Studies of predominantly White samples have shown that perceived underemployment (the sense that one’s job requires less expertise or capability than one has) is related to lower levels of career achievement, as well as poorer physical and mental health and relationship quality. A study by Xiaoran Sun, Susan McHale, and Ann Crouter, published in the January 2020 issue of Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, extended this work to investigate the cross-time associations between African American mothers’ and fathers’ perceived underemployment and their couple relationships.
Research on labor force involvement has shown that African Americans are more likely to experience underemployment. Likewise, as a group, African Americans are more likely to experience marital difficulties — which can negatively affect their own health as well as their parenting practices and their children’s psychological health.
Together, these observations led the investigators to test whether and how African American parents’ perceptions of underemployment predicted their couple relationship quality 2 years later. The study relied on information provided by parents in 164 African American dual-earner couples, who were interviewed on two occasions across 2 years.
The analyses tested whether each parent’s perceptions of underemployment predicted both their own and their partner’s evaluations of the couple relationship. The analyses also tested whether parents’ depressive symptoms, long work hours, or expressive personality qualities such as empathy and sensitivity strengthened or weakened the associations between underemployment and couple relationships.
Results revealed different patterns for mothers versus fathers.
Fathers’ underemployment perceptions had generally negative effects on their own reports of love and satisfaction with how they worked as a couple in their parenting roles (i.e., coparenting satisfaction). Fathers with more depressive symptoms were even more vulnerable to the negative effect of underemployment perceptions on their relational love.
Perceived underemployment also negatively predicted mothers’ love and coparenting satisfaction — except when mothers were high in expressive, other-oriented personality characteristics. It may be that more sensitive women are more understanding of their partners’ needs and feelings and thus better able to provide support when their partners face stressors like underemployment.
For mothers, contrary to predictions, perceived underemployment predicted higher levels of love, but only for mothers who worked fewer hours. It may be that underemployment is not a stressor for mothers who work part time; instead, it may benefit their couple relationship — at least in the dual-earner families that were studied.
Negative effects of perceived underemployment did, however, emerge for mothers with more expressive personalities, also in contrast to the study hypothesis. Although mothers’ expressivity protected their partners from negative effects of their perceived underemployment, the same socially sensitive characteristics seemed to put mothers at risk of succumbing to the negative effects of their own underemployment perceptions.
Also different from the effects of fathers’ underemployment, mothers’ underemployment had no effects on their partners’ couple relationship reports — consistent with prior work showing that men are less responsive than women to the emotions of their partners.
Findings from this study advance understanding of the implications of underemployment for African American parents’ couple relationships. They also suggest the importance of investing resources to reduce underemployment as well as unemployment.
The results also highlight the role of forces outside the family, namely labor force conditions, in African American couple relationships — a key issue for this sociocultural group whose marital relationships are vulnerable to disruption.
Citation
Sun, X., McHale, S. M., & Crouter, A. C. (2020). Perceived underemployment and couple relationships among African American parents: A dyadic approach. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 26(1), 82–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000285
Note: This article is in the Social Psychology and Social Processes topic area. View more articles in the Social Psychology and Social Processes topic area.