Dilemmas and Contradictions of Status: The Case of the Dual-Career Family

Abstract

This essay examines dilemmas and contradictions of status generated by two careers combined in a single nuclear family. Drawing upon Hughes' (1945) observation that achievement in American society is heavily conditioned by attributes of membership in racial, ethnic, and sex categories, and Papanek's (1973) analysis of the auxiliary role of the wife in the husband's career, this essay attempts to show that a career is not an individual phenomenon. Rather, it is a lifestyle based on status-group membership and position within the family. The advocacy of dual-career families, it is argued, recognizes the barrier the family creates for women's personal achievement, but has failed to assess adequately the supportive role of the family in the personal achievement of men. Such an approach seeks to solve women's status problems without providing women, or their dual-career spouses, with the family-conditioned auxiliary dimensions of status necessary for their assimilation and success in the career market.