128 female subjects 46% were less than 26 yr. old, 41.4% between 26 and 39 yr., and 12.5% 40 yr. or older. Of the respondents reporting demographic information, 59% were graduate students and the other primarily upper division undergraduates. Half of the respondents worked more than 36 hr. per week, 21.3% worked 20 to 35 hr. per week, with the rest working less than 20 hr. per week. Seventy-one percent of the respondents worked in professional/rnanagerial positions with the balance in clerical, skilled or semiskilled positions. Dual-career respondents were defined as those married individuals who worked at least 35 hr. per week in a professional/managerial position. Of the 128 subjects, 29 were classified in this category. These respondents' spouses also worked in professional/managerial positions. The Sex-role Conflict Scale is a five-point, 17-item Likert scale which measures the conflict experienced in various settings (Chusmir & Koberg, 1986). The score was obtained by calculating the mean of the 17 items. The scale has shown acceptable factorial and construct validity and has an alpha coefficient of .94. Split-half reliability coefficients of .73 and .82 were reported for the scores of the initial and follow-up studies. A retest reliability coefficient of .96 over a 2-wk. interval indicated good temporal stability. An analysis of internal consistency reliability for this study was made separately for 101 respondents and 23 dual-career respondents; alpha was .92 for all respondents' scores and .91 for dual-career respondents' scores. Table 1 gives the means and standard deviations on the Sex-role Con-
525
PROFESSIONAL WOMEN: SEX-ROLE CONFLICT
flict Scale for all women at the three age groups. A univariate analysis of variance did not yield a statistically significant association between mean scores as the dependent variable across three age groups (F,,,,, = .47, p = .63). The sex-role conflict/age relationship in the respondents' mean scores did not deviate significantly from linearity among the three age groups. There was no difference in the sex-role conflict expressed by women age 25 yr. and below, ages 26 to 39 yr., and ages 40 yr. and over. TABLE 1
MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS BY AGE GROUP AND DUAL-CAREER GROUP FORSEX-ROLE CONFLICT SCALE s 25 yr.
Group
n
M
26 to 39 yr.
SD
n
M
2 40 yr.
SD
n
M
SD
Table 1 also gives the scale's means and standard deviations for dualcareer respondents at the three age groups. A univariate analysis of variance did not show a statistically significant difference between dual-career respondents' mean scores across three age groups (F,,,, = .41, p = .67). Women with dual-career families in each of the three age groups reported similar amounts of sex-role conflict. When neither of the analyses were significant, simple correlations and scatterplots were computed to check the relationships between the variables. These computations showed neither a linear nor curvilinear relationship between age and sex-role conflict for either all of the respondents or for the dual-career respondents.
DISCUSSION of this study was to extend external validation for the One of the Sex-role Conflict Scale. The high internal consistency found with two separate groups of subjects helps to confirm the construct validity of the Sex-role Conflict Scale. The research reported here is especially useful since this scale is relatively new and should be improved by additional studies of validation. The other goal of this study was to replicate the findings of Chusmir and Koberg (1987) by investigating the relationship between sex-role conflict and age among three different age groups of women in the field of education. The results of this study did not replicate those of the previous study. These findings extend the research to other types of samples and so are helpful in understanding more about the construct of sex-role conflict. With neither hypothesis being supported, sex-role conflict seems less evident in professional women who have educational interests in social science fields. Of interest is that the mean values of these respondents are more than
526
S. W. SOLED AND E. D. BLAIR
a full point higher than those of the respondents in Chusmir and Koberg's study. There are several empirically supported reasons why the findlngs of this study differed from those of Chusmir and Koberg. Nevill (1984) addressed various aspects of sex-role conflict in working women which supports the findings of this study. In the present sample the breakdown of professional/managerial versus nonprofessional/nonmanagerial women was 71% to 29%. Nevill alludes to the influence of occupational level on a woman's role conflict as well as a particular work setting as factors which may affect the role conflict experienced by a woman. Women have experienced more conflict between home and employment when holding a lowstatus job than when occupying a high-status one, in spite of the heavy time and pressure demand of the latter. The multiple