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How
"Keeping up With The Joneses" Can Add to Work/Life Stress
Knowledge at Emory
Aug. 14, 2002
What are the many variables that drive the American workforce? Is
it simply the need for all of life's many necessities, such as a
warm home, health care, food, and clothing? Or are employees more
motivated by the desire to "keep up with the Joneses?"
Ultimately, the related stresses and strains associated with balancing
home life and career pursuits remain as a source of major debate
and consternation for Americans. Do the psychological and social
stresses related to this push for the American dream make for better
or worse employees?
As surprising as it may sound, the study of anthropology could provide
some of the answers to these vexing work/life questions. According
to Carol M. Worthman, director
of Emory University's Laboratory for Comparative Human Biology and
a professor in the Department of Anthropology there, a biocultural
study of the intersection of work and family life can offer a window
into the relative factors influencing personal well-being, and alternately,
individual stress.
While Worthman notes that researchers have previously analyzed the
health effects of work/life stress, including epidemiological research
on cardiological problems and the like, little data exists on the
psychosocial variables related to work and family life, particularly
as it relates to the attainment of a middle or upper-class lifestyle.
An analysis of personal goals and desires, and their effect on individual
behavior and health, could provide vital information to Corporate
America, as it looks for ways to effectively manage and retain employees.
Worthman adds, "For your employees, you need to understand
the variables impacting their priorities. Ultimately, it will help
business learn how to motivate people, by creating work/life synergies."
Working under the auspices of the Emory
Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life, Worthman
explores the interesting cross-section of biological, cultural and
psychosocial dynamics in work and family life. She and her colleagues,
Jason A. DeCaro and Ryan Brown,
both doctoral students in Emory's Department of Anthropology, elaborate
on the subject in their paper titled "Cultural Consensus Approaches
to the Study of American Family Life." The study focuses on
personal interpretations of what it means to have a satisfying and
successful personal and professional life.
DeCaro admits that the trio's work in this realm of biocultural
anthropology treads on relatively new research terrain. "Part
of the problem has been that anthropology has only recently begun
to seriously engage questions of interest to Americans and American
culture," he says. "There was this long-standing field
wide bias, favoring doing work overseas. While it is certainly not
the case that anthropologists have never looked at work/life issues,
I think as that question is framed by people in the business community,
it has only very recently become something that anthropologists
have focused their attention on." But while DeCaro notes examining
the more "commonplace daily rituals of life" as an anthropological
endeavor may sound bizarre, it can provide an interesting window
into the dynamic that pushes people to work.
In this preliminary paper, part of a continuing research effort,
the authors instructed three families from Atlanta, Georgia, to
keep a weeklong record of family life, listing all of their activities
in 15-minute time blocks, including such things as childcare use
to time spent watching television. These families were also participants
in interviews, assessing their personal and family life goals and
circumstances derailing those efforts. The authors use "culturally-relevant
concepts and vocabularies," garnered from parallel research,
to assess the families in this study. Such concepts of "economic
security, lifestyle, ownership of certain consumer goods, conspicuous
consumption, and other sources of value" become central to
the paper.
The conventional wisdom prevails that American employees function
better at work, if their home life is a happy one. Others argue
that the converse is true, and that a fulfilling and profitable
work environment contributes to well being. In fact, the authors'
results note one family benefited from reduced stress levels by
having flexible work circumstances, allowing the mother and father
to care for their small children. (In the study, the father was
self-employed, while the mother had summers off to take care of
her offspring.) One family without adequate social support or backup
for childcare (that is, no relatives in the area) experienced increased
stress levels. Certainly, individual goals, varying from family
to family, affect whether or not professional or personal goals
become paramount.
Other items of study in the paper included the breakdown of family
roles by gender, childcare responsibilities in and out of the home,
and the stresses related to these issues. The trio also gathered
more subjective measurements on personal life goal achievement or
derailment, in employment, home ownership and the like. Discrimination,
chance occurrence and life course changes were a few of the reasons
listed for derailment of desired goals. In analyzing the accepted
norms associated with a good middle-class lifestyle, the researchers
noted certain trends emerging. The study participants cited security
and safety of their children (in and out of childcare), decent housing,
quality family time and good schools as overwhelming considerations.
The trio employed two evolving and innovative approaches in their
research. The first approach, a more psychobiological one, targeted
the subjective family experience and its roll in creating stress
and/or personal satisfaction. Secondly, the researchers focused
on the individual values and behaviors of the family members, in
order to determine "local, personal and interpersonal meaning,
particularly in relation to relative social status."
One of the more compelling pieces of the researchers' findings involved
the notion that some of the stresses and strains of work/life come
about in the pursuit of the "good life," and that the
choices related to this pursuit are not always simply about providing
for the family as much as retaining a place in this "social
milieu." The paper states, "We call these individual locations
in the social milieu "positionality," reflecting how individuals
negotiate the affordances and constraints embedded in the socioecological
environment, and how they manipulate and interpret networks of meaning
to their own benefit (or detriment)." In other words, they
analyzed how people measure their personal achievements and material
wealth against their neighbors, peers and other sundry associates
--- the so-called "keeping up with the Joneses" factor.
Lifestyle is described as "a nebulous but omnipresent concept
that signifies the set of material and social conditions, activities,
and constraints (or lack thereof) that define the architecture and
furnishings of everyday life." Hedonism, emotion and aesthetics
all play into the attainment of this lifestyle. Worthman adds, "To
understand how American culture shapes the stresses in the workplace,
we need to understand these individual goals. We have to identify
the key elements of why people are doing what they are doing."
Living up to this accepted norm brings along associated anxieties
and pressures. Worthman adds, "Americans often relate morality
and striving up the socio-economic scale. The harder you work, the
more you justify moving up the social strata. But in the process,
there is some acceptance of suffering, as you rise. We equate the
overwork and the fatigue with the rise, and the related stresses
and strains, and agree that it's all acceptable."
However, this cultural model of social advancement and the stress
of achievement are belied by the epidemiological evidence, even
within the middle class, with longer life expectancy and better
health correlated with increasing social and economic status. Nonetheless,
the perception of stress remains a very real factor for the families
involved in the study. However, for those with more affluent lifestyles
and strong family networks, money and personal support act as a
buffer or protective force against the daily stresses of life.
While the dilemma of work and life conflicts appear to be the source
of constant debate, the authors hope their continuing research will
shed light on the overwhelming factors affecting the "material,
emotional, and moral economy" of daily life for working families.
DeCaro adds, "This is definitely something that is a part of
the popular vocabulary --- this work/life balance. People are actively
concerned about it. You could argue that business accommodations
alone could never resolve this conflict, as it has to do with the
way that people arrange and perceive their life and lifestyle, in
many cases."
Nonetheless, companies today have become keenly aware of how the
life of their employees impacts on worker productivity. So, the
study of the intersection of work and family life goals and stresses
becomes critical to corporate management. Worthman says, "It's
now not just a look at the physical or health outcomes anymore.
But, it is also an analysis of the social outcomes. For example,
how does workplace stress and risk for depression initially come
about, and how do these things spill over at home? This all translates
back to work." By looking at what makes people tick, businesses
may get a better understanding of the practices necessary to groom
better employees.
All materials copyright of the Goizueta Business School of Emory
University or the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
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