Aleksandra Peplińska, Natalia Czap-Kubicka, Piotr Połomski, Aleksandra Lewandowska- Walter Level of role conflict between partners in dual-career couples and a sense of purpose in life. Mediating role of stress and satisfaction with one’s achievements

Abstrakt

As different areas of life and an individual’s life roles undergo transformation and intermingle increasingly, the ways that people get married and start up families change as well. A dual-career marriage is a modern family model, within which both spouses realize, on the one hand, broadly defined professional careers under conditions of competitive job market and competitive forms of employment, often occupying managerial positions; and life careers on the other hand, those related to family, marital roles, housekeeping and earning the livelihood.
As compared with traditional models and egalitarian partnerships, a dual-career marriage involves more sacrifices and threats, but can also provide many benefits. In the study it was attempted to make inquiries in that matter, rooted in our wish to examine this specific link between dual-career couples and a subjective sense of partners’ quality of life, particularly in the aspect of its meaning – as compared with that of spouses in traditional marriages and egalitarian partnerships. Then a more detailed purpose of this study was to verify whether satisfaction with one’s own achievements in partners of a dual-career marriage, both in their professional and extraprofessional life, together with the level of experienced stress are possible significant factors influencing the relation between role conflict and a reported level
of sense of purpose in life. The study was conducted during 2013-2014 and involved examining a total of 150 couples in dual-career marriages (300 participants), i.e. relationships within which both partners realized their professional career in the competitive job market, oftentimes they occupied managerial posts and reconciled professional life with the role of a parent.