roles of women may not necessarily lead to sex-role conflict if their needs are being met through a range of activities. While a breakdown of occupational level similar to that in this study was denoted for Chusmir and Koberg, their breakdown is provided for all subjects, not for women and men separately. Of interest would be a comparison of the occupational levels of the women in their sample with the women in the present sample. Yogev (1983) found that married professional women had positive attitudes toward their dual roles. Unlike earlier research, this study showed that professional women do not experience internal ambivalence about combining work and family. Houser and Beckman (1980) noted that women's dual-role attitude was mainly predicted by their educational attainment and current work status. Sex-role conflict was negatively related to attainment of highly educated women in jobs of high status. Bean and Wolfman (1979) examined sex-role confhct and role overload of professional women who work in educational settings. Their sample was demographically similar to the present one and data support these findings. The women were pleased with their abilities to handle multiple responsibilities, expressed self-confidence, and could explicitly describe the satisfactions which were derived from having multiple roles and responsibilities. Also, this study showed less role strain and sex-role conflict as the professional women aged rather than a nonlinear relationship with the greatest role conflict during the middle twenties and thirties. Pines and Kafry (1981) studied sex-role conflict in professional women working full time in health and human service occupations. They found that sex-role conflict existed for three generations of these professional women but no significant difference was noted between generations. It appears that Chusmir and Koberg's (1987) conclusion that there is a nonlinear relationship between sex-role conflict and age may not be supported by data from professional women who work in fields other than business.
PROFESSIONAL WOMEN: SEX-ROLE CONFLICT
527
There are limitations to the results of this study. The relatively small sample necessitates further replication before conclusions can be drawn. With 29 women meeting the criterion for classification as dual-career respondents, more may have been needed for the analysis to reach statistical significance. The subjects were mainly highly educated and working in professional/managerial positions in social service or education. Further research is needed to understand sex-role conflict of professional women who work in a variety of fields especially those other than business. The differences between the sex-role conflict scores of the business sample reported by Chusmir and Koberg and the education sample reported here warrant further exploration. Also, the influence of occupational levels has not been investigated well enough to understand women's sex-role conflict in low-status positions. Finally, this study suggests that, although sex-role conflicts are complex and the issues involved difficult, effective coping strategies can be learned. There are professional women who are effectively dealing with sex-role conflict, if it exists, in nonbusiness fields (Gray, 1983). Research on the role conflict and coping strategies of professional women in business and nonbusiness fields is suggested. REFERENCES BEAN,J. I?, & WOLFMAN,B. R. (1979) Superwoman: Ms. or myth-a study of role overload. Report to the National Institute of Education, Washington, DC. BERMAN, E., SACK,S., & LIEF,H. (1975) The two professional marriage: a new conflict syndrome. lourno1 of Sex and Marital Therapy, 1, 291-304. BEUTELL,N. J., & GREENHAUS, J. H. (1982) Interrole conflict among married women: the influence of husband and wife characteristics on contlict and coping behavior. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 21, 99-110. CHIJSMIR,L. H., & KOBERG,C. S. (1986) Development and validation of the sex role conflict scale. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 22, 397-409. CHUSMIR,L. H . , & KOBERG,C. S. (1987) Role of age in sex-role conflict. Psychological Reports, 61, 337-338. GRAY,J. D. (1983) The married professional woman: an examination of her role conflicts and coping strategies. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 7, 235-243. HALL,F. S., & HALL,D. T. (1978) Dual cweer-how do couples and companies cope with problems? Organizational Dynamics, 7, 57-77. HOUSER,B. B., & BECKMAN, L. J. (1980) Background characteristics and women's dual-role attitudes. Sex Roles, 6, 355-366. NEVILL,D. D. (1984) The meaning of work in women's Lives: role conflict, preparation, and change. The Counseling Psycho[ogist, 12, 131-133. PINES, A,, & KAFRY,D. (1981) The experience of tedium in three generations of professional women. Sex Roles, 7, 117-134. YOGEV,S. (1983) Judging the professional woman: changing research, changing values. Psychology o/ ICiomen Quarterly, 7, 219-234.
