Trajectories of Multiple Work and Family Roles and Their Effects on Mortality

Jessica M. Sautter, Duke University

Research has demonstrated that occupancy of core work and family (spouse, parent, and caregiver) roles affects health and mortality. Role enhancement theory states that holding multiple work and family roles benefit health through social integration and satisfaction, while role strain theory states that managing multiple roles harms health through time conflict and stress. I argue that analyses should model trajectories of multiple role occupancy and explicitly consider the above mechanisms, including role-specific stress, satisfaction, salience, and time use. I analyze four waves of the Americans’ Changing Lives Survey, a nationally representative survey of Americans age 25 and older, with mortality tracking through 2005 via the National Death Index. I use survival analysis methods to examine (1) how number of work and family roles is related to mortality, and (2) how role characteristics may mediate or moderate the relationship between multiple social roles and mortality.