Women's Paid Research Articles

Wrinkles in Parental Time with Children: Work, Family Structure, and Gender

The two key resources parents provide for their children are money and time (Thomson, Hanson, & McLanahan, 1994). Yet parental efforts to earn and provide money for their children inevitably require time committed to paid labor. These time commitments to paid labor have the potential to directly take time away from one's family, including spouses and children, and often have the tendency to intrude upon the quality of time spent in the family arena. In a similar manner, one's time committed to paid labor may result in a significant reallocation of time in bdomestic activities for oneself and other family members. In addition, feelings of overwork or stress from paid work have the potential to intrude on the time one does spend with family members. Taken together, it is clear that one's participation in the paid labor force has tremendous implications for the amount, allocation, and quality of time spent in the family arena.One of the most drastic societal changes over the past few decades has been the increase in women's employment, particularly among mothers. This increase in women's paid labor has elicited much public and academic concern regarding how the employment of mothers affects children (Casper & Bianchi, 2002). Although a worthwhile concern, it is important to acknowledge the full range of potential impact parental employment, especially of mothers, has on parents' time with children. This includes greater attention to how the amount of mothers' and fathers' time with children is influenced, how work schedules influence time allocation, and how parents' feelings about their time commitments may have consequences for the time they do spend in the family arena. In addition, appropriate assessments of parental employment as it relates to time must also make important acknowledgments about family structure, the changing nature of work and work scheduling, and gender. Indeed, maternal employment is likely to have different implications for single mothers than for married mothers; just as emerging workplace technologies and policies may influence a successful balance of work and family time commitments. Moreover, parents' feelings of achieving a successful balance of work and family time are undoubtedly influenced by the gendered nature of work and family roles. Assessments of all of these factors make important contributions to our understanding of how parents' participation in the paid labor force has ripple effects on time allocation and quality within the family, and point to many future directions for future research.Our goal is to review the literature on families and time. First, we review the literature which assesses how parents, according to labor force status, allocate their time. Next, we review how work schedules, rather than work hours, influence time with children. Next, we review how the demands of work and family make mothers and fathers feel about time, especially that which they spend with their children. We conclude with the identification of several directions for future research regarding the wrinkles in parental time with children formed by the factors of work, family structure, and gender.Allocation of Parental Time with ChildrenParental time with children is both an important and necessary component of families. The positive influence of parental time with children on child outcomes is well established in the existing literature (Amato & Rivera, 1999; Cooksey & Fondell, 1996; Hofferth, 2006). Research has clearly demonstrated the amount of time spent with both mothers and fathers each independently predicts fewer behavioral problems later in childhood (Amato & Rivera, 1999; Hofferth, 2006). Parental time with children is also positively associated with better academic performance (Cooksey & Fondell, 1996). Moreover, Hofferth and Sandberg (2001) suggest that time with parents provide opportunities for children's social, cognitive, and emotional development. …

Just Like Mom? The Intergenerational Reproduction of Women's Paid Work

Given the increasing female labour force participation rates in recent decades, the question arises as to whether the daughters of working mothers show different job patterns than the daughters of homemakers. Using data from a sample of 3,169 adult women in the 2002–2004 wave of the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study, we find that women who were raised by a working mother work about two more hours per week than those raised by a homemaking mother. The likelihood that women are currently in the labour market is not affected by their mother’s past labour force participation. Women’s own educational achievement and the presence of children younger than 12 are the strongest determinants of their participation and work hours. Our findings add to the growing evidence that parental behaviours during childhood have long-reaching consequences for children’s behaviours, also in the realm of paid work. This provides a useful explanation for the persisting gender gap in work hours across Europe, in addition to the conventional explanations of education, occupational history and family formation.

“A Treadmill Life”: Class and African American Women's Paid Domestic Service in the Postbellum South, 1863–1920

This paper suggests that, by the end of Reconstruction, most African American domestic workers were involved in a feudal relationship within white households. This relationship centered on the continued exploitation of their labor by whites and served to reinforce nonclass conditions prevalent in the South, including their continued bondage, economic dependency, and socially designated inferiority in relation to whites. Their freedom from slavery resulted in their nonfreedom to become serfs.

Women's Paid Work in an Urban Developing Economy. Barcelona in 1930

AbstractIn this paper we explore the determinants of women's work using data from Barcelona in 1930. Although participation rates were much lower in Barcelona than in cities in the UK or the US at roughly the same time, our estimates of the labour supply suggest women in Barcelona did respond to wage incentives. The most distinguishable feature of the household division of labour in Barcelona is the lack of substitution effects among family members, especially among women. The sensitivity of the participation of each individual woman to the participation of other members of the household might indicate that labour markets were highly segmented and anticipates the existence of large differences in household earnings and welfare. We argue that the persistence of labour-intensive methods of production requiring on-the-job training might explain the type of household division of labour that we find in Barcelona.