Accepted August 29, 1990.
O Psychological Reports 1990
RELATIONSHIP OF AGE A N D SEX-ROLE CONFLICT FOR PROFESSIONAL WOMEN I N HUMAN SERVICES ' SUZANNE WEGENER SOLED AND EILEEN DUFFY BLAIR University of Cincinnati Summary.-This study provides external validation of the Sex-role Conflict Scale. The relationship between age and sex-role conflict among women with educational interests was investigated. 128 female students i n education were assessed on the conflict they experienced in various settings. The mean sex-role conflict scores, although hypothesized to be significantly different, were not among women ages 25 yr. and below, ages 26 to 39 yr., and ages 40 yr. and over. Also investigated was the relationship between age and sex-role conflict in dual-career respondents. Of the 29 respondents who met the criterion for classification, mean sex-role conflict scores were not significantly different for the three age groups. The nonlinear relationship between sex-role conflict and age does not have support for professional women who work in fields other than business.
Further research examining a wider range of respondents to increase the external validity of the Sex-role Conflict Scale has been suggested. Utilizing a group of 556 persons working in a range of organizations and industries in a major western metropolitan area, Chusrnir and Koberg (1987) showed the mean sex-role conflict scores for both men and women were significantly greater at age 26 to 39 yr. than at age 40 yr. and over. The majority of these respondents held positions which were supervisory, managerial, or professional, and worked mainly in business and industrial (77.7%) areas as opposed to education and social service (22.3%) placements. This investigation employed women from different occupations with educational interest in the s o c d science fields to further external validation of the Sex-role Conf i c t Scale. Chusrnir and Koberg (1987) proposed that the time at which someone is socialized, either before, during, or after the advent of the feminist movement might influence one's sex-role conflict. The nonlinear relationship found by these researchers was expected to be noted in the population in this study, so it was hypothesized that women's sex-role conflict scores would be significantly greater among workers aged 26 to 39 yr. than among younger (25 yr. and below) and older (40 yr. and over) workers. I n addition, we investigated the relationship between age and sex-role conflict in dual-career respondents. Hall and Hall (1978) stressed the importance of dual-career couples reevaluating definitions of their own roles and 'We gratefully acknowledge the partici ation of the instructors and students in this study, and James Stevens and Patricia 0 ' ~ e d f for ~ comments on a draft of this article. Address correspondence to S. W. Soled, College of Education, U ~ v e r s i t yof Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0002.
524
S. W. SOLED AND E. D. BLAIR
spouses' roles especially since more dual-career couples have been noted to experience more sex-role conflict given daily demands at home and work. Berman, Sack, and Lief (1975) described a new conflict syndrome occurring in dual-career couples in which the husband and wife are experiencing different growth rates-two varying transitional sets of emotions, responses, and expectations during their thirties. Beutell and Greenhaus (1982) noted that more sex-role conflict occurs during the thirties than the early twenties and forties. Based on this earlier research, it was hypothesized that dual-career couples who are respondents have Sex-role Conflict Scale scores which also would have a n o d n e a r relationship with age, that is, the Sex-role Conflict Scale scores would be significantly higher among workers aged 26 to 39 yr. than among younger and older workers.
