She Works/He Works: How Two-Income Families Are Happier, Healthier, and Better-Off

Based upon a study of 300 full-time employed, dual-income couples, She Works/He Works shows that despite warnings that children need the full-time attention of a parent, working families are flourishing. While some conservatives would go back to man as breadwinner and woman as homemaker, Barnett's studies show that employed wives are not as depressed as were the fabled wives of the 1950s and that children do not suffer when both parents are employed. Furthermore, if one partner loses a job, it is less stressful to the family than if only one person had been working. Barnett and Rivers argue that couples who share household and child rearing responsibilities are actually healthier than those who espouse "traditional" family dynamics.