Dual-Earner Chicano Families, 1980

The purpose of the study was to correct for omissions in previous studies of dual-career minority families, as well as to examine how gender, employment, and cultural ideals combine to influence life in Latino families. Between 1987 and 1992, twenty dual-earner Chicano couples from southern California were selected using a snowball sampling technique. All couples in the study had at least one child four years or older, but no children high school aged or beyond. The couples had been married an average of 13 years at the time of data collection and had one to four children. Both parents were employed; all husbands and most wives worked at least 40 hours per week. The sample was drawn from a range of middle class families; median family income was $53,000. The sample was relatively well-educated compared to Mexican American dual-earners couples in general. Tape recorded interviews were held separately for husband and wife, often simultaneously in separate rooms. The interviews typically lasted two hours. They covered such topics as division of household labor, who set the standards for housework and childcare, who initiated household labor, spouses' perceptions of how the work was divided, extended family relations, and ethnic identity. The researchers also collected detailed data on housework and child care by asking each parent to sort cards listing various household and child care tasks according to who had performed each of the 64 tasks in the previous two weeks. The Murray Research Archive holds numeric file data, the original questionnaires completed by the couples, and partial transcripts of the interviews.