METHOD Subjects, in summer classes in a College of Education at a large urban university in the midwestern USA, were asked to participate in a research study to validate externally a sex-role conflict scale. Atl volunteered. All subjects signed a letter of informed consent. Of the 128 female subjects 46% were less than 26 yr. old, 41.4% between 26 and 39 yr., and 12.5% 40 yr. or older. Of the respondents reporting demographic information, 59% were graduate students and the other primarily upper division undergraduates. Half of the respondents worked more than 36 hr. per week, 21.3% worked 20 to 35 hr. per week, with the rest working less than 20 hr. per week. Seventy-one percent of the respondents worked in professional/rnanagerial positions with the balance in clerical, skilled or semiskilled positions. Dual-career respondents were defined as those married individuals who worked at least 35 hr. per week in a professional/managerial position. Of the 128 subjects, 29 were classified in this category. These respondents' spouses also worked in professional/managerial positions. The Sex-role Conflict Scale is a five-point, 17-item Likert scale which measures the conflict experienced in various settings (Chusmir & Koberg, 1986). The score was obtained by calculating the mean of the 17 items. The scale has shown acceptable factorial and construct validity and has an alpha coefficient of .94. Split-half reliability coefficients of .73 and .82 were reported for the scores of the initial and follow-up studies. A retest reliability coefficient of .96 over a 2-wk. interval indicated good temporal stability. An analysis of internal consistency reliability for this study was made separately for 101 respondents and 23 dual-career respondents; alpha was .92 for all respondents' scores and .91 for dual-career respondents' scores. Table 1 gives the means and standard deviations on the Sex-role Con-
525
PROFESSIONAL WOMEN: SEX-ROLE CONFLICT
flict Scale for all women at the three age groups. A univariate analysis of variance did not yield a statistically significant association between mean scores as the dependent variable across three age groups (F,,,,, = .47, p = .63). The sex-role conflict/age relationship in the respondents' mean scores did not deviate significantly from linearity among the three age groups. There was no difference in the sex-role conflict expressed by women age 25 yr. and below, ages 26 to 39 yr., and ages 40 yr. and over. TABLE 1
MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS BY AGE GROUP AND DUAL-CAREER GROUP FORSEX-ROLE CONFLICT SCALE s 25 yr.
Group
n
M
26 to 39 yr.
SD
n
M
2 40 yr.
SD
n
M
SD
Table 1 also gives the scale's means and standard deviations for dualcareer respondents at the three age groups. A univariate analysis of variance did not show a statistically significant difference between dual-career respondents' mean scores across three age groups (F,,,, = .41, p = .67). Women with dual-career families in each of the three age groups reported similar amounts of sex-role conflict. When neither of the analyses were significant, simple correlations and scatterplots were computed to check the relationships between the variables. These computations showed neither a linear nor curvilinear relationship between age and sex-role conflict for either all of the respondents or for the dual-career respondents.
DISCUSSION of this study was to extend external validation for the One of the Sex-role Conflict Scale. The high internal consistency found with two separate groups of subjects helps to confirm the construct validity of the Sex-role Conflict Scale. The research reported here is especially useful since this scale is relatively new and should be improved by additional studies of validation. The other goal of this study was to replicate the findings of Chusmir and Koberg (1987) by investigating the relationship between sex-role conflict and age among three different age groups of women in the field of education. The results of this study did not replicate those of the previous study. These findings extend the research to other types of samples and so are helpful in understanding more about the construct of sex-role conflict. With neither hypothesis being supported, sex-role conflict seems less evident in professional women who have educational interests in social science fields. Of interest is that the mean values of these respondents are more than
526
S. W. SOLED AND E. D. BLAIR
