How Single and Married Women Organize to Get the Food on the Table Every Day: Strategies, Orientations, Outcomes and the Role of Convenience Foods

How single and married mothers approach food preparation tasks was determined from reports of activities and attitudes around food preparation. The patterns of these activities and attitudes were used to develop meaningful typologies of food preparation orientations and strategies. These strategies and orientations were then explored in terms of their association with various work-family outcomes and convenience food use. There are many similarities in approaches used between single and married women, but also some differences. Work and family outcomes, such as role interference, stress, strain, and life satisfaction are related to several strategies and orientations, as is convenience food use. Clearly some approaches work better than others in terms of life balance.