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Dual-careers are an increasingly common typology among professionals yet very few studies have considered how two potentially competing career trajectories are managed in relation to the broader aspects of life, such as family and personal life. This article addresses the gap through an exploration of the strategies adopted by dual-career professional couples as they seek to navigate these challenges whilst satisfying individual and shared goals and aspirations.

Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were carried out with 18 couples (dyads) from a range of professional occupations. Interviews were conducted individually, and then responses analysed and compared for key themes.

Rather than focusing on how couples manage work–life balance on a day-today basis this study shows how couples incorporate a more strategic approach to dual-careers so that both careers are able to progress, albeit within situational constraints.

To satisfy personal, business and economic performance goals, organisations and governments will need to find more creative ways to support employees as they seek to navigate careers while balancing the work and nonwork needs of themselves and their partner. The challenges faced by dual-career couples have implications for human resource managers as they seek to attract and retained talent within their organisations.

Demographic and social changes at the household level will ultimately require changes at an organisational and broader societal level to meet the work and family needs of this growing cohort.

Rather than focusing on how couples manage work-life balance on a day-today basis this study shows how couples incorporate a more strategic approach to dual-careers so that both careers are able to progress, albeit within situational constraints.

Work-life balance experiences of dual-career professional couples with children have received considerable attention, but there remains a paucity of research on the definitions of work-life balance among dual-career professional couples without children. This qualitative investigation sheds light on childfree couples' lives outside of work and their concomitant understanding of work-life balance.

The study draws on interviews with 21 dual-career professional couples in Canada and the US, exploring their non-work lives and how they conceive of work-life balance.

Thematic analyses demonstrate that this group, while free of child rearing responsibilities, still deals with myriad non-work obligations. These couples also defy uniform characterization. The inductive investigation uncovered four couple categories based on the individual members' career and care orientations. These included careerist, conventional, non-conventional and egalitarian couples. Definitions of work-life balance varied across couple type according to the value they placed on flexibility, autonomy and control, and their particular level of satisfaction with their work and non-work domains.

This study contributes to research at the intersection of work-life balance and various demographic groups by exploring the work-life balance of professional dual-career couples without children. Using an interpretive ontology, the study advances a typology of childfree dual-career professional couples. The findings challenge the rhetoric that these couples are primarily work-oriented but otherwise carefree. Thus, this study demonstrates ways that childfree couples are different as well as similar to those with children.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the underlying conflicts associated with current work‐life balance and travel‐to‐work policies, as employed in organisations in the UK.

A mixed method approach is used to ascertain whether professional work‐group cultures limit the effectiveness of work‐life balance policy, and the extent to which spill‐over is present between work‐life balance and transport preferences, especially car use. These concerns are explored empirically using an in‐depth local level quantitative‐qualitative case study of Greater Nottingham (a regional employment centre in the East Midlands region of England).

The evidence presented in this paper suggests: work‐group cultures prevent employees, especially women, from achieving work‐life balance; there is spill‐over between work and non‐work activities, creating time allocation challenges, and stress, for dual career households attempting to achieve desired work‐life balance; and specific conflicts are reported in balancing work with travel‐to‐work, especially car parking.

The research findings suggest that transport, especially employee car parking, needs to be considered a focal point in the planning and implementation of human resource (HR) policies. Employers also need to reconsider their approach to flexible working to dissolve the negative repercussions that the “choice” to work flexibly has for the careers of highly skilled workers, especially working mothers. Increases in formalised home‐based teleworking, restructuring the gender balance in management, and positive discrimination toward certain groups offer potential routes for change.

This paper provides important recommendations for employers and HR managers, designing and implementing work‐life balance policies. Transport issues, presently considered largely external from the employer perspective, have central relevance.

The purpose of this paper is to use the kaleidoscope career model as a lens through which to explore the career choices and decisions of young professional couples and the strategies that they use to facilitate successful dual careers while attempting to balance their work and non-work lives.

Data were gathered through face-to-face interviews with 18 couples. Couples were interviewed separately to explore how individual career values and choices shape decisions in partnership. Template analysis was used to identify career patterns as defined by the kaleidoscope career model.

Gender-based patterns suggested by the kaleidoscope career model appear to be giving way to different patterns based on individual career aspirations, earning capacity and motivation within a dual career (as opposed to simply dual income) household. For some young professionals challenge and balance are equally important and so unlike the original interpretation of the KCM their careers reflect dual priorities not challenge followed by balance as their careers evolve.

The sample size is small and participants were recruited through purposeful sampling which may have resulted in a more homogeneous cohort than would have been achieved through random sampling.

Changing demographic profiles and emerging social norms are changing the way Gen Y approach work and careers. Organisations and professional bodies need to respond to these changes through implementation of appropriate HR policies within supportive organisational cultures if they are to attract and retain young professionals.

This research is important because there is clearly a gap between changes at a societal level and the way in which organisations are responding to those changes. The paper provides insights into how public policy and organisational practices can be designed and implemented to meet the needs and expectations of Gen Y professionals.

