Negotiating Work and Family

Abstract

Explorations of women’s work and family lives, and negotiations between these two realms, have become increasingly popular topics of inquiry among sociologists. According to recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2011, 2012a, 2012b), women in the United States make up nearly half of the paid labor force, the majority of women with children under six work for pay, and one-third of women earn more than their husbands in married-couple families. Yet, as sociologists and economists have repeatedly pointed out, women’s increased economic contributions have not been met with adequate recognition and support: Women continue to complete a disproportionate amount of household labor in comparison to men (Hochschild 2003; Sayer 2005), the United States remains unique among industrialized nations in its lack of provisions for paid maternity leave (Ray et al. 2008), and the costs associated with the care of children continue to be shouldered by individual women and families (Folbre 2008; England and Folbre 1999; Correll et al. 2007). Thus, women must typically privately navigate work-family dilemmas. Arlie Hochschild has been one of the most influential scholars to explore the complexities of women’s work and family lives – from the emotional labor that female employees engage in for corporate benefit, to the second shift that women in dual-income families complete at the end of their paid workday, to the effects of globalization on the lives of migrant domestic workers. Hochschild has developed a diverse range of concepts, such as “second shift,” “time bind,” “emotion work,” “deep acting,” “economy of gratitude,” “global care chains,” and “commodity frontier,” that have not only been heavily incorporated into sociology Qual Sociol (2012) 35:355–358 DOI 10.1007/s11133-012-9233-5