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Dual‐career families were first identified and discussed by British
researchers but subsequent research has been predominantly American.
This article first discusses the social context for couples combining
careers and family in Britain. It then addresses the questions of
whether gender roles within the family, and employers′ expectations are
changing with the growth of dual‐career families. It concludes that
change is slow to occur and that changes in work and family are
interdependent. Implications for further organisational change are
briefly discussed.

After the traumatic experiences of World War II the Japanese people underwent radical changes in all spheres of their lives. The family, in consequence, has changed dramatically in its structure, functions, and the pattern of interpersonal relationships. The present article attempts to analyze the changing pattern of the decision-making process and the division of labor in contemporary urban families. The focus of attention was placed on the clarification of the differences between the internal structure of the "working wife" and the "non-working wife" families. During the summer of 1965 intensive interviews were conducted among 60 families of primary school teachers in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Three major findings emerged. First, in the nonworking wife families the traditional gender role identifications were clearly observed between husband and wife, whereas in the working wife families husband and wife tend to cooperate for the family management. Secondly, being financially powerless, these nonworking wives tend to be more dependent on husbands than the working wives during the final decision-making processes, especially in the case of important financial decisions. Thirdly, the social experiences of working wives contributed significantly to the enhancement of their consciousness, freedom of thought and independent- mindedness. The urban families could be divided into two types: the "division of labor-type-companionship family" where the wife does not participate in the labor force, and the "cooperation in labor-type companionship family" in dual-career families. Now that the development of capitalism has resulted in a striking increase in the number of married women in the labor force, the "cooperation in labor-type-companionship family" is one of the dominant features of the modern urban family. The growing popularity of dual-career families would certainly contribute to the gradual improvement of the internal structure of urban families.

Research on the dual-career family is identifying strains and costs particular to women who are attempting to balance the two roles of career and family. Counseling and associated research have not, as yet, provided knowledge that would lead to the more effective counseling of women in dual career families. Using wives in the second phase of a longitudinal study of 53 dual career couples, this study inductively derives a set of dual-career scales useful for counseling: family and career interface, personal satisfaction with trend setting, career support of the traditional wife-mother role, trend breaking, trend maintenance, and compensatory factors. All met stringent reliability analyses and S form Guttman scales that allow for the internal ordering of subareas from least difficult to most difficult. These subareas in the Guttman scales provide a quantitative base for identifying in detail areas to counsel and which areas must be counseled first before other diagnosed problem areas can be coped with.

This study examined the gender differences in how self-esteem and sense of competence moderate the relationships between four specific work variables and job satisfaction among members of dual-career families. Based on the gender differences found among a sample of 85 couples in dual-career families, it is conjectured that women with high self-esteem and sense of competence might be experiencing tensions because of an excessive role overload and hence experience lower levels of job satisfaction. Suggestions are made for organizations and family members to enhance the quality of life of both working partners.