Chapter 2: Dual-Earner Couples: The proportion of married wage and salaried employees who live in dual-earner couples has increased substantially over the past 25 years, as have the combined work hours of couples. From 1992 to 2002, men in dual-earner couples with children appear to have taken more responsibility for managing family work—chores, cooking, and child care—though women are still much more likely to shoulder greater responsibility. From 1977 to 2002, men in dual-earner couples with children also report spending more time actually doing family work—chores and caring for children—than comparable men 25 years ago whether or not they assume overall responsibility for these tasks.

Chapter 3: The Role of Technology in Employees’ Lives: Nearly two thirds of wage and salaried workers use computers for their jobs daily. A majority also use computers for personal reasons at least several times a week. More than one third of employees sometimes use a computer at home for job-related work, and nearly one fifth use a computer at home to read and send job-related email outside regular work hours. Among employees who ever use cell phones, beepers, pagers, or email for personal reasons, more than half feel these new ways of communicating help them a lot in managing their work, personal, and family lives. It also appears that employees who experience higher levels of negative spillover from work into their home lives rely more heavily on these technologies in an effort to manage the demands of life on and off the job.

Chapter 4: Work-Life Supports on the Job: Work-life supports on the job—both specific benefit entitlements and less formal policies and practices—have increased somewhat, albeit not a lot, in the past decade. When more supportive work-life policies and practices are available, employees exhibit more positive work outcomes: job satisfaction, commitment to employer, and retention, as well as more positive life outcomes: less interference between job and family life, less negative spillover from job to home, greater life satisfaction, and better mental health. Specific policies and practices are identified.

Chapter 5: Working for Oneself versus Someone Else: Approximately one-fifth of the U.S. workforce work for themselves rather than someone else. We consider about one third of these workers to be small business Owners because they employ others for pay.We consider the remaining two thirds to be self-employed Independents because they do not employ others for pay. Owners are much better educated and earn much more than either Independents or Employees. Although a significant proportion of Independents want to be part of the wage and salaried labor force (and may be displaced employees), most small business Owners are content with their situations. These and other issues are explored at some length.

National Study of the Changing Workforce Public-Use Files
2002, 1997 and 1992 Data—Version 1.0

Public-use data files from the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW) are now available on CD-ROM. A list of variables with short labels can be downloaded at no charge.

The CD-ROM Version 1.0 contains 1992, 1997 and 2002 NSCW data in SPSS portable file format plus technical information and general guidance to their use, complete questionnaires (annotated), and fully annotated SPSS syntax/command files used to construct analytic variables and working files. The CD-ROM also contains cross-year comparison files – 2002 vs. 1997, 2002 vs. 1992, 1997 vs. 1992 – including comparable variables for wage and salaried employees. Although we are not able to disseminate 1977 Quality of Employment Survey (QES) data, we have included syntax/command files that can be used to create 2002 vs. 1977 and 1997 vs. 1977 comparison files from raw 1977 QES data.

Pricing of 1992, 1997 and 2002 Public-Use Files:

Individuals: $300
(Faculty may share their individual copies of the public-use files with students in their classes and advisees.)

Institutions: $550
(Government agencies, non-academic non-profits, and for-profit organizations are expected to pay the institutional price. In addition, colleges and universities that place the files on institutional servers and make them available to whole departments or the entire institution are expected to pay the institutional price.)

FWI publications presenting the results of basic analyses of NSCW data can be purchased separately from the FWI website, and select executive summaries can be downloaded at no charge. We recommend comparing results of your preliminary analyses with published results for confirmation before proceeding with your own data analysis plans.

If you have any questions regarding the purchase of public-use files or publications, do not hesitate to call or email Marline Lambert, coordinator of publications at 212-465-2044 / mlambert@familiesandwork.org.

Important updates have been made regarding the public-use data files. Please click here for details.

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