YOU DECIDE SOCS 315 MARRIAGE AND fAMILY

The Work-Family Connection

Research shows that the worlds of work and family affect each other in significant ways. The quality and stability of family life are dependent to a large extent on the type of work available for family members. Work provides income that determines a family’s standard of living. Because of changing economic and social conditions, a single income is no longer sufficient for most families. Many husbands remain major providers, but increasingly wives are sharing this role and, increasingly, wives are taking over this role due to their husbands’ job loss. Additionally, growing numbers of families are headed by a single parent who must fulfill both the breadwinner and homemaker roles.

Work affects families in other ways as well. It can have spillover effects, either positive or negative, on family life. An example of positive spillover is the carryover of satisfaction and stimulation at work to a sense of satisfaction at home (Orbuch, 2011). Similarly, increases in marital satisfaction are related to increases in job satisfaction (Rogers, 2003). Negative spillover involves bringing home the problems and stresses experienced at work, making adequate participation in family life difficult (Voydanoff, 1987; Schulz et al, 2004). Family life can affect work in important ways as well. Family obligations can provide motivation for working hard, but problems at home, such as a child’s illness, can hinder job performance.

This chapter focuses on the interconnection between families and work, beginning with a quick view of people’s perceptions of the current economic climate followed by an examination of the changing composition of the labor force, notably the increasing participation of married women with small children and the impact of this change on marriage and family structures and functioning. We also examine today’s growing inequalities of wealth and resources as manifested in low income, poverty, unemployment, and underemployment, all of which have contributed to a sense of unease and economic uncertainty among many working families. Despite government reports of a growing economy and some new job creation, recent polling data suggest that the majority of Americans are concerned about current economic conditions.

ECONOMIC CONCERNS ARE INCREASING IN THE UNITED STATES

In April 2011, only 19 percent of respondents rated the economic conditions in this country as good; 80 percent rated them as poor. Thirty-nine percent of respondents thought that economic conditions were getting worse (CBS/New York Times, 2011b). Similar concerns were observed in a recent Gallup poll that found that 58 percent of Americans were worried that they will not be able to maintain their standard of living, the highest response to this question to date. Respondents were even more concerned about their future. Sixty-six percent of respondents were worried about not having enough money for retirement. This was almost equally true for respondents with incomes of less than $30,000 and respondents with income of $75,000 or more, (69 to 68 percent) (Mendes, 2011). These attitudes contrast with more optimistic views exhibited in 2001 when 63 percent of respondents rated economic conditions as excellent or good (“Consumer Views of the Economy,” 2006).

People’s concerns about their economic future are not unfounded. In recent decades, both the U.S. and world economies have experienced major changes that have adversely affected many family budgets. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (2010), the Great Recession that began in December 2007 and ended 18 months later in July 2009 was deeper than any recession since World War II. This recession was caused in large measure by the crash of a massive real estate bubble fueled by the packaging and selling of sub-prime mortgages during a period when many American consumers and investment banks were assuming large amounts of debt. During this period, Americans lost 21 percent of their net worth, the labor market shed some 7.3 million jobs, and 2.3 million homes were lost through foreclosure (Russell Sage Foundation, 2011). Although many economists agree that the economy is showing signs of some recovery, research on the impact of the recession on families shows it is deep, widespread, and likely to continue for many more years. Consider:

• • More than half of all adults in the U.S. labor force (55 percent) had experienced some “work-related hardship”—a period of unemployment, a pay cut, a reduction in work hours, or an involuntary move to part-time employment—since the recession began.

• • More than 70 percent of Americans age 40 and over felt they had been affected by the economic crisis.

• • Long-term unemployment—joblessness lasting six months or more—is at its highest level since the 1940s.

• • 20 percent of Americans have seen their available household income decline by 25 percent or more (quoted in Warner, 2010).

This process is not likely to end anytime soon. Forrester Research estimates that 3.4 million white-collar jobs will be sent overseas between 2003 and 2050 (Greenhouse, 2008). Millions of workers lost jobs because their plant or company closed (42,000 factories closed since 2001) or moved, there was insufficient work for them to do, or their positions or shifts were abolished. Although the majority of these workers eventually found other work, it was often at lower pay. During the last three decades, the real earnings of most male workers remained stagnant or fell. Other factors such as the rise in costs for gasoline, home heating, health care, food, and college education are contributing to the financial stress experienced by many families.