a full point higher than those of the respondents in Chusmir and Koberg's study. There are several empirically supported reasons why the findlngs of this study differed from those of Chusmir and Koberg. Nevill (1984) addressed various aspects of sex-role conflict in working women which supports the findings of this study. In the present sample the breakdown of professional/managerial versus nonprofessional/nonmanagerial women was 71% to 29%. Nevill alludes to the influence of occupational level on a woman's role conflict as well as a particular work setting as factors which may affect the role conflict experienced by a woman. Women have experienced more conflict between home and employment when holding a lowstatus job than when occupying a high-status one, in spite of the heavy time and pressure demand of the latter. The multiple roles of women may not necessarily lead to sex-role conflict if their needs are being met through a range of activities. While a breakdown of occupational level similar to that in this study was denoted for Chusmir and Koberg, their breakdown is provided for all subjects, not for women and men separately. Of interest would be a comparison of the occupational levels of the women in their sample with the women in the present sample. Yogev (1983) found that married professional women had positive attitudes toward their dual roles. Unlike earlier research, this study showed that professional women do not experience internal ambivalence about combining work and family. Houser and Beckman (1980) noted that women's dual-role attitude was mainly predicted by their educational attainment and current work status. Sex-role conflict was negatively related to attainment of highly educated women in jobs of high status. Bean and Wolfman (1979) examined sex-role confhct and role overload of professional women who work in educational settings. Their sample was demographically similar to the present one and data support these findings. The women were pleased with their abilities to handle multiple responsibilities, expressed self-confidence, and could explicitly describe the satisfactions which were derived from having multiple roles and responsibilities. Also, this study showed less role strain and sex-role conflict as the professional women aged rather than a nonlinear relationship with the greatest role conflict during the middle twenties and thirties. Pines and Kafry (1981) studied sex-role conflict in professional women working full time in health and human service occupations. They found that sex-role conflict existed for three generations of these professional women but no significant difference was noted between generations. It appears that Chusmir and Koberg's (1987) conclusion that there is a nonlinear relationship between sex-role conflict and age may not be supported by data from professional women who work in fields other than business.
PROFESSIONAL WOMEN: SEX-ROLE CONFLICT
527
There are limitations to the results of this study. The relatively small sample necessitates further replication before conclusions can be drawn. With 29 women meeting the criterion for classification as dual-career respondents, more may have been needed for the analysis to reach statistical significance. The subjects were mainly highly educated and working in professional/managerial positions in social service or education. Further research is needed to understand sex-role conflict of professional women who work in a variety of fields especially those other than business. The differences between the sex-role conflict scores of the business sample reported by Chusmir and Koberg and the education sample reported here warrant further exploration. Also, the influence of occupational levels has not been investigated well enough to understand women's sex-role conflict in low-status positions. Finally, this study suggests that, although sex-role conflicts are complex and the issues involved difficult, effective coping strategies can be learned. There are professional women who are effectively dealing with sex-role conflict, if it exists, in nonbusiness fields (Gray, 1983). Research on the role conflict and coping strategies of professional women in business and nonbusiness fields is suggested. REFERENCES BEAN,J. I?, & WOLFMAN,B. R. (1979) Superwoman: Ms. or myth-a study of role overload. Report to the National Institute of Education, Washington, DC. BERMAN, E., SACK,S., & LIEF,H. (1975) The two professional marriage: a new conflict syndrome. lourno1 of Sex and Marital Therapy, 1, 291-304. BEUTELL,N. J., & GREENHAUS, J. H. (1982) Interrole conflict among married women: the influence of husband and wife characteristics on contlict and coping behavior. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 21, 99-110. CHIJSMIR,L. H., & KOBERG,C. S. (1986) Development and validation of the sex role conflict scale. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 22, 397-409. CHUSMIR,L. H . , & KOBERG,C. S. (1987) Role of age in sex-role conflict. Psychological Reports, 61, 337-338. GRAY,J. D. (1983) The married professional woman: an examination of her role conflicts and coping strategies. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 7, 235-243. HALL,F. S., & HALL,D. T. (1978) Dual cweer-how do couples and companies cope with problems? Organizational Dynamics, 7, 57-77. HOUSER,B. B., & BECKMAN, L. J. (1980) Background characteristics and women's dual-role attitudes. Sex Roles, 6, 355-366. NEVILL,D. D. (1984) The meaning of work in women's Lives: role conflict, preparation, and change. The Counseling Psycho[ogist, 12, 131-133. PINES, A,, & KAFRY,D. (1981) The experience of tedium in three generations of professional women. Sex Roles, 7, 117-134. YOGEV,S. (1983) Judging the professional woman: changing research, changing values. Psychology o/ ICiomen Quarterly, 7, 219-234.
Accepted August 29, 1990.
