From Work-Family Balance to Work-Family Interaction

Chapter 7

Balancing Work and Family Demands in the Military: What Happens When Your Employer Tells You to Go to War?

David Bruce BellU.S. Army Research Institute

Walter R. SchummKansas State University

Segal’s (1988) research in work–family conflict looks at the fate of an “employee” who is caught between the demands of two very greedy institutions: the military and the family. The demands of the military seem, almost inevitably, to arise from the nature of the occupation itself. Although some civilian occupations contain one or more of the following features, few have all five—especially those that have a direct impact on the employee’s family members. (The few that might qualify would be the following, relatively small, occupational groups: ...