Exploring the double jeopardy effect: The importance of gender and race in work-family research

The demographics of the American workforce shifted considerably throughout the last several decades, most notably reflected in the increasing number of women employed outside the home. Researchers from a wide range of disciplines thus examined issues related to women’s involvement in the workplace, including their work-family conflict. One emergent criticism of work-family research, however, is that extant research tends to emphasize work-family experiences of professional white women, while women of color are largely overlooked. Whereby some suggest that all women remain disadvantaged in the workplace (Hakim, 2004), women of color are often in “double jeopardy” for belonging to two disadvantaged status categories of gender and race (King, 1988). Thus it is reasonable to suspect that the work-family experiences of women of color are substantially different from professional white women. The goal of our chapter is to provide a comprehensive overview of work-family experiences of women of color. We first discuss embracing a multiple identities’ approach (i.e., the intersection of gender and race). We then review the role of gender and the role of race/ethnicity in work-family research. Using national labor force data, we then compare descriptive variables of white women to women of color to identify how their needs and resources differ. Finally, we discuss methodological considerations and research suggestions to guide future scholars’ work within the work-family area.