Working Couples Make Time for Their Families

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ABOUT THREE-QUARTERS OF middle-income, dual-earner couples in a study in upstate New York--and almost all of those couples raising children-"resist the demands of a greedy workplace" by scaling back their work commitments for the sake of their families and to have more discretionary time, according to a new study.

But the ways husbands and wives mesh work and family differ. The researchers found, for example, that even though most couples consider husbands and wives to be "equal," twice as many women as men report putting limits on their work commitments.

The result: a "neotraditional" arrangement with the husband's career the primary one in the family. This scaling back "works" in terms of making it feasible to manage two paid jobs along with the "job" at …