Planning ahead: College seniors concerns about career-marriage conflict

Career–marriage conflict (CMC) reflects the reality that for many college seniors, the next decade oftheir lives will be spent launching a career, of ten a very demanding one, building a long-term romantic relationship, and coordinating the demands oftwo careers. We f on the antecedents and correlates ofthese concerns. Based on social-role theory, we hypothesized that seniors whose mothers worked outside the home while the seniors were children would express less concern about CMC than seniors with at-home mothers. We also hypothesized that seniors expectations about the timing oftheir marriages and childbearing relate to their concerns about CMC, with students who plan to delay family formation having fewer CMC concerns. These hypotheses were supported through an analysis ofsecondary data f rom a

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