Not all families are affected equally by the experience of job loss. African Americans are more likely to be affected by job loss than White workers, and the consequences of job loss appear more severe for Blacks who, on average, have fewer economic resources to sustain them during periods of unemployment. In the past, white-collar workers and professionals were less likely to be affected by economic downturns. This is much less the case today. Financial struggles at companies like Ford and General Motors, United Airlines defaulting on its pensions, the collapse of Enron and WorldCom, and the need for a bank bailout led to the dislocation of thousands of workers and added to the anxiety among many employed workers. In a recent study, almost one out of three married Americans said the recession had brought financial stress to their marriage. Despite the stress, an equal number of married people said the recession has caused them to deepen their commitment to their marriage (Wilcox, 2011). Some couples deal with this anxiety by long-term planning (see the Family Profile box). We will discuss these trends in more detail throughout this chapter and conclude it with an assessment of the kinds of changes that need to be made in the organization of work and in social policies to help individuals maintain a decent standard of living while also maintaining a balance between the demands of work and family.

The Transformation of Work and Family Roles

The idealized images of men as providers and women as home-makers continued into the second half of the twentieth century, despite the fact that these roles were already being undermined. Figure 10.1 on page 322 traces the changes in women’s and men’s labor force participation rates from 1900 with projections to 2018. The labor force participation rate refers to the percentage

Family Profile THE PARKINSON FAMILY

Karen, Brody, Craig, and Luke Parkinson

Length of Relationship: 15 ½years

Length of Marriage: 10 years

Challenges in Parenting

Craig and I became parents again when our second son, Luke, was born on July 6, 2008. Luke joined his, at that time, almost 3-year-old brother, Brody. With Luke now 3 and Brody nearly turning 6, we are facing some new challenges. Craig is currently teaching in a large urban school district and has been for the previous 11 years. After a four year unpaid personal leave, I officially resigned from my teaching position in the same school district. I resigned from that position in an effort to remain home with the children through their early years. The plan at this point is for me to return to the teaching profession when both children are in school full time. As the economy stands in 2011, I am concerned about what type of full-time teaching positions will be available when the time comes to return to work. The district my husband teaches in has experienced many budget cuts in recent years. Many teachers have been laid off based on seniority. With my husband having taught 11 years at the same school, it would be sad to see him have to start over in a different school. His current school is within walking distance of our home. It has been a challenge moving from two incomes down to just one. That being said, we have planned for this time of only one income since purchasing our house in 2003. Through long-term planning, we are able to afford our mortgage and many of the other necessities without having to worry about being a single-income family.

A second challenge at this point is teaching Luke that he may not be able to do all of the activities that Brody is able to do. For instance, Brody is currently playing summer T-ball and has practice two nights per week. As a family, we all attend but keeping Luke in the stands, sitting down, and watching is a challenge. He wants to run out on the field and participate, too! We would like Luke to learn that some activities are for certain aged children and, therefore, he cannot participate. His turn will come.

Another challenge for me was the adjustment from having two children home to just one. Brody began all day K-4 in the fall of 2010, leaving Luke and me as the only ones home during the day. I was very concerned about how Luke would adjust to Brody being gone all day. Would he miss him, would he cry, be bored? It turns out I had nothing to worry about. Each morning, Luke happily waves goodbye in the window as Craig and Brody walk to work and school. I actually think he loves the one-on-one time he and I can spend together. I do, too! Which leads me to talk about the joys of parenting two boys.