Do Women Pay More for Credit? Evidence from Italy

The answer is yes. By using a unique and large data set on overdraft contracts between banks and microfirms and self-employed individuals, we find robust evidence that women in Italy pay more for overdraft facilities than men. We could not find any evidence that women are riskier then men. The male/female differential remains even after controlling for a large number of characteristics of the type of business, the borrower and the market structure of the credit market. The result is not driven by women using a different type of bank than men, since the same bank charges different rates to male and female borrowers. Social capital does play a role: high levels of trust loosen credit conditions by lowering interest rates, but this benefit is not evenly distributed, as women benefit from increased social capital less than men.

Undoing Shame: Tourism and Women's Work in Turkey

This paper discusses processes of tourism and socio-cultural change in a Turkish village context by exploring how gender identities and gendered spaces are being reconstituted through tourism-related work. As tourism has developed in the region surrounding the World Heritage Site of Göreme in central Turkey, men have become tourism entrepreneurs and gained tourism employment whilst women have remained largely excluded from tourism work. This is because in Göreme society tourism work is considered a man's activity as it is inappropriate for women to work in the ‘public’ sphere. During the past five years, however, there has been a marked increase both in women's paid employment in local tourism small businesses and in women's micro-scale entrepreneurial activity associated with tourism. Based on long term anthropological fieldwork, this paper considers the processes through which this example of tourism and social change has taken place. It considers some of the broader influential aspects of social change, and it also looks at how the spatial and moral boundaries have shifted in order to allow women to work in the tourism domain.

From Public to Private Maternalism? Gender and Welfare in Poland and Hungary after 1989

This paper compares the political processes and gendered outcomes of welfare state formation in Hungary and Poland. We find both differences and similarities in the extent to which family and maternity policies in the two countries encourage women's paid work, support women's care giving work in the home, guard women and their families against poverty, and differentiate among women based on ethnic/racial classifications and class status. We argue that while welfare states in Western Europe may be increasingly characterized by a retreat from maternalist policies, Hungarian and Polish welfare policies support distinct forms of maternalism. While maternalism is privatized in Poland, it is publicly supported and subsidized in Hungary. We attempt to explain the divergence between the two countries by pointing to differences in class-based and gender-based political mobilization around family benefits as well as the timing of welfare reforms. Despite differences in the substance of the policies, however, we find that both regimes limit women's labor market opportunities.

The Public Sector, Family Structure, and Labor Market Behavior

Recent research has suggested that the characteristics of paid work affect trade-offs between women's activities in the family and employment spheres. One argument suggests that public sector employment, more so than private sector employment, provides conditions that are amenable to the combination of paid work and family. In this article, the authors exploit panel-type data to compare the labor market behavior of Jewish Israeli women in the years following childbirth and focus on differential labor market activity among women with employment histories in the public and private sectors. Their findings point to significant interaction effects between previous sector of employment and childbearing behavior and suggest that the welfare state, through the provision of “family friendly” employment opportunities, plays a role in encouraging women's paid labor in the years following childbirth.

PlusÇa Change?1 evidence on global trends in gender norms and stereotypes

Gender norms and stereotypes that perpetuate inequality are deeply embedded in social and individual consciousness and, as a result, are resistant to change. Gender stratification theories propose that women's control over material resources can increase bargaining power to leverage change in key institutions, prompting a shift to more equitable norms. By extension, policies that promote women's paid employment should serve as a fulcrum for gender equitable change. Is there any evidence to support this hypothesis? Investigating this requires a means to capture gender norms and stereotypes. The World Values Survey provides just such a mechanism because it contains a series of gender questions that span a twenty-year period and includes respondents from more than seventy countries. This paper uses that survey's data to analyze determinants of trends in norms and stereotypes over time and across countries, and finds evidence that increases in women's paid employment promotes gender equitable norms and stereotypes.

The Construction of the Myth of Survival

ABSTRACTA myth has come into being that the poor household/family is able to survive in spite of a lack of resources and the presence of macroeconomic policies that foster unemployment and poverty. It has an accompanying fable that tells of how the poor manage to implement survival strategies that are based on their endless capacity to work, to consume less and to be part of mutual help networks. This myth has become a useful tool for policy makers as they design more aggressive neoliberal economic adjustment policies. This contribution examines anthropological and sociological insights regarding the life of the poor and the organization of their households, in which women's paid and unpaid work is an integral part. Through the lens of a researcher in the field of urban poverty and household organization, the article re‐examines the fable of the good survivor. Evidence debunks the myth, showing that the optimistic message of this fable does not match with the realities of the impact of economic change on women's lives. But the myth is sustained, as this more negative story is not one that supra‐national policy actors want to hear.

