Focus of the MFRI Research Program

Performance, retention, and satisfaction at work are embedded in a much larger context that can be described as the worker's "quality-of-life." We define quality not as "better" or "worse," but quality as "the nature of."

The quality-of-life domain includes:

• Employment — Subjective reactions include workers' perceptions of control over their work demands, which have been shown to be more important for tension between work and personal life than the actual demands workers face.

• Marriage — Although satisfaction is perhaps the most studied subjective reaction to marriage, we believe that perceived supportiveness of the spouse merits particular attention in military families.

• Parenting — Important objective conditions of parenting include the number, sex, and ages of children and children's characteristics, such as special needs or difficult temperaments. Subjective reactions to parenting include satisfaction and perceived daily "hassles" or minor inconveniences that have a cumulative stressful effect.

• Social Networks — Workers and their families rely upon social networks of extended family members and friends to assist them in meeting life's demands.

• Community — Support structures in the community constitute objective conditions that are likely to impact work outcomes.

• Self — The "self" is not usually considered a domain of life experience in the same way as role involvement in work, marriage, or parenting. Nonetheless, individuals experience objective conditions (such as physical health) and subjective reactions (such as psychological well-being) related to the self.