This study provides an insight into the way Gen Y professionals are navigating dual careers as opposed to dual incomes. It builds on and expands the kaleidoscope career model by showing that Gen Y professionals are less constrained by gender stereotypes than previous generations in their quest for challenge and balance and that some couples are determined to have both challenge and balance, not either/or.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the study to determine whether the dual earner model better offsets the actual risk of unemployment compared to other household models.

The authors linked the partner effect (household type) with macroeconomic institutional settings, such as employment protection, the active labour market policy, economic growth rate and globalisation, to study how these micro- and macro-level factors influence the unemployment risk of individuals.

Using European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) microdata for Finland from 2005 to 2013 and a multilevel modelling technique, the authors found that the partner effect is an important regulator of unemployment risks, but the effect is modified by institutional factors. Dual earners and breadwinners experience a less significant effect from employment protection legislation regulation and other external factors on the increase or decrease in unemployment risk compared to singles. The authors also found that unemployed singles are more exposed and vulnerable to fluctuations caused by economic events.

In this way, this paper contributes to the sociological theory of labour markets and a better understanding of how different household types buffer and mediate the risks of unemployment. The authors used the EU-LFS and novel multilevel analysis statistical solutions to determine the impact of macro- and micro-level factors. The case of Finland may also be of broader interest to researchers and policy-makers because of the long and strong tradition of the dual earner employment pattern and strong macro-economic fluctuations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of lifestyle factors including geographical relocation, accommodation for dual earner careers, and availability of family or non-family domestic help on the career choices of women assistant superintendents and superintendents in school districts in the USA. Women’s access to the superintendency continues to make slow progress, a trend traditionally attributed to gender bias. However, working women increasingly make career choices based on perceptions of lifestyle and domestic responsibilities that may self-limit their access to positions that would further their careers.

The study is set in Pennsylvania, where women occupy 26 percent of superintendents’ positions. Women superintendents and assistant superintendents in 2011-2012 were surveyed regarding their perceptions of the compatibility of the requirements of the position of superintendent with their lifestyle priorities.

The responses of 109 respondents suggest that the importance they attach to lifestyle factors limit the positions to which they apply. Most respondents would not consider family relocation or long commutes to access positions that would further their career goals. Consideration of partners/spouses work and career needs was rated as of high importance in making career decisions, and the respondents managed domestic household themselves with little expectation or recourse to extended family support or paid domestic help.

The findings suggest that the current demands and characteristics of the superintendency are at odds with lifestyle preferences of women qualified to hold the position, further exacerbating the effects of gender bias that maintain the lack of gender balance in educational decision making at the local level in the USA.

Dual‐career families were first identified and discussed by British researchers but subsequent research has been predominantly American. This article first discusses the social context for couples combining careers and family in Britain. It then addresses the questions of whether gender roles within the family, and employers′ expectations are changing with the growth of dual‐career families. It concludes that change is slow to occur and that changes in work and family are interdependent. Implications for further organisational change are briefly discussed.

The purpose of this study was to explore gender differences in contractual commitments, job satisfaction and spouses' occupation among GP principals in NHS Scotland.

This paper is based on data provided by a self‐completion, postal questionnaire survey. The response rate was 50 per cent.

Males worked more hours than females and were more likely to work out‐of‐hours. Females reported greater job satisfaction but only when they worked fewer hours. Females earned less than males but there were no gender differences in total household income. Both genders planned to retire at 59 years. More males would delay retirement if they could work part‐time. More females than males were in dual‐doctor households. Male respondents in dual‐doctor households were more likely to have modified their working hours or career aspirations than males in other households.

The number of hours worked by GPs is in part determined by the occupation/earning power of their spouse. The number of women GPs is increasing and they are likely to continue to choose to work fewer hours than their male counterparts have done in the past.

This study has attempted to incorporate spouse's occupation/income as a factor in the career choices of GPs in Scotland.

This paper aims to investigate the idiosyncratic relationships between work and nonwork among dual-career professional couples (DCPCs) intentionally without children, considering individual members' role salience, nonwork responsibilities and care or career orientation.

Interview data from 21 Canadian and American couples (42 individuals) was used to explore the research question: How do DCPCs without children perceive their work-nonwork balance?

DCPCs without children are a heterogenous demographic. Some couples are career oriented, some care oriented, some exhibit both orientations, shaping their experience of work-nonwork balance. Unlike popular stereotypes, they do have nonwork responsibilities and interests outside of their thriving careers. Similar to their counterparts with children, they face conflicts managing work and nonwork domains.

Based on theories of role salience, work-nonwork conflict, enrichment and balance, the authors suggest that analyses of work-nonwork balance should include nonwork activities other than child caring. The authors further propose that the experience of the work-nonwork interface varies according to whether couples are careerist, conventional, non-conventional or egalitarian. The study also demonstrates that work-nonwork experiences are relational in nature and should be explored beyond a strictly individual perspective.