Accuracy of Wife's Perception of Husband's Attitude toward Her Employment

Abstract

Using data on husbands and wives married to each other in 1978 from a national probability sample of households (N = 682 couples), it is demonstrated that a wife's perception of her husband's attitude toward her employment is moderately inconsistent with the husband's actual attitude. Several couple characteristics significantly affect the level of inconsistency, presumably indicating degree of couple communication. However, these characteristics do not affect the direction of inconsistency, suggesting it may be characterized as random error. In equations predicting wife's employment status, wife's perception adequately substitutes for husband's attitude and does not distort the effects of other variables