Equal Partners? : How Dual-Professional Couples Make Career, Relationship, and Family Decisions

Many young professionals seek egalitarian partnerships in which both partners work for pay and share unpaid housework and childcare. Yet working couples' realities often deviate from this ideal, with women trading off employment for family care. Will contemporary young adults repeat this pattern, or will they come closer to achieving equality in work and family? __Equal Partners?__ seeks to explore this question. Drawing on six years of interviews with the partners in twenty-one different-gender couples, Jaclyn S. Wong documents how supportive workplaces, partners' steadfast gender-egalitarian attitudes, and partners' jointly coordinated actions all need to come together for couples to experience gender equality in work and family. This book offers a compelling study of the dynamics of couples in ambitious partnerships who aspire to equality as they navigate the external pressures that come with life planning. "Many young professionals seek egalitarian partnerships in which both partners work for pay and share unpaid housework and childcare. Yet working couples' realities often deviate from this ideal, with women trading off employment for family care. Will contemporary young adults repeat this pattern, or will they come closer to achieving equality in work and family? Equal Partners? seeks to explore this question. Drawing on six years of interviews with the partners of 21 different-gender couples, Jaclyn Wong documents how supportive workplaces, partners' steadfast gender-egalitarian attitudes, and partners' jointly coordinated actions all need to come together for couples to experience gender equality in work and family. The book offers a compelling study of the dynamics of couples who aspire to equality while navigating the external pressures that come with life planning in ambitious partnerships"-- Provided by publisher