ABSTRACT
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: missionaries and career State Department/Foreign Service members.) These features are:
Risk of injury or death to the service member;
Periodic (and sometimes prolonged) separation from other immediate family members;
Geographic mobility;
Residence in foreign countries, and
Normative role pressures placed upon family members because they are considered (associate) members of the employee’s organization.