The Impact of Children on Women's Paid Work*

AbstractThis paper investigates how and when differences in work behaviour between men and women develop, focusing on the evolution of the gender gaps over the period of family development. The findings support the theory that gender differences in the formal labour market stem from the presence of children in the home and that childbirth and children entering school are critical times in women's employment. Births mark a dramatic decline in participation in work for women, while school entry is a time of considerable turnover in participation. The length of absence from work following a subsequent birth is closely related to whether the mother was in work between births, while maternity pay and leave entitlements appear to influence the precise timing of the return to work. In addition, a return to work following birth is often only temporary. The gradual decline in women's relative wages following the first birth appears to stem from the accumulation of several shorter periods of unusually low wage growth for women around the times of birth and school entry. There is also a sharp movement into part‐time work for women following childbirth and a transition towards non‐permanent positions and non‐supervisory roles at both critical points.

Women’s Cityward Migration, Domestic Service and Schooling in Southern Mexico

That 40,000 women work as household workers in Oaxaca City (population 450,000) is deemed “very high for a country as developed as Mexico” (Selby, Murphy and Lorenzon 1991:48; INEGI 2001). Ethnographic data collected among women currently and at one time working as either full-time or daily/hourly domestic workers shed light on the realities faced by unskilled women cityward migrants who find employment in the lowest paid, least prestigious jobs in the urban economy. Two case studies are presented to illustrate ways that women's paid household labor can finance their own or their children's acquisition of the schooling requisite for more gainful, higher paid forms of urban formal sector employment.

``It's heavenly to be alone!'': A room of one's own as a health-promoting resource for women. Results from a qualitative study

This paper describes strategies developed by women to handle lack of time for themselves, and lack of freedom, in private life. The paper reports on one self-assessed health resource identified in a larger qualitative study on women's paid and unpaid work and health/sickness. Twenty strategically selected women were interviewed, elderly women being chosen to obtain a lifetime perspective. The interviews were audio-taped and analysed according to a phenomenological approach. Expectations had been placed on the interviewees as women: to give care, always to be available for other family members, to adjust to their husbands. Many of them recalled seeking privacy ("a room of one's own") to avoid constant demands and interruptions, and as a refuge from partner domination. This was a conscious health-promoting strategy on their part. A room of one's own did not necessarily mean a physical room, but the right to -- and the possibility of -- a life of one's own. Forms of privacy included gainful employment, a separate bedroom, own social engagements. Family life still demands more from women than from men, putting many women under constant time pressure and without time for themselves. In heterosexual relationships, women frequently feel controlled. Prevailing norms for married women and mothers, causing blame and feelings of guilt, remain obstacles to women wanting "a room of their own". The health resource of having such a room, and strategies for creating one, should be given attention in medical research and practice -- not least in primary care.

The Relationship of Job Attribute Preferences to Employment, Hours of Paid Work, and Family Responsibilities: An Analysis Comparing Women and Men

We used 1997 International Social Survey Programme data from 14 countries to examine the relationship of job attribute preferences to family responsibilities, employment, and paid work hours. Separate regression analyses for women and men examined whether family responsibilities (marriage, children, spousal employment, and housework responsibility) predicted job attribute preferences. Many family responsibilities were significant predictors of men's and women's extrinsic and intrinsic preferences. Family responsibilities also predicted women's flexibility preferences. We next examined whether job attribute preferences were associated with employment and weekly paid work hours when family responsibilities were controlled. Job attribute preferences showed several significant relationships to women's and men's employment and several significant relationships to women's paid work hours.

“On the Move”: African American Women's Paid Domestic Labor and the Class Transition to Independent Commodity Production

This paper examines the changing class relations between African American domestic workers and white households in the post–World War II period. Using class analysis and supporting empirical evidence, I argue that African American women were agents of a class transition from feudalism to independent commodity production. Over time, African American domestic laborers redefined and standardized their jobs so that they were increasingly able to exchange specified services for a given amount of money.

