Work and family: communicative actions and interactions in employed women's management of dual roles

Abstract

Recent changes in American families have resulted in an influx of mothers entering the workforce. Research has addressed work and family issues by exploring the challenges people experience in their daily routines and social interactions. Medved (2004) explores married women's micro-practices in ordinary, everyday life to provide an understanding of how women negotiate work and family. This research extends Medved's work, by examining the micro-practices of employed mothers without domestic partners. This study employs conversational interviewing as a means of data gathering and an analysis technique focused on identifying routines or micro-practices in daily interaction. This research explores three issues: how women account for the accomplishment of work and family, how women interpret or understand their actions and interactions, and the forms of personal and emotional support they identify. The women who participated in this research accounted for their management of work and family in terms of two broad categories of routines: communicative practical actions and individual practical actions. The women's understandings of their actions and interactions were examined in terms of accountings they provided in discussing their daily routines and social interactions. The women identified forms of personal and emotional support unique to their situations as mothers without domestic partners.