Women, Work and Family: Emerging Data Involving Frequent Work Travel Erin KostinaRitchey, NaYeon Lee

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Women, Work and Family Emerging Data Involving
Frequent Work TravelErin Kostina-Ritchey, NaYeon
Lee, Anisa M. Zvonkovic, Sara L. DoddTexas
Tech University
 a1Need references here
Sampling Matix Case Study
Purpose of the Research Nearly 1 in 3 American
workers travel frequently for their jobs.
However, the effects of this travel on the
workers health and family have not received
focused attention by researchers. Using multiple
research methods, this project explores important
interactions and associations between the
work-related travel experience and personal and
family health and well-being.

• Sampling
• Employees from a wide variety of private and
  public sector organizations and industries will
  be sampled in order to draw meaningful contrasts
  between different policies, procedures, and
  cultures.
• We are particularly seeking a representative
  balance between traveler groups
• Women and men
• Families with and without children
• Industrial categories (e.g., financial, health
  care, non profit, transportation, retail, etc).
• Occupational levels (e.g., professional,
  technical, management, sales, etc).

• Abstract
• Research focusing on work and family life can be
  traced to social concerns about parental
  employment and its potential effects on the well
  being of children. Today, the majority of
  two-parent households include dual earner
  parents. The effects of parental employment on
  child well being have been found to be complex,
  and to a large extent mediated through
  parent-child processes, such as parental
  monitoring, communication, and the everyday work
  of caring and scheduling (Barnett, 1994
  Perry-Jenkins, Repetti, Crouter, 2000
  Perry-Jenkins, Turner, 2004 Strandins,
  Clements, Korda, Broom, DSouza, 2006
  Zvonkovic, Solomon, Humble, Manoogian, 2005).  
• Scholarly attention has begun to shed light on
  how high levels of work demands, perhaps
  associated with the rapid pace of contemporary
  culture, might take a toll on personal life and
  family relationships. One area worthy of
  investigation is the increase in the number of
  people whose jobs require them to travel
  overnight away from their family frequently. For
  women the effect of travel demands can be felt
  whether they are the traveler or the spouse of a
  frequent traveler, and whether children are or
  are not present in the home.
• Based on emerging research from a National
  Institutes of Health (NIH) four year grant to the
  Work-Travel-Family Project, this poster considers
  questions surrounding job satisfaction for women
  who are frequent overnight travelers, how travel
  schedules (number of trips and length of trips)
  play a role not only in job satisfaction but also
  in personal and family changes. Specifically,
  the effects of scheduling will be investigated in
  four areas
• work (need to travel for professional success
• perception of time spent with family
• impact of travel on family (both immediate and
  extended)
• how work travel affects personal lives.

• Criteria for Participants
• Have worked for current employer at least 1 year
• Be away from home for work-related travel at
  least 20 nights per year
• Be married or partnered for at least 12 months
• What does participation involve?
• Data for the study are collected through
• One individual interview with the work traveler
  and his/her family members (spouses and, if
  resident in the home, children ages 8 to 18
• Self-administered questionnaires
• Palm pilot diaries (equipment provided by the
  project).
• Data collection lasts approximately 4 to 6 weeks,
  depending on the travelers schedule.
• Each individual participant who completes the
  study receives 50. For example, a couple with no
  children would receive 100 a couple with two
  children eligible to participate would receive
  200.
• Participation is completely confidential and
  voluntary. All interviewers are trained in
  accordance with the Institutional Review Board of
  Texas Tech University and the National Institutes
  of Health .

Contact Information Project Director Sara Dodd
(sara.dodd_at_ttu.edu) Principal Investigator Anisa
M. Zvonkovic (anisa.zvonkovic_at_ttu.edu) Poster
references available upon request Our project
website www.hs.ttu.edu/worktravelfamily
The funding supporting this research was provided
by NIH Grant No. R01 HD047783-01A2