EVOLVING WORK AND FAMILY STRUCTURES

1. EVOLVING WORK AND FAMILY STRUCTURES Soc220 Chapter 10

2. The worlds of work and family affect each other in significant ways. The labor-force participation rate: refers to the percentage of workers in a particular group who are employed or who are actively seeking employment. Changes: Reasons for Women Work.

3. WLFPThe rapid entrance into the labor force of married women with children has altered family life in many ways. Traditional Nuclear Families, Including Stay-at-Home Dads. The Two-Person Career. Dual-Earner Families. Commuter Marriages.

4. THE IMPACT OF WORK ON FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS sex-segregated research: work has different meaning for women than for men. Work ass an option vs work as a given. A. Marital Power and Decision Making. B. Marital Happiness and Satisfaction. C. Husbands and the Division of Household Labor. According to a 2004 Time Use Study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, on an average day, 84 percent of women, but only 63 percent of men, reported spending some time doing household activities. Sharing the Load: Emergent Egalitarian Relationships: Inequity in family work can affect the satisfaction found in marriage. Among wives there is a clear and positive connection between a fair division of family work and marital and personal well-being. The distributive Justice framework: The Impact of Gender Ideology: Relative deprivation theory,

5. Child Care.  Priority for women. Both working and nonworking wives are still responsible for the majority of child care. For women, having children constrains their labor market activities. Reexamining the �Mommy Track�: Felice Schwartz has suggested that working women be divided into two groups (career-�primary and career-and-family). The first group should be placed on the same career track with talented men, while the other group should be provided with considerations for their parental responsibilities. Criticism of the proposal includes the fear that such an approach would create a two-tiered system of women workers. The United States is the only industrialized country that does not have a national child-care policy. ii. Despite these stated preferences, choice and reality often collide. The United States has not yet resolved the dilemma surrounding the gendered ideology of the family that assigns housekeeping and child rearing primarily to women, and assumes that balancing work and family needs is a personal matter. V. INEQUITIES IN THE WORKPLACE: CONSEQUENCES FOR FAMILIES Although the labor force participation rates of women and men are converging, women still confront issues of inequity in the labor force.

6. INEQUITIES IN THE WORKPLACE: CONSEQUENCES FOR FAMILIES A. Occupational Distribution: occupational sex segregation B. The Race-Gender Gap in Earnings: Good News and Bad News: split labor market C. The Union Difference. D Sexual Harassment. Sexual harassment appears to be more prevalent in male-dominated occupations. Although sexual harassment violates equal-employment laws, enforcement is difficult. Harassment victims frequently bring these problems home with them, thereby adding tension to family relationships.

7. THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF FAMILIES  Social Inequality and family life: A. An Uncertain Future: The Widening Income Gap. deindustrialization: delayed marriage, shrinking middle class, WLFP up. Divorce, abuse. B. Who are the Poor? Number: 7.9 million families (10.2 percent) were living below the poverty level. Poverty rates vary by family type, and race and ethnicity. Married couples have the lowest poverty rate. Families headed by women account for the largest increase in poor families since 1970. feminization of poverty. Most of the poor are white, Minority overrepresented. the working poor Why poor: Culture of poverty and its critique

8. UNDEREMPLOYMENT AND UNDEREMPLOYMENT In 2005, 5.1 percent; causes? Unemployment and Marital Functioning. Joblessness can lead to a disruption in previously agreed-upon family roles, resulting in dissatisfaction for one or both partners. Variations in Family Responses to Unemployment: How family members react depends on how they functioned prior to the unemployment, and the reasons for the unemployment. Underemployment is also a problem (part-time workers who want to work full-time, and the working poor, people who make low wages).

9. BALANCING WORK AND FAMILY: RESTRUCTURING THE WORKPLACE  A gap still exists between the current structures of families and the way other institutions continue to relate to them. A. Family-Friendly Policies and Benefits. institute organizational changes and provide family-friendly benefits to help employees balance work and family demands. i. Child-and Dependent-Care Programs: ii. Job Sharing: This alternative allows two workers to split a single full-time job, with each job sharer getting paid for half-time work, iii. Flextime: Flextime arrangements allow employees to choose when they arrive at and leave work within specified time limits. Family Leave: Until recently, the United States was one of the few industrialized countries that did not have a national family-leave policy. In 1993, Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act which would have allowed either parent to take up to 3 months of unpaid leave for births, adoptions and family emergencies. The bill excludes workers in companies with fewer than 50 employees, and provides only for unpaid leave. The United States has no statutory provision that guarantees a woman pregnancy leave, either paid or unpaid, or that guarantees that she can return to her job after childbirth. Pregnancy leaves are covered by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, which requires that pregnant employees be treated the same as employees with any temporary disability.