IS PAID WORK THE (ONLY) ANSWER? NEOLIBERALISM, ARAB WOMEN'S WELL-BEING, AND THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA),1 attention has been drawn to the low rates of paid employment among women (Moghadam and Khoury 1995; Olmsted 1999; World Bank 2004b), with the argument often being made that this is an indication ofwomen'sunderutilizationand vulnerability. While not disagreeing that access to paid employment may create more options for women, following work by other feminist economists, in this paper I argue that concluding that increases in women's paid employment necessarily will be linked to an improvement in women's economic status is problematic, particularlygivengender roleexpectations,which in turn lead to an asymmetrical distribution ofreproductivelabor in SWANA (as well as elsewhere).A growing literature points out that paid employment for women is no panacea, either for women themselves or for society in general. Even when they enter paid employment, women often remain more economically vulnerable than men, not only because they face discrimination and exploitative work conditions, but also because societies continue to assign them the generallyunremunerated economic role ofreproductive labor. An examination ofthe factors that shape the and safety nets thus is needed, to gauge how the social contract addresses reproductive

Women's paid work and moral economies of care

Female labour force participation has been increasing in recent decades, in part encouraged by state policies to raise the employment rate to encourage economic competitiveness and combat social exclusion. Social provision for care, however, has lagged behind this increase, creating practical and moral dilemmas for individuals and for society, facing parents with complex choices about how to combine work and care. In this paper, we draw on a qualitative study in London to explore the extent to which the large-scale entry of women into waged work is altering women's understandings of their duties and responsibilities to care for others. We conclude that their decisions are influenced by class position, entrenched gender inequalities in the labour market, varying abilities to pay for care and complex gendered understandings of caring responsibilities.

Love and Money in an Age of Neoliberalism: Gender, Work, and Single Motherhood in Postrevolutionary Nicaragua

Based on qualitative research conducted in 1999 and 2001 with a group of single mothers in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, this paper examines the contradictory impacts of neoliberalism on work, based on the understanding that economic restructuring can generate both crisis and a space for changes in gender identities. By focusing on the broader picture of women's work and on the intersections between paid and unpaid work, it discusses what happens to these intersections in times of intense political and economic change. Despite the hardships caused by neoliberalism, it appears that work is a site in which gender ideologies can be challenged. The paper has four main sections. First, it explores the ways in which certain cultural processes are intensified under neoliberalism which affects the relationship between constructions of masculinity and femininity. Second, it assesses the impact of neoliberalism on domestic work and the implications of this for GAD (gender and development) understandings of the double burden and of how the balance of women's paid and unpaid work changes under neoliberalism. Third, it examines the ways in which hegemonic understandings of femininities and motherhood and revolutionary legacies can be resistant to the neoliberal present. Finally, it discusses how work under neoliberalism can be a site of female empowerment or self-esteem.

Play the Men's Game? Accommodating Work and Family in the Workplace

This study aims to identify the reality of Korean working women in accommodating work with family responsibilities, taking account of workplace culture and practices. With changes in demography and in the ideology of male breadwinner/female caregiver model, issues regarding the reconciliation of work and family have become important in organizations that employ men and women workers. In this context, I ask whether such organizations tolerate the private affairs of their employees such as marriage, pregnancy and childrearing to intrude into the sphere of work. To what extent are such familial concerns addressed? This paper presents data collected through interviews with working men and women. Qualitative findings suggest that, apart from the dual-earner reality and the public discourse of gender equality in contemporary Korea, the room for acknowledging family responsibility in work organizations is extremely limited. The sphere of work is strongly characterized by the patriarchal dichotomy of public-private spheres and a gendered interpretation of women's paid work as well as organizational practices. It is therefore clear that the accommodation of work and family comprises a gendered pitfall for working mothers and their careers in Korea.

Generation shift in family vs. working conditions as most important influence on women's mood?The Prospective Population Study of Women in Gothenburg, Sweden

Objective – To find out whether family or working conditions is most important for mood in different ages in women.Design – Prospective study.Setting – Göteborg, Sweden, population about 430 000.Subjects – Representative samples of a general population of women, born in 1930 (n=276), 1942 (n=93) and 1954 (n=61), examined both in 1980–81 and 1992–93.Main outcome measures – Associations between “mood” and different social factors indicated by correlation coefficients and studied cross-sectionally and longitudinally.Results – In younger women, the variable “mood” was associated with variable work situation but not family situation (correlation coefficient 0.47, p<0.001, and correlation coefficient 0.26, not statistically significant, respectively), while in older women “mood” was associated with variable family situation as well as work situation (correlation coefficients 0.45 and 0.41, p<0.01 both). Changes in the mood variable between 1980–81 and 1992–93 were associated with changes in working conditions in the younger cohort, but with changes in variable family conditions in the older cohort.Conclusions – In the latest born cohort, the importance of women's paid work outside the home was increased as an influential factor on mood in comparison with the importance of the family situation, while the situation was the opposite in the earlier born cohorts.