Baca zinn ch06-lecture

Diversity In Families
NINTH EDITION

Chapter Six
Meshing the Worlds of
Work and Family

Copyright ©2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Diversity in Families, Ninth Edition
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Maxine Baca Zinn • D. Stanley Eitzen • Barbara Wells
All rights reserved.

Chapter Six Overview

• The Changing Work Patterns of Women,
Men, and Children
• Integrating Work and Family
• Invisible and Unpaid Family Work
• Coping With Work and Family


Changing Work Patterns of Women,
Men, and Teens
• Women's Employment:
- In 1940, less than 20% of the female
population was in the labor force.
- In 2006, 59% percent of the female
population aged 16 and older was in the
workforce.
- This was not necessarily done as a cry for
liberation, but more of as an economic
necessity.


Work and Family
• Juggling work and family is a concern for most
adults.
• Less than 10 percent of US families are
homemaker-breadwinner configurations.
• We have discovered that the spheres of family
and work were never as far removed from each
other as we would like to think.
• Women’s participation in the workforce now
rivals that of men.


Figure 6.1
Labor Force Participation Rate by Sex, 1950-2009, and Projected
2009-2016
Source: Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Winter 2001–2002. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, p. 39; “Employment Projections.” U.S. Department of Labor, 2007. Online: http://www.bls.gov/
emp/emplab05.htm.

Women and Work
• Working wives now contribute about 35% of
their families income and women out earn men
in about ¼ of dual earner families.
• Men and women are still different in types of
work done and the sector of the economy they
work in.
• Despite family obligations, it is more likely than
not that women will work outside the home
while raising a family.


Causes of Increased Labor
Force Participation For Women
• Changes in the Economy – a transition
from a manufacturing to a service
economy has had the largest impact.
• Decline in Real Earnings – families have
become more dependent on women’s
earnings due to inflation, unemployment
and less purchasing power.


Causes of Increased Labor
Force Participation For Women
• Personal Fulfillment – Work outside the
home, paid work, gives women pride,
worth and identity.
• Women realize that gaps in work
experience may relate to lower pay and
job insecurity, so they understand it is in
their best interest long term to work
outside the home.


Problems of Women Workers
• Women are less likely than men to be employed
if they live in a region where unemployment is
high.
• Finding stable child care can also be a hindrance
to keeping work.
• Increasingly employers are seeking flexibility in
employees and women may not be able to meet
the demands due to home responsibilities.


Figure 6.2
Change in Constant-Dollar Median Weekly Earnings from 1979 to 2007
by Educational Attainment and Sex
Note: Data relate to earnings of full-time wage and salary workers 25 years and older.
Source: Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2007, U.S. Department of Labor, 2008, p. 5. Online: http://bls.gov/cps/
cpswom2007.pdf.


Changing Work Patterns

• Men’s Employment:
- Men's labor force participation rate has
declined from 83% in 1960 to 72% in 2009.
- Declines were steeper for African American
men than White men.
- Among White men the declines were due
mainly to early retirement ages.


Causes of Decreased Labor
Force Participation For Men
• Structural Unemployment – Advances in technology and
the shift from manufacturing to service and information
have had serious consequences for male laborers
especially in industrial jobs. Four out of five people
losing jobs are men.
• The Redistribution of Jobs – As manufacturing jobs have
become more scarce, men are working in the service
sector which pays much less.
• Decline in Real Wages – Men continue to supply the
largest part of the family income but the share that
women provide is increasing.


Figure 6.3
Labor Force Participation by Age, 1948-2004
Source: Daniel Aaronson, Kyung-Hong Park, and Daniel Sullivan, “The Decline in Teen Labor Force Participation.” Economic
Perspectives. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 2006, QI, p. 3.


Changing Work Patterns
• Teens’ Employment:
- Contemporary youth are less likely to be employed
and work less hours than in the past. Since 2000
there has been a steep decline in teens in the
workforce.
- Teens in higher income families are more likely to
work than teens in low-income families.
- Teens enrolled in school are less likely to be
employed than those not enrolled in school. As rates
of high school graduation and advanced education
rise, teens rates in the workforce decrease.

Integrating Work and Family
• The worlds of work and family overlap and
interact. Work and family linkages vary based
on the structural characteristics of each.
Variance is also created through class, race, and
gender stratification systems.
• Family Interference refers to the ways in which
the connections between jobs and family life can
be a source of tension for workers and families.


Figure 6.5
Total Hours of Work per Week for Married Couples, 1970 and 2000
Note: Data relate to nonfarm married couples aged 18–64.
Source: Kathleen Gerson and Jerry A. Jacobs, “The Work-Home Crunch.” Contexts 3 (4) (2004): 29–37.


Integrating Work and Family
• Spillover is the transfer of moods, feelings and
behaviors between work and family settings.
- Spillover can be positive or negative.
- Work to family spillover tends to be more negative
and happens more frequently.
• For men, their work stress is more likely to
affect their family life and for women, their
family stress is more likely to influence their
work lives.


