Certainly, occupying multiple roles within society agurments an individual's social network, power, prestige, resources, and emotional gratifications. Bronfenbrenner (1979, p. 6) hypothesizes that an ever- broadening role repertoire promotes human development, in part by facilitating interaction with persons occupying a variety of roles. He notes that "roles have a magic-like power to alter how a person is treated, how she acts, what she does, and thereby even what she thinks and feels." But particular roles can also be detrimental to health, as we found in the case of care giving. This suggests that preference and choice, as well as level of autonomy, may be important elements in linking role attachments to health (see also Coser 1975). And satisfaction in a role, rather than simply role occupancy, may be key. For example, volunteering and club memberships are more discretionary than care giving or even employment, and we found both organizational membership and the unpaid volunteer role to be positively associated with women's health. Social researchers must attend not only to social integration, but the degree to which roles operate as constraints versus options and opportunities throughout the course of women's lives