Making Ends Meet: Insufficiency and Work-Family Coordination in the New Economy

The "New Economy" features 24/7 employment, varied work schedules, job insecurity, and lower benefits and wages, which lead to disparities in experiences of security and sufficiency. This study investigates sufficiency concerns in the New Economy; who is having trouble making ends meet? Sufficiency concerns are subjective perceptions that work is insufficient to meet basic needs and that family and work cannot be coordinated in a stable way. This study uses the 2006 National Survey of Religion and Family Life (N = 1,621) to analyze Americans' experiences in the New Economy and how these experiences are related to work-family conflict. Sufficiency concerns were experienced by a quarter to a third of our respondents and were shaped by gender and structural inequality, especially race and education. Moreover, sufficiency concerns strongly predict work-family conflict, even when other controls are included. This research furthers our understanding of work-family conflict and the winners and losers in the New Economy.