The Family, Work and Roles

AMERICAN FAMILY TODAY

2000 Census – typical American family is now a dual-earner family

58.6% of children under 6 – both parents working

55% of mothers with children under 1 year old were working or looking for work

31% in 1976

(Image courtesy of stockimages/FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Women as Full-Time Homemakers

39.8% of females aged 16 and over and 38.7% of marriage women with a husband did not work outside of the home (2000)

Low-status

Low prestige

Low economic value (unpaid; devalued)

Least fulfilling and least recognition

Would be extremely expensive to pay for these services

THE INVISIBLE OCCUPATION

“Do you work?”

“No, I’m just a housewife”

Lonely, boring, and repetitive

Traditional gender attitudes – does not seem unfair to these individuals

Wives’ perceptions of the fairness of division of labor –marital conflict

Children’s contributions – little unless parent is in poor health

Conflict and feminist perspective – unequal division of labor

“HIS” marriage is better then “HER” marriage (Jessie Bernard)

More wives marital frustration, dissatisfaction, negative feelings, and marital problems) p. 86

Positive views were inversely related to level of education (college educated, young wives)

Employed Wives and Mothers

60.2% of all females aged 16 and over were employed (2000)

Majority of the female labor force is married

Divorced mothers with children of school age have higher employment rates

Biggest increase: married women with at least one child under age 6.

Government policy shift – welfare

SHOULD SOCIETY BE CONCERNED?

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census

Projection by 2008:

Women 48% of the labor force

Men 52% of the labor force

CAUSES OF INCREASED LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION

Changes in the Economy (manufacturing to service economy; women in service jobs)

Economic need (inflation, interest rates, unemployment, shrinking wages)

Maintaining a standard of living

Contributing to family income (two incomes to survive)

Personal Fulfillment (economic independence…allowance, ketchup)

Employed Women and Motherhood

Majority: have jobs prior to pregnancy, leave job as pregnancy progresses,…

Women who retain their jobs show some decline in hours at work

Paid Leave: resumed to work sooner

Lower hourly pay than non-mothers

Wage penalty of 7% per child

Lose job experience and seniority due to employment breaks

Less productive at work

Trade off high-stress, higher-wage jobs for more mother-friendly ones that pay less

Employment discrimination

Lower earning potential have more children

Employed Wives and Mothers

Effects of female employment on marriage and

intimate partnerships varies

Affects marriage negatively if nonntraditional gender ideologies held by women

Husbands do not share equally in the division of household labor

Women with nontraditional gender ideologies: decrease in marital satisfaction, increase in marital conflict, and more likely to have marital disruption

Marriage is improved when husband is supportive and wife has more freedom from child-rearing responsibilities

Review of twenty-seven studies: wife’s employment status alone appears to have little or no effect on marital adjustment

Shifts in power, wife is employed, wife’s power

Employed: gains income, independence, and new contacts (resources)

Differs cross-culturally

When male partners are not employed the risk of spousal abuse is increased (economic insecurity of unemployed men)

Middle years – full employment

“SUPERMOM” SYNDROME

Mothers who remain heavily involved with family responsibilities while also meeting the demands of paid employment

Women’s life satisfaction is slightly greater

Equity à life satisfaction

Women complain about imbalances in division of household labor

ROLE CONFLICT AND STRAIN

Major sources of strain: individual, family-related, and work-related

ROLE STRAIN: woman’s own conflict over the fact that she is working

If prefers to be at home but has to work

OR

Nontraditional gender-role attitudes but who fill a traditional homemaker role

More young children the more stress

Guilt

Strain of having to fulfill too many roles at once

MARITAL ADJUSTMENT

Both partners take responsibility for supporting the family à marital satisfaction for husbands and wives (Wilkie, Ferree, and Ratcliff, 1998)

EGALITARIAN IDEOLOGY

Equitable relationship: fair balance of rewards and constraints for both spouses is the key

GENDER-ROLE ATTITUDES AND ROLE EXPECTATIONS

LONGITUDINAL STUDY

Gap in dual-earner couples

Husbands experienced lower marital quality if their spouses earned more than they earned

Employed Husbands and Fathers

74.7% of all males aged 16 and over were employed in the labor force (2000)

Number increased but proportion has decreased

Females: number and proportion increased

Boy asked what he wants to be when he grows up?

Is work their major source of identity?

Husbands unemployment: self-esteem, personal functioning, and marital and family relationships

Jeffry Larson: blue-collar families, lower marital adjustment, poorer marital communication, and lower satisfaction and harmony in family relations

NON-PARENT

NON-FATHER

Role overload: long hours and high overload

Less positive father-adolescent relationships

Work: “home away from home”

Women are likely to gain status and identity through marriage, men are often “married to their work” and gain their status and identity accordingly

Dual-Earner Families

A family in which both spouses are in the paid labor force

Traditionally female, lower-paid professions of teaching and nursing

Positive Benefits:

Sense of success and accomplishment – balancing work and family

Added income, social support, increased self-complexity, and varied opportunities to experience success

Dual-Career Marriages

Career: level of commitment and continuous development that offers personal and material rewards

