Sex Roles, Vol. 45, Nos. 7/8, October 2001 f 0 2002) Attitudes Towards Work and Family Roles and Their Implications for Career Growth of Women: A Report From India Deepti Bhatnagar^ Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad Ujvala Rajadhyaksha Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay This paper explored attitudes towards work and family roles of professional men and women in India. Ninety-two husband-wife pairs from salaried, upper middle class, dual-career families in India participated in the study. Propo- sitions based on adult development theories of men and women, regarding reward value derived from and commitment made to occupational, parental, marital, and homemaker roles over the life cycle, were tested. Results indi- cated that there was no change with age, in attitudes towards occupational and homemaker roles. Instead, gender-based differences in attitudes towards these roles were observed. Attitudes towards the marital and parental role varied across the life cycle, although not in keeping with propositions based on the adult development theories of men and women. There was no reversal in atti- tudes towards work and family roles of men and women after midlife. Rather, some reversal in attitudes appeared to occur between the marital and parental role, over the life span of both men and women. Results are reviewed within the Indian cultural context and their implications for the career development of women are discussed. KEY WORDS: family roles; Indian culture; career development. 'To whom correspondence should be addressed at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India. 549 0360-0025/01/1000-0549/0 (D 2002 Plenum Publishing Corporalion