Making It as a Dual-Career Family in Germany: Exploring What Couples Think and Do in Everyday Life

Abstract

This qualitative-explorative article is about meanings and coordination of work, home, and their interrelationship in dual-career families. The study was conducted in a German company by interviewing couples working at the production level, in research and development, middle management, and administration. Data were gathered in narrative interviews and 1-week journals filled out by each interview partner. The results confirm four observations: persistence to traditional gender roles, the indispensable role of grandmothers in enabling mothers to pursue gainful employment, the prevalence of part-time work for mothers, and the “spillover” thesis, indicating that it is predominantly work that spills over into family rather than family that intrudes into work. In the discussion the German social system is included as an explanatory approach to these findings.

KEYWORDS:

• dual career
• family
• Germany
• marriage
• work

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank Gertraud Koch and Tony Waters for support in doing research for this article as well as the company and its employees who participated in the study.