Even though women work -- and prefer to work -- fewer hours than men, they invest more of themselves in their jobs than do male workers. That is just one finding from the Cornell Couples and Career Study at Cornell University, which includes one of the most detailed databases on the work and family careers of couples.

The study is part of the Cornell Employment and Family Careers Institute which has just received a $3.5 million, three-year grant renewal from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The renewal will allow the institute not only to conduct a follow-up study on the 2,000 respondents in the Couples and Career Study but also to launch a new study of 1,000 couples in three communities in upstate New York.

"The Cornell Employment and Family Careers Institute aims to promote understanding of two dynamic institutions -- work and family -- and their interface over the life course. Our research focuses on two-earner couples at various points in the life course, from starting their careers through the retirement transition," says Phyllis Moen, the Ferris Family Professor of Life Course Studies at Cornell and director of the Cornell Careers Institute, which is part of the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center at Cornell. Moen established the institute in 1997 with a $3 million Sloan Foundation grant. "Our research investigates how different workplace environments shape workers' -- and couples' -- career strategies and expectations," she says. "One of our biggest successes has also been training the next generation of work/family/life-course scholars, who will extend our understandings even further."

In the Cornell Couples and Careers Study, researchers conducted a survey and interviewed a sample of employees from seven major employers in upstate New York, as well as their spouses. This survey provides comprehensive life-history data that can be used to chart continuity and change in roles and relationships over time, as well as data on couples and institutional policies and practices of organizations with many employees. The 1999 report just published by the Cornell institute details trends ranging from control over work hours and household work to stresses, successes and strategies of working couples.

To obtain the report, contact Stephen Sweet, director of research, at ss228@cornell.edu.