This study examines the effects of interaction with different types of role partners on the emotional well-being (morale) of older persons, and the extent to which these effects are mediated by subjective feelings of social integration (loneliness). Hypotheses regarding the differential effects of friendship and kinship on these emotional states are developed and tested on a sample of 2872 respondents aged 55 and over. Consistent with the hypotheses, loneliness has a major negative effect on morale, and transmits large proportions of the effects of social integration measures. Feelings of loneliness are reduced, and morale increased, by interaction with friends and, to a lesser extent, neighbors. Interaction with children and grandchildren has no such effects.

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Using a representative sample of married couples with preschool-aged children in the United States, this study analyzes the conditions under which husbands share household tasks conventionally performed by wives. Survey data are analyzed using LISREL VII procedures, with proportional hourly contributions to child care (feeding, bathing, dressing, or putting child to bed) and housework (housecleaning, shopping, cooking, meal cleanup or laundry) treated as conceptually distinct dependent variables. Husbands perform an average of 26 percent of the child care and 21 percent of the housework and contribute more to both child care and housework if they are employed fewer hours than their wives. For housework, couples share more if wives earn a larger share of the family income, have more education, and hold more favorable attitudes toward maternal employment. For preschool-aged child care, couples share more if they have more and older children and husbands hold more favorable attitudes toward maternal employment. Theoretical explanations for the observed findings are discussed; we advocate modeling and measuring child care and housework as distinct, but interrelated activities.

Using data from a nationally representative sample, this research investigated husbands' contributions to household labor in four types of families: first-married couples with biological children, remarried couples with biological children only, remarried couples with stepchildren only, and remarried couples with biological and stepchildren. Absolute and relative contributions to total household labor did not differ significantly across family types, but husbands in remarried families contributed significantly more to the five housework tasks of cooking, meal cleanup, shopping, laundry, and housecleaning. Multiple regression analysis confirmed that the influence of family type on the sharing of gender-typed housework is significant after controlling for the impact of relative resources, ideology, time availability, and household work load. The authors suggest that the “incomplete institutionalization” of remarriage may contribute to a weakening of the gender-based segregation of household labor.