Work Factors that Impact
the Family
• Gender Inequality – Both family and work impose
unequal demands on men and women.
• The demands of family intrude more on women’s work
roles than on those of men.
• For men, the role is reversed. Their work demands
intrude more on their family lives.
• The work-family role system perpetuates women’s
inequality in the workforce.
• Marital status frequently has different implications for
women and men who are seeking jobs.


the Family
• Pressures of balancing work and family are
becoming more demanding for men as they are
becoming more involved in family life.
• Some men are more willing to sacrifice career
advancement to share family responsibilities
with their wives.
• Persistent culturally prescribed gender roles
continue to shape women’s and men’s work and
family behavior in predictable directions.


the Family
• The Time Squeeze:
- Time is a scarce commodity; as the economy
moves toward a 24 hour, seven day a week
work schedule, little time is left for families.
- Shift work is on the rise while a full time “day”
schedule is less common.
- In less than half of dual earning families, men
and women both work a “regular” full time
schedule.


the Family
• The Time Squeeze continued:
- Timing and Scheduling of Work – both men
and women work more hours than they did
20 years ago. The timing of work is a strong
determinant of family life.
- Parents are, however, maximizing their time
with their children and actually spending more
quality time with them than 25 years ago.


the Family
• Geographical Mobility – there are two types that
influence the family; work related travel and job
related moves and transfers.
• Commuting adds hours to our workdays and
means reliable access to transportation is
necessary.
• Employment related considerations comprise
slightly more than a quarter of all reasons for
moving.


the Family
• Others moves may occur because
individuals must move to find work.
• Moving depends largely on the type of job
people hold.
• While it is true that dual earners are more
likely to move based on the husband’s
promotion; that is becoming weak.


the Family
• Type of Work:
- White Collar and Professional – In general,
higher occupational prestige and income
increase marital stability and marital
satisfaction.
 A family may benefit from such success financially;
however, it may force the professional to neglect
his or her family.


the Family
• Blue Collar – Research has found that the
characteristics of employment for the industrial
working class negatively impact family life.
- New research is focusing on women and their work
such as caring for other individuals in homes or
nursing centers.
- Jobs requiring “women’s work” typically pays less.
- This has economic consequences for those doing
these jobs and their families.


the Family
• Professional Satisfaction from Work – work may
or may not be a source of personal satisfaction.
- Research in the past has focused on men’s work but
is now focusing more on women’s lives and learning
about job conditions that foster greater control.
- Occupations offering less desirable working conditions
offer fewer intrinsic benefits and may exacerbate
negative characteristics.
- Work-family conflict is related to life dissatisfaction,
depression and hostility.


Family Factors that Impact Work

• Dual-Worker Families – dual working families are
now the dominant form in the labor force.
- Research shows that dual earners have high amounts
of stress, women in those families have higher self
esteem and well being.
- For 20 years, research has found the health factor for
women working is significant.
- Many roles provide different kinds of gratification.
- Married women in working class jobs appear to be
more “traditional” than professional wives.



• The Wife as Sole Provider – in the majority of
married couple families are dual earners, in
about 7% the wife is the sole provider (US
Census Bureau, 2008).
- Many women find themselves in this role as a result
of unanticipated economic setbacks.
- Women in such jobs as health care and education
have been less susceptible to job loss than their
husbands in manufacturing.



• Wives as sole provider continued:
- In some cases women take on the primary
role of provider while men stay home and
care for the children and the home.
- Women may also continue to work after their
husband’s retire, or their husband may be
disabled.



• Single Parent Families:
- Almost 1/3 of households with children are
maintained by a single parent.
- Nine out of ten single parents are women.
- Because single parents are responsible for the home
and being the sole breadwinner, they face many
obstacles.
- Single mother families have the lowest median
income and experience the highest rates of poverty.


Invisible and Unpaid Family Work

• The labor of women in the home has been
excluded from traditional definitions of
work.
• Studies find that women do much more
housework than men, even if both work
full-time.
• A vast amount of unpaid work is done in
the family – mostly by women.


Gendered Labor in the Household

• Housework is an example of work that is done
inside the family without extrinsic rewards.
• Housework done each day provides cooked
meals, clean clothes, scrubbed floors and other
necessities.
- It also represents family rituals.
• Domestic labor maintains families and it sustains
the economy.



• Women continue to do a disproportionate share
of the household labor.
• In recent decades, men have increased their
family and household work while women’s have
decreased.
• Husbands of working wives spend about ½ as
much time on housework as their wives do.
• Husbands tend to do more housework if they
are well educated and younger.



• The general pattern of gendered household.
labor does not vary greatly by social class or
race.
• Housework carries different meanings for
women and men.
• Housework is sometimes called the “second
shift” for women.



• Other forms of invisible labor:
- Interaction Work
- Emotional Work
- Consumption Work
- Kin Work
 Women tend to do more of these kinds of work
than men in every family.


Coping with Work and Family
• Family Coping Strategies:
- Coping as Human Agency – balancing work and
family life produces considerable strain. The family
must adapt.
- For most families housework and childcare are the
most difficult things to deal with.
- Parents use a variety of strategies to cope.
- Parents may pay for domestic help and child care.
- Most families rely on several strategies.


• Split Shift Parenting – is a strategy used
principally by working class families. It is used
to ease the burden of paying for child care.
• Sequencing – is the adjustment process of
juggling competing demands by adjusting the
timing of events over the life span. It involves
alternating paid work with child raising rather
than trying to combine them.



• Family-Supportive Government and
Employer Responses – The Family and
Medical Leave Act of 1993 provided
medical leave to families and provided
federally supported programs to help
families.


• Corporation-Sponsored Work-Family Programs:
- These programs have expanded since 1980.
- Many companies now have family friendly policies.
- Many studies have identified the importance of job
flexibility in facilitating the integration of work and
family life.
- Corporate policies can reduce or remove some of the
stresses for workers who earn a living and raise
children.


Baca zinn ch06-lecture

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (9)

Similar to Baca zinn ch06-lecture

Similar to Baca zinn ch06-lecture (6)

More from Leah Hamilton

More from Leah Hamilton (15)

Baca zinn ch06-lecture