Person. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUT in&id. D[f/: Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 487499, 1997 (c 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain zyxwvutsrqpon PII: SO191-8869(97)00047-O 0191-X869/97 $17.00+0.00 WORK AND FAMILY ROLES IN RELATION TO WOMEN’S WELL-BEING: THE ROLE OF NEGATIVE AFFECTIVITY Noraini M. Noor Department of Psychology, International Islamic University, P.O. Box 70, Jalan Sultan, 46700 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia (Received 2 July 1996; receivedfor publication 20 March 1997) Summary-Negative affectivity (NA), a trait that emphasizes negative aspects of the environment, has been shown to have both direct and confound effects on the stressor-strain relationship. Lately, this confound role of NA has attracted much attention, and calls have been made for self-report studies to incorporate NA as a control. As previous studies of women’s roles and well-being have not considered the influence of NA in their models, the present study aims to examine (i) the extent to which NA acts as a confound, and (ii) other possible roles of NA in the relationship between women’s roles and well-being (e.g. NA having a direct effect, NA as a moderator or mediator). In a sample of 145 employed and non- employed women, results from regression analyses showed that NA had direct effects on well-being, and also acted as a partial confound for symptoms of both distress and happiness. NA inflated the relationship between certain role variables and distress symptoms, but was found to underestimate the influence of certain role variables in predicting happiness. Neither the moderator role nor the mediator role of NA was observed. These findings are discussed with respect to recent work in the stress literature. 0 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd Keywords: Work and family; women’s well-being; distress; happiness; negative affectivity. INTRODUCTION The twentieth century saw the advent of women into the paid labour force. They entered the labour force in response to economic pressures, better opportunities in education, lower birth-rates, increases in life expectancy, and a growing social acceptance of dual-earner families. Since then, the increase of women into the labour force has been dramatic. In England, the number of married women going out to work over the past 20 yr (1971-1990) has increased from 50% to 70%. This increase is even more rapid for those in the 3544 age group (the age group most likely to have young children), where the corresponding figures are 45% and 75% (Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, UK, 1991). This rapid increase of married women with young children has raised several concerns, notably the effects of occupying work and family roles simultaneously on their mental health (e.g. Barnett, Marshall & Singer, 1992). This concern comes about because even when they are employed, women are still primarily responsible for the home and the children. Thus, women now have to balance the demands arising not only from within their family roles, but also those associated with the work role. Research examining the effects of role occupancy on mental health has shown that employed women report better mental health than women who are not employed (e.g. Aneshensel & Pearlin, 1987; Baruch, Biener & Barnett, 1987). Having children is not related to increased well-being (e.g. McLanahan & Adams, 1987; Noor, 1994; Ross, Mirowsky & Goldsteen, 1990). For marriage, the evidence is mixed. There are studies that have shown married women to report better mental health than those who are not married (e.g. Verbrugge, 1987). On the other hand, others have found that single women do better than married women (e.g. Jennings, Mazaik & McKinlay, 1984). There are also other studies that have reported little or no effect of marital status on mental health (e.g. Baruch and Barnett, 1986; Gigy, 1980). Exposure to role stressors, however, cannot be predicted solely on the basis of role occupancy. More recent studies of women’s roles and those of dual-earner families have shown that the quality of experiences within and between roles is a better predictor of women’s health than role occupancy per se (Bolger et al., 1990; Emmons et al., 1990; Noor, 1995; Phelan et al., 1991). With respect to the relationship between role experience and mental health, findings indicate that women who report 487