DUAL PROFESSIONAL FAMILY

Increasing female access to high-level professions and managerial positions, norms of gender equality, employment motivations centering on self-development and interpersonal relationships more than on economics alone

More likely to be single, married with no children, or divorced as a consequence of their career involvement than men

ISSUES: Role strain, travel, and child care

WORK AND STRESS

Work-family spillover: the extent to which participation in one domain (e.g., work) impacts participation in another domain (e.g., family)

EX: job stress affects the parents’ marriage and their relationship with their children

Leads to both job and life dissatisfaction

Stressful jobs – periods of separation from family and time-consuming so that one cannot spend any quality time with the family

Difficulty in meeting work and family demands: depression and family conflict

SUCCESSFUL FAMILIES FOR BALANCING WORK AND FAMILY

Haddock and colleagues (2001)

àà

Needed: MORE TIME

Average full-time employee’s workweek (43 hours per week)

Black families 9.4 hours more

Hispanic families 5 hours more

Long work hours – negative consequences – balance the demands

STUDY: Fortune 500 company (Crouter, Bumpus, Head, and McHale, 2001)

513 employees

Long work hours assoaciated with increased work-family conflict and psychological distress

STUDY: Crouter and colleagues (2001)

Men’s relationships with their spouse and children

More hours worked, less time spent with spouse and family

Less-positive marital relationships

BARRIER

Schedule – difficult for members to be together

NON-OVERLAPPING SHIFT

Save on child care costs

Little time for the marital relationship

Caring for the children alone

Divorce is common

FLEXTIME

A company policy that allows employees to choose the most convenient hours for them to work during the day, selected from hours designated by the employer.

Job flexibility plays an important role in the family

Work satisfaction and increased family well-being

Data: many companies still don’t offer job sharing, telecommuting, flexplace…

24% of companies allow employees to bring children to work in an emergency

5% have on-site child care

68% had flexible starting and stopping times, but only 24% allowed this change on a daily basis

55% of companies allowed employees to work at home occasionally

Many do not take advantage of this because they believe effects promotion

SCALING BACK: placing limits on the amount of work, having a –one-job, one-career marriage, and trading off of family and career responsibilities over the life course

STUDY: women who leave the labor force (even for a short time) have more difficulty with career advancement and salary gains if they decide to return to the labor force.

Hertz: MOTHERING APPROACH (assumes the best person to raise children is the wife, who should be with them at home.

PARENTING APPROACH: make both parents full participants in the care of children; shift work or employment during nonstandard hours on the part of parents

MARKETING APPROACH: hiring other people to care for one’s children

Day care

Effects on the child

Differences explained less by the mother’s working than by other factors: social class, part or full-time employment, age of the child, mothers’ attitude toward employment, and other social and psychological factors

Hold high-status jobs: positive effects on children’s schooling, better in school, complete high school, enter college, and complete a degree

Bring more resources to home and family

Decreased time spend with children: less traditionally defined child-care time, parent-child shared housework and leisure time increase, self-esteem, educational attainment, delay of childbearing, and older age and maturity

Socioemotional development (Jay Belsky)

First or second year of the child’s life scored more poorly on a compliance component of adjustment

Behavior problems, insecurity, sociability, and inhibition – no negative effects

Degree to which child care is sensitive and responsive

Latchkey children: self-care

Cain and Hofferth: fewer than populary believed (about 2.4 million): short period fo time each day, not the children of low-income, single parents who cannot afford stable child-care arrangements

Alternate child-care arrangements: great economic cost

Work-related costs, advantage over single earners is decreased by as much as 68%

HOUSEWORK AND CHILD CARE

1965 – spent 27 hours per week on cooking and cleaning

1995 – 15 ½ hours per week

Men: doubled their housework time since the 1960s (few hours per week to slightly over 5 hours per week TO almost 1/3 of the housework)

DATA à

Today – fathers are expected to share in the responsibilities, especially in dual-earner families

Still do not do as much

Enhanced marital relations and closer father-child bonds

Husband assume increased responsibility for household tasks when:

High levels of education

Have wives with educational levels similar to theirs

Have egalitarian attitudes about gender and family roles

Are in, along with their wives, professional or managerial occupations

Earn about the same rather than significantly more than their wives

Have somewhat different work schedules than their wives

Men as Full-Time Homemakers

Traditionally: provide economic support through paid employment

Role differentiation: male external needs, female internal needs of the family

Male avoidance of housework and child care strategy to maintain power over women

Single parent fathers, fathers deliberately holding part time jobs, single adoptive fathers, and full time male homemakers: men assume major household and child-care duties

No major trend toward full-time male homemakers, but increased participation of men in household and child-care tasks

Commuter Marriage

Husband and wife live separately

Today, woman’s career aspirations unwillingness to divorce or relocate

Traditional option< wife give up her job to live with the other

Views on commuter marriage are pessimistic

Actually more satisfied with their life work and time they had for themselves, fewer overloads, less stressful lifestyle, independence, greater self-sufficiency, and enhanced appreciation for spouse and family

More dissatisfied with family life and lack of emotional support and companionship

Telephone and email

Time together was planned

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