Greater Economic Vulnerability Research Articles

Breadwinning or on the breadline? Female breadwinners’ economic characteristics across 20 welfare states

In analysing heterosexual couples’ work–family arrangements over time and space, the comparative social policy literature has settled on the framework of the ‘male-breadwinner’ versus the ‘dual-earner’ family. Yet, in assuming men in couple-families are (full-time) employed, this framework overlooks another work–family arrangement, which is the ‘female-breadwinner’ couple. Including female-breadwinner couples matters because of their growing prevalence and, as our analysis shows, greater economic vulnerability. We perform descriptive and regression analyses of Luxembourg Income Study microdata to compare household incomes for female-breadwinner couples and other couple-types across 20 industrialized countries. We then consider how labour earnings and benefit incomes vary for ‘pure’ breadwinner couples – comprising one wage-earner and one inactive/unemployed partner – according to the gender of the breadwinner. We find that pure female breadwinners have lower average individual earnings than male breadwinners, even after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and occupational and working-time differences. Furthermore, welfare systems across most countries are not working hard enough to compensate for the female breadwinner earnings penalty, including in social-democratic countries. Once controls are included in our regression models, it never happens that pure female breadwinners have higher disposable household incomes than pure male breadwinners. Thus, our study adds to a growing body of evidence showing that female-breadwinner families sit at the intersection of multiple disadvantages. In turn, these couples offer comparative scholars of the welfare state an ‘acid test’ case study for how effectively families are protected from social risk. Our results additionally highlight how cross-national differences in the female breadwinner income disadvantage do not fit neatly with established welfare typologies, suggesting that other factors – in particular, labour market characteristics and the economic cycle – are also at play.

A doçura da fruta e o fel do conflito laboral: sindicato dos trabalhadores da indústria de conservas de Pelotas (RS)

A indústria de conservas de frutas e hortaliças de Pelotas (RS) já foi a maior empregadora da cidade. Desde fins dos anos 1980 o setor vivenciou o encerramento da maior parte das empresas, como resultado do processo de racionalização tecnológica e gestorial. O desemprego no segmento acarretou numa maior vulnerabilidade econômica e fragilização política dos trabalhadores. Este artigo busca compreender de que maneira as transformações nessa indústria impactaram na atuação do sindicato dos trabalhadores da categoria, considerado um dos mais combativos da região. Trata-se de uma pesquisa realizada a partir de fontes documentais e junto aos trabalhadores, sindicalistas e empresários, com o propósito de entender as razões da intensificação dos conflitos do trabalho e a postura sindical frente aos novos desafios do mundo laboral.

Kinship in Practice: Spatial Distribution of Children's Kin Networks

The examination of co-residential household arrangements has been a mainstay in demographic analysis, based on the assumption that those with whom one lives are the most important influences in one's life. In contrast, we know far less about the spaces not shared but none the less crucially important in the lives of children. In this analysis, we bring together detailed ethnographic data on kin connectivity with geographical information system (GIS) data in a rural area of South Africa, in order to: 1) describe the spatial distribution of kin from a child's perspective, with special attention paid to the role of circular migrants who constitute a critical point of spatial dispersion; 2) examine how type of kinship (maternal vs paternal) and 3) socio-economic status intersect with spatial distribution. Our analysis uses a three-category typology of kin spatial arrangement that reflects employment constraints, patterns of union formation and norms of kin obligation. Specifically, we find that 1) the high-density rural node with extensive dispersion is associated with economic and union stability and access to maternal and paternal kin; whereas 2) the rural node with limited dispersion faces greater economic vulnerability and often operates in the absence of formal unions; and 3) the rural node with minimal dispersion offers the least amount of economic security and is almost always dominated by single mothers reliant on maternal kin.

Dynamics of Health Behavior regarding Hospital Waste Management in Dhaka, Bangladesh: A Dysfunctional Health Belief Model

This article examined the usefulness of the Health Belief Model (HBM) and other confounding factors in determining health behavior of individuals involved in hospital waste management and tested four components of HBM in relation to demographic variables, knowledge, and occupational practices of the respondents. The study revealed that the waste pickers had a lower level of knowledge, attitude, and safe practices than nurses and sweepers. Perceived Susceptibility and Perceived Severity were moderately associated with safe occupational practices among the respondents (p < 0.05). In addition, respondents with higher levels of education and income were more likely to have higher levels of Perceived Susceptibility, Severity, and Benefits. The study findings indicate that individuals with greater economic vulnerability might be at greater risk for not using proper protective measures in handling or picking hospital wastes in Bangladesh.