Craig and I both love the fact that we have two sons who will grow up together and always have someone to play with. They may not always play well together, share, or talk kindly, but they have learned that they are brothers and will always have each other. It is looking like our children will only have one cousin, and she is 13 years old. Craig and I grew up with many cousins always around at family functions and we were concerned that our children would miss out on that experience. Having had two boys, it softened that concern a bit. They will have each other to play with as they grow up. We are a very active family and love to do things together outside, especially sports. As Luke approached two years old, we thought about whether or not we wanted to expand our family. We decided we love the fact that they were both more independent and didn’t want to start all over with a newborn. Through thick and thin, we are happy to be a family of four! of workers in a particular group who are employed or who are actively seeking employment. If people are not employed and are not actively seeking work, they are not counted in the labor force. As the twentieth century opened, only 20 percent of women age 14 and older were in the labor force, compared with approximately 86 percent of men in that age category. The comparable rates 100 years later were 60 percent for women and 75 percent for men age 16 and over. Thus, during the twentieth century, the labor force participation rates for women and men have moved in opposite directions, with the result that women now constitute nearly 47 percent of all workers, up from 18 percent in 1900. This gap between the proportion of female and male workers is expected to narrow even further in the twenty-first century, as the percentage of women (58.7 percent) remains relatively stable but a lower percentage of men (70.8 percent) are expected to be in the labor force by 2018.

FIGURE 10.1 Civilian Labor Force Participation Rates, by Sex, 1900 to 2000 with Projections to 2018

Source: Adapted from U.S. Census Bureau, 1975, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, bicentennial ed., part 1 (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office): 131-132; U.S. Census Bureau 2011, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2011 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office): Table 585; p. 377

 Watch the Video Working Women and Childcare on myfamilylab.com

The decline in the male participation rate reflects a number of changes in the U.S. economy. On the one hand, improvements in pension and other retirement benefits have allowed older men to retire early; on the other hand, the labor market demands for better-educated workers have kept younger men in school longer and led to the displacement of workers with low levels of education and marginal skills, especially men of color.

VARIATIONS BY RACE, GENDER, AND MARITAL STATUS

Historically, labor force participation rates varied by race as well as by gender and marital status. In the past, White women were less likely than women of color to be in the labor force. As White women began to delay marriage and to divorce in greater numbers, however, their rates became similar to those of other groups of women. In 2009, the labor force participation rate for Black women was 60.3 percent, followed by White women with 59.1 percent, and Asian women with 58.2 percent. Latinas had the lowest rate of participation, 56.5 percent. For men, the differences in participation rates are more pronounced across race and ethnicity. Latinos lead with 78.8 percent, followed by Asian men with 74.6 percent, and White men with 72.8 percent. Black men have the lowest labor force participation rates, 65 percent (U.S. Census Bureau, 20 lie).

FIGURE 10.2 Labor Force Participation Rates for Wives, Husbands Present, with Children under Age 6, by Race, 1975-2008

Source: Adapted from U.S. Census Bureau, 2011, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2011 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office): Table 599, p. 385.

The narrowing gap between women’s and men’s participation rates reveals only part of the story, however. According to historian Alice Kessler-Harris (1982), a marked shift occurred in the participation patterns of women. Prior to World War II, the majority of women workers were young, single, poor, and women of color. As Figure 10.2 shows as late as 1975, only 36.7 percent of all married mothers with children under age 6 were in the labor force. However, a much higher percentage of Black mothers (almost 55 percent) than White mothers (about 35 percent) were working. More than three decades later, almost six out of 10 (62 percent) married mothers with preschool children were in the labor force. However, the gap between the percentages of working Black and White mothers narrowed somewhat, 70.2 to 61.4 percent. Latina mothers had the lowest rate (48.0 percent), and Asian mothers were next (59.3 percent). Even more noteworthy is that 58.9 percent of White married women and 61.2 percent of Black married women with children age 1 or younger were in the labor force, compared with 29.2 and 50.0 percent, respectively, in 1975. In 2008, comparable figures for Asia mothers were 57.8 percent and 43.7 percent for Latina mothers (U.S. Census Bureau, 20 lie).

REASONS WOMEN WORK

Rarely do we ask men why they work—we assume they have no choice. They are expected to be family providers. But because the homemaker role was believed to be the traditional role for women, any departures from this role required explanation. Most women work for the same reasons men do—to support themselves or their family. Other reasons women give for working are interest and self-fulfillment. The recent Families and Work Institute’s National Study of the Changing Workforce found that women under age 29 were just as likely as men to want jobs with greater responsibility (66 percent to 67 percent) compared to 54 percent to 61 percent in 1997 (Galinsky, Aumann, and Bond, 2009).

 Read the Document Detours on the Road to Equality: Women, Work, and Higher Education on myfamilylab.com

No single factor can explain the dramatic changes in women’s labor force participation rates and aspirations. Rather, a complex interplay of demographic, economic, social, political, and personal factors have contributed to these changes. During the last 50 years, the economy underwent rapid change leading to an increased demand for women workers to fill the expanding number of jobs in the service sector such as teaching, health care, social services, government, and real estate. The women’s movement and affirmative action legislation also enhanced employment opportunities for women and people of color. Additionally, in contrast to women in previous eras, women today are better educated, have fewer children, and live longer. Women who postpone marriage and childbearing to increase their level of education and to begin work are more likely to remain in the labor force after the birth of their children. Today, there is no difference between young women with and without children in their desire to move to jobs with more responsibility. Advanced education influences women in much the same way that it influences men. Not only does education offer better job possibilities, but it also raises awareness of personal options and creates a desire for self-expression and self-fulfillment. Women today also have more time in their total life span to pursue activities other than childrearing. All of these, changes as well as a desire for a higher standard of living for families, culminated in a change in social attitudes resulting in a greater acceptance of working women.

Work and Family Structures

The rapid entrance of married women with children into the labor force has altered family life in many ways. A variety of work and family structures have emerged as a response to these economic and social transformations, creating both opportunities and problems for family members.

TRADITIONAL NUCLEAR FAMILIES, INCLUDING STAY-AT-HOME DADS

This stay-at-home dad keeps in touch while taking his children on an outing to the park.

The highly idealized family structure consisting of a working husband, a wife who is a full-time homemaker, and one or more children currently comprises only 22.6 percent of married couples with children under age 15, down from 23.7 percent in 2008. The number of stay-at-home moms was the lowest since 2001, also a period of recession (Yen, 2010). Smaller in numbers but similar in structure are households in which husbands and fathers (popularly called househusbands) stay home to care for home and family while their wives work. The exact number of stay-at-home dads is unknown. The U.S. Census Bureau puts the number at 154,000 (Facts for Features, 2011). Sociologist Beth Latshaw (2010) believes the number is much higher, arguing that the census figures are based on a narrow definition in which the wife must be in the labor force for the entire year and the husband outside the official labor force for the specifically cited reason of “taking care of home and family.” She estimates that the share of fathers who stay at home to raise children is over 6 percent of all fathers. The United States is not the only country with stay-at-home dads. In Canada, one out of 8 stay-at-home parents are dads, up from 1 in 100 in 1976 (Jeong, 2011), and in the Republic of Korea the government data show that 177,00 men cited their main “job” as childrearing and housekeeping (“Korean Men Willing...,” 2011).

Most men take this role on a temporary basis when they are unemployed, going to school, or able to do their work from home. In some cases, the comparative earning power of spouses dictates who stays at home. Today, one out of three wives earns more than her husband. If a wife’s earnings are substantially higher than his, the family budget is improved if Dad is the one who stays home. Other stay-at-home men are retired; still others have remarried younger women and now want the opportunity to participate more fully in childrearing activities. Although most men find great personal satisfaction in caring for their children, many complain that they receive relatively little support from the larger society and often find their masculinity questioned by others. However, many moms, like Darla Stencavage, a captain in the U.S. Army, know better. When they leave for work, they go with the assurance that their children will be well carried for by active and loving stay-at-home dads. According to Darla, “He is a wonderful caregiver and nurturer for me and my daughter, and it really eases my mind. It was important for us to raise our own children, and I would have had to quit work if he had not been willing to stay home.” Peter Stencavage not only assumed full-time parenting, he took on the role of the supportive spouse of an Army commander and participates in his wife’s unit’s family support group, often the only male in attendance (“Dad of the Month,” 2006).

These men, like their female counterparts, engage in activities that some authors are now calling “home production,” the non-market production of goods and services, usually for the family but occasionally on a volunteer basis for schools, churches, or other groups. According to sociologists Randy Hodson and Teresa Sullivan (1995), what is traditionally known as “housework” is only one aspect of home production, which also includes household budgeting, grocery shopping, care of dependents, and other tasks that go beyond cleaning and laundry. Consumer website Insure, com looked at the various tasks that a stay-at-home parent does and concluded that to replace that labor a family would have to spend $61,436 per year (Business Briefing, 2011).

Like all social roles, the role of home production worker (traditionally known as “housewife”) has both costs and benefits (Oakley, 1974). On the positive side, it provides the possibility of scheduling activities to suit one’s own priorities and the opportunity to watch children grow and develop on a daily basis. Many parents, including many women and men currently in the labor force, would prefer to stay home at least while their children are young. In a 2007 survey, 45 percent of women said they would prefer to stay home compared to 50 percent who said they would prefer to work. More men are reporting a preference to stay at home, 29 percent in 2007 compared with 24 percent in 2001 (Saad, 2007) and only 12 percent in 1985 (Moore, 2005).

Among the disadvantages of the home production role are the repetitive and sometimes boring nature of activities such as cleaning and doing laundry and the overall social devaluation of housework, often reflected in the phrase, “I’m just a housewife.” Important financial costs as well become major burdens for families with only a single source of income and become particularly significant when divorce or death disrupts the family. This is particularly the case when the disruption is unexpected, as happens when accidents, natural disasters, or terrorist attacks result in the untimely death of the major breadwinner. Homemakers are economically dependent on their partners. Unlike homemakers in several European countries, U.S. homemakers are not covered by pensions, insurance, or social security. Thus, when a marriage is dissolved in the United States, the displaced homemaker frequently suffers downward social mobility (see Chapter 12).

THE TWO-PERSON SINGLE CAREER

One variation of the traditional nuclear family-work relationship is what some writers have called the “two-person career” (Papanek, 1973; Mortimer and London, 1984). This pattern, considered by Hanna Papanek to be a “structural part of the middle-class wife’s role” (1973:857), incorporates the wife into her spouse’s job through the expectation that she will be available to entertain his business associates, engage in volunteer activities that will enhance his organization’s image, attend company parties and other events, socialize with her husband’s coworkers off the job, and at the same time attend to the children and keep the household functioning smoothly. Much of the research on the two-person career focuses on middle- and upper-class occupations. Many business, professional, and political wives, for example, the first lady, are often viewed as typical examples of the two-person single career. Thus, men in these families symbolically bring two people to their jobs (Kanter, 1977). However, when women hold similar positions, husbands are rarely expected to perform these duties. One notable exception was Charles T. Hunt III, a stay-at-home dad and husband of former Massachusetts Acting Governor Jane Swift, who agreed to take on some of the responsibilities usually delegated to first ladies such as giving tours of the governor’s mansion.

The two-person single career marriage, like all others, has advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, employers benefit by having additional “workers” without having to pay for their efforts. Many husbands owe much of their career advancement to the social skills of their wives. Because the husband is away from home much of the time, the wife becomes the exclusive home manager. Fulfilling this role gives wives status and a sense of accomplishment, leaving their husbands free to devote most of their energy to work. Among middle- and upper-class wives, the financial rewards for taking on this responsibility may be significant—a secure lifestyle, travel, and opportunities for cultural enrichment. On the negative side, many wives experience unhappiness in this role. Like other nonemployed homemakers, these wives may believe their role is not appreciated or respected by the public. Wives may feel enormously limited in their behavior, constrained in their choice of friends, and restricted in their own occupational goals because of the demands of their husbands’ careers (Papanek, 1973; Kanter, 1977). In addition, the husband’s work often takes priority over family life, thus limiting the time spouses have to be together.

Economic shifts that require multiple family earners as well as the changing aspirations of women and men have led to a decline in the two-person single career strategy. The traditional nuclear family of working husband, homemaker wife, and children is being replaced by dual-earner families, or as some writers prefer, “two-paycheck couples.”

DUAL-EARNER FAMILIES

Dual-earner families are not new; there have always been families where both spouses were employed outside the home. In the past, dual-earner families tended to be concentrated among the poor. However, by 2007, both parents worked in 62 percent of all married-couple families, cutting across all class, race, and ethnic lines (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2008). However, this figure dropped to 47.8 percent in 2010 as a result of the recession that began in late 2007 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011a). Women in dual earner families contributed an average of 44 percent of annual family income in 2008, up from 39 percent in 1997 (Galinsky, Aumann and Bond, 2009).

Dual-earner