Work Experience and Family Life

The time-honored assumption that a link exists between the family system and the economic order is hardly a controversial one, and few authorities would question the more specific proposition that family stability in contemporary American society bears a relationship to the occupational prospects of the household head.¹ In times past, the family was generally an economic unity, and its members were integrated by virtue of the fact that they shared a number of work activities. Although the postindustrial family is no longer a work unit, it is still very much an economic entity. For example, the occupational status of the household head determines the social status of his or her family. Moreover, the family is still organized around an economic activity—consumption. The consumption of resources provides a kind of integration of the family and an arena for exchanging economic benefits for psychological rewards.²