Sexual Division Of Labor Research Articles

Migrant mothers: work, nation and racialisation in Swedish official discourses 1970–2000

ABSTRACT Images of migrant mothers have been a powerful marker for otherness in discourses of gender, migration and racialisation in Sweden. These women are often described as a problematic group in official discourses on labour-market policy, social welfare and gender equality. Taking as its point of departure the belief that knowledge production constitutes a central arena for deploying relations of power, the purpose of this article is to explore how migrant women’s experiences of motherhood have been represented in the Swedish Government Official Reports (SOU). What conditions of (im)possibility for motherhood, everyday life and integration into Swedish society are expressed in these government reports? How is the position of migrant mothers related to working conditions, intergenerational transmissions and reproduction dilemmas? The article focuses on the years between 1970 and 2000, a period that was characterised by profound transformations in Swedish society expressed not only in changing migration regulations and new gendered divisions of labour but also in the emergence of racialised patterns of inequality in housing, the labour market and access to social welfare. In so doing, the article contributes from the perspective of economic history to contemporary debates on the nexus between migration and racialisation in postcolonial societies.

Sexual division of labour in Brazil: Interpretations of domestic and care work under COVID-19

abstract The COVID-19 pandemic brought disruption to the global economic system; however, the domestic and care world did not come to a halt. As social isolation was practised and, in many countries, institutions which aided the social reproduction of the labour force closed, the amount of unpaid work done in the household seems to have increased in a gendered and racial manner. Brazil is no exception. This article presents the contributions of three Brazilian feminists – Heleieth Saffioti, Lélia González and Sueli Carneiro – on the sexual division of labour in Brazilian society, considering racial and class issues. Their contributions enlighten the dynamics of gender roles in unpaid domestic and care work in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Men in charge of “real” work and women the office “housework”: Chinese policewomen in the post-socialist era

ABSTRACT This qualitative study seeks to contribute to studies on the gender division of labor by examining how Chinese policewomen cope with the still-socialist or danwei style of human resource management. In the post-socialist market reform era, the police department has gone through significant changes, undertaking greater economic monitoring and social service functions, including more office work, with an increasing emphasis on the harmonious relationship between the police and public or service-oriented work. These changes have led to a larger number of policewomen, but have not led to a more equitable division of labor due to the persistence of familial norms of womanhood and the enduring police service performance evaluation system that prioritizes crime-fighting tasks over public-service duties. Against this backdrop, we find that policewomen display a certain degree of flexibility, utilizing certain feminine traits in their community service work while maintaining a non-feminine and physically robust outlook.

Gina Schouten, Liberalism, Neutrality, and the Gendered Division of Labor

Gina Schouten, Liberalism, Neutrality, and the Gendered Division of Labor

El cuidado de la vida en común en tiempos de pandemia y pospandemia

In this essay, I reflect on the way that the COVID-19 pandemic deepens the care crisis and the radical, democratic transformation this turning point demands. Beginning with an assessment of the status of the free-riding on care (Nancy Fraser) and the gender division of labor, I continue with an analysis of the hegemonic justifications that, as Wendy Brown has shown, underpin such unbalance. I conclude with some remarks on the imminent challenge to advance towards a model of state, society and citizenship capable of securing a sustained and co-responsible social compromise with the care of the community.

“On and off screen: Women's work in the screen industries”

“On and off screen: Women's work in the screen industries”

Divisão sexual do trabalho, Cuidados e Capitalismo: um debate a partir do filme “Entre Nós”.

A esfera doméstico-familiar e de cuidados sempre esteve designada às mulheres, as atividades dessa esfera são invisibilizadas e, a sua importância para o espólio do trabalho não assalariado pelo capital, pouco valorizada. Partimos do pressuposto de que o cuidado é definido como uma atividade primordial de mulheres, a partir da divisão sexual do trabalho, que não só explica a base material da opressão das mulheres, mas também como essa opressão e esse trabalho invisível de cuidados são elementos-chave do sistema de exploração e dominação na formação social capitalista. Para conduzir o debate ao longo do texto, partimos do fio condutor da história de Mariana, uma mulher real, retratada no filme “Entre Nós”. A partir de sua história trazemos o debate sobre gênero, divisão sexual do trabalho e cuidados.

Women’s economic autonomy during the COVID-19 pandemic

This article is a contribution to the debate on the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on gender inequalities in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a focus on women’s economic autonomy. Through a review of the contributions of feminist economics and an analysis of the empirical evidence, it identifies a deterioration in the indicators associated with women’s incomes and their participation in the labour market. The sexual division of labour is deepening in the region, endangering the scant progress made regarding women’s economic autonomy in the pre-crisis years. It warns about gender biases in crisis mitigation policies and reflects on the importance of redistributing time, resources and power to move towards a new style of development based on gender equality and sustainability.

A descriptive analysis of three-generation households and mothers' employment in Japan, 2002–2019

PurposeThis article aims to explore how Japanese women with younger children changed their commitment to the labour market between 2000 and 2019 by comparing mothers in three-generation and nuclear family households.Design/methodology/approachJapan currently has the highest ageing rate in the world at nearly 30%. Since the 1990s, employment flexibilization and women's labour market participation have proceeded in parallel, and the conservative family values of the patriarchy and gender division of labour that have provided intergenerational aid for care within households have been shrinking, by conducting a descriptive analysis of the Labour Force Survey (LFS).FindingsThis study identified that a conspicuous increase in part-time employment among mothers in both household types and a decrease by half in the working mother's population in three-generation households. These results suggest that the function of inter-generational assistance by multi-generation cohabitation, which was once thought to be effective in helping working mothers with younger children, is declining.Originality/valueA study examining the transformation of mothers' employment behaviour differences between three-generation households and nuclear family households is rare. This paper makes a new contribution to the research regarding the grandparents' caregiving, household types and mothers' employment.

Societal Panorama of Power: Emancipation of Women or Threat?

The pandemic has brought the world to a standstill. The dearth to survive in the wake of devastation has made humans adapt to the new normal which was never experienced but now has become a protocol. The phrase which was the tagline for global partnerships ‘united we stand, divided we fall’ has now transformed into ‘divided we stand, united we fall’, as a claim to survive this pandemic. In India where the virus has claimed the maximum toll of human lives, continues to fight various battles to survive. On one side, the health workers, doctors, police are risking their lives so that the common man may not be affected while on the other hand, people within the houses are falling victims to domestic and sexual abuse. In the light of the pandemic that has claimed lives as well as loss of employment; the struggle to survive has hit a different tone especially among the lower and the middle income families. The frustration of losing a job is vented on the family members as there remains no source of income to support the family. This article tries to unearth the existing social problems of abuse among men and women at large especially during the pandemic. The principle of resistance is understood in the sexual division of labour where individuals are now trying to be communicating with the outside world while remaining at home.

Fathers’ Job Flexibility and Mothers’ Return to Employment

Abstract One of the main drivers of gender inequality is the unequal distribution of paid work between men and women, in particular, after the birth of a child. In this study, we examine how a man’s employment flexibility, specifically his weekly hours of employment and schedule autonomy, influence his female partner’s return to employment after the birth of a first child using the German Socio-Economic Panel. Given women’s placement as primary but not solitary carers of young children, it is plausible that women’s attachment to the labour force will increase if their male partner is in a position to take on more of the responsibility for unpaid work. Results indicate that a father’s employment flexibility facilities a mother’s part-time employment. A return to full-time hours, however, is less contingent on the father’s employment circumstances or other external factors. The findings highlight the importance of employing couple-level analyses in examinations of the gender division of labour.

Uneven time-space of unpaid reproductive work: an intersectional analysis of the Balearic Islands

This paper aims to examine the relationship between social reproduction and the production of space and, more specifically, the role of unpaid reproductive work in the unequal production of urban space. Although many studies have addressed the social dimension of space in cities, there nevertheless remains a lack of theory relating to the production of space through the oppression and privilege associated, with or caused by, the relations of social reproduction. With the aim of helping to fill this gap, the spatiality of unpaid reproductive work was studied through intersectional analysis. This was done by exploring the spatial practice of the temporary load of unpaid reproductive work as an element responsible for inequality and by relating this to the dimensions of: 1) space and time, and 2) class, sex and age. This intersectional approach allowed us to analyse inequalities in social reproduction and identify spaces of privilege and spaces of oppression in terms of unpaid reproductive work. The study focused on the Balearic Islands and used the latest Time Use Survey (TUS) available in Spain. It is a dialogue between critical urban geography, urban sociology and feminist theory, which makes it possible to visualise the power relations and urban inequality that have derived from the sexual division of labour within the logic of historical capitalism.

Los movimientos sociales desde la perspectiva feminista: pistas metodológicas para un análisis no androcéntrico de la acción social

Social movements have a determining role in the political landscape. They are agents of change that question and bring to light the power structures that the system does not express by itself. However, as power operates as a network, social movements are not exempt from harboring relations of domination and power. In this context, based on a feminist methodology and the use of gender categories as a device of power, sexual division of labor, access to the public space, and decision-making, the objective of this work is to provide methodological elements for the analysis of non-separatist or mixed social movements, whose main purpose is not related to breaking power relations based on the gender device. The feminist analysis makes it possible to show elements that, from the androcentric theory of the study of social movements, had not been considered as relevant. Ignoring these aspects produces and reproduces, in most cases, political violence against women. Nevertheless, in other cases, it contributes to making the sexual harassment and violence experienced by women activists invisible.

Public Policy Frames and Gender mainstreaming: an analysis of childcare policy in Brazil during the left turn (2003-2016)

Abstract Brazil was one of the countries that integrated Latin America’s left turn, a period in which social policies have become central. During the Labor Party’s Government (Partido dos Trabalhadores) (2013-2016), were developed institutional conditions to mainstream gender in public policies, which embraced the issue of the sexual division of labor. However, did it mean an effective reorientation of the childcare policy towards gender equality perspectives? This article aims to reflect upon this question, drawing on the gender mainstreaming concept. It is understood as a process of incorporation of feminist perspectives into the public policy framing, regarding the (re)definition of both the public problem and the course of state action. To do so, we carried out a qualitative study of gender mainstreaming on childcare policy (daycare centers and leaves), focusing on official discourses, mainly through documentary analysis. Based on the results analyzed, we identified the coexistence of two frames: “education and childcare rights” and “promotion of women's economic autonomy”. Since the first one has prevailed, we conclude that gender mainstreaming was marginal in the childcare policy, during the analyzed period.

Public Policy Frames and Gender mainstreaming: an analysis of childcare policy in Brazil during the left turn (2003-2016)

Abstract Brazil was one of the countries that integrated Latin America’s left turn, a period in which social policies have become central. During the Labor Party’s Government (Partido dos Trabalhadores) (2013-2016), were developed institutional conditions to mainstream gender in public policies, which embraced the issue of the sexual division of labor. However, did it mean an effective reorientation of the childcare policy towards gender equality perspectives? This article aims to reflect upon this question, drawing on the gender mainstreaming concept. It is understood as a process of incorporation of feminist perspectives into the public policy framing, regarding the (re)definition of both the public problem and the course of state action. To do so, we carried out a qualitative study of gender mainstreaming on childcare policy (daycare centers and leaves), focusing on official discourses, mainly through documentary analysis. Based on the results analyzed, we identified the coexistence of two frames: “education and childcare rights” and “promotion of women's economic autonomy”. Since the first one has prevailed, we conclude that gender mainstreaming was marginal in the childcare policy, during the analyzed period.

Which Way Forward for Economic Security: Basic Income or Public Services?

Abstract Economic insecurity is an endemic problem across the rich countries of the Global North. What is the solution? This paper compares and contrasts two major proposals: the conventional welfare state package of public services and regulations versus a basic income. By comparing and contrasting these systems in three different contexts – a “nightwatchman” context, a neoliberal context, and a social democratic context – and carefully modeling the monetary equivalence between them, we are able to provide a more precise and compelling comparison of the two systems than has yet been accomplished. We evaluate the two systems on the basis of economic security as well as a number of other important criteria, including the economic well-being of oppressed groups, power, carbon emissions, the gender division of labor, free time, social stigma, and transformative potential. We find that without a welfare state background, services and regulations are generally preferable for most vulnerable groups. However, as the welfare state develops, into a neoliberal or a social democratic context, basic income becomes a generally superior option.

Diet, Mobility, Technology, and Lithics: Neolithization on the Andean Altiplano, 7.0–3.5 ka

Neolithization was a complex, protracted process of domestication, sedentarization, and technology change that occurred in various combinations in various times and places around the world. Understanding the causal relationships among those and other important human behaviors remains an analytical challenge. This study examines Neolithization through the lens of lithic artifact variation in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Peru. Drawing on previous lithics research, we outline a synthetic model linking changing diet, mobility, and projectile technology to predicted trends in lithic assemblages. The expectations are then compared to two large, well-dated lithic assemblages from the Titicaca Basin—one from the Middle/Late Archaic forager site of Soro Mik’aya Patjxa (8.0–6.5 cal. ka) and the other from the Terminal Archaic horticultural site of Jiskairumoko (5.2–3.4 cal. ka). We find that the strongest signal in lithic technology change is related to the introduction of archery technology. Signals for subsistence change and declining mobility are relatively weak. The results suggest an early but unconfirmed adoption of archery technology in the Terminal Archaic Period with major transitions in mobility and diet likely to have occurred subsequently in the Terminal Archaic or Formative periods. The findings are consistent with a behavioral model in which changes in projectile technology played a prominent role in the evolution of resource intensification and residential sedentism as well as resource privatization and sexual division of labor in the high Andes.

How the persistence of patriarchy undermines the financial empowerment of women microfinance borrowers? Evidence from a southern sub-district of Bangladesh.

A significant body of multi-disciplinary research supports the proposition that women may experience empowerment from microfinance programs. This is based on the assumption that an increase in women's financial contribution to the household helps to transform gender norms and relations which increases their decision-making power. However, the relationship between the strength and persistence of patriarchal gender norms within the household and women's financial empowerment needs further exploration. This paper presents the findings of a mixed-method study comprising 331 surveys and 33 in-depth interviews with women receiving microfinance and their husbands in a southern sub-district of Bangladesh; it draws upon gender socialisation and gender performance theory to understand how patriarchal gender norms influence women's financial empowerment in households receiving microfinance. Findings demonstrate that participation in microfinance programs has not shifted gender norms, nor financially empowered women. Women's loans were largely controlled by men as prescribed by underlying, unchanged patriarchal gender norms. The inter-generational reproduction of patriarchal gender relations continued to reproduce a strict gendered division of labour that reinforced restrictions on women's behaviour, mobility, and decision-making domains, and men's dominance in household and economic decision-making.

Análisis con perspectiva de género de la Encuesta de Fecundidad 2018 en España

ObjectiveTo analyze the language and content of the questionnaire used in the Fertility Survey 2018, from a gender perspective. MethodQualitative design based on a content analysis of the questionnaire used in the Fertility Survey 2018. Methodological recommendations and guides for gender-sensitive statistics were used, together with the comparison established with the Generations and Gender Survey. The categories of analysis were: language, sexual division of labor and fertility. The analysis procedure included the checklist and the incorporation of emerging variables specifically related to gender inequalities and biases. ResultsThe questionnaire uses with some inclusive language, but maintains the generic use of masculine gender, reproduces gender stereotypes and uses male–female binomials as a single concept. It offers a limited perspective on sexual division of domestic and care labor, horizontal and vertical segregation in the workplace, gender differences between the access and control of resources. In relation to fertility, it reproduces gender inequalities and biases that build a normalized and idealized vision on having children, do not reflect the differential impact of pregnancy and parenting on women's health and prioritize the biological dimension of motherhood and fatherhood. ConclusionsThe Spanish Fertility Survey needs to improve its gender sensitivity, reflect the heterogeneous biological, socio-economic and structural dimensions of fertility and explore deeper into the differential elements that generate inequalities and gender biases.

A sexual division of labour at the start of agriculture? A multi-proxy comparison through grave good stone tool technological and use-wear analysis

This work demonstrates the importance of integrating sexual division of labour into the research of the transition to the Neolithic and its social implications. During the spread of the Neolithic in Europe, when migration led to the dispersal of domesticated plants and animals, novel tasks and tools, appear in the archaeological record. By examining the use-wear traces from over 400 stone tools from funerary contexts of the earliest Neolithic in central Europe we provide insights into what tasks could have been carried out by women and men. The results of this analysis are then examined for statistically significant correlations with the osteological, isotopic and other grave good data, informing on sexed-based differences in diet, mobility and symbolism. Our data demonstrate males were buried with stone tools used for woodwork, and butchery, hunting or interpersonal violence, while women with those for the working of animal skins, expanding the range of tasks known to have been carried out. The results also show variation along an east-west cline from Slovakia to eastern France, suggesting that the sexual division of labour (or at least its representation in death) changed as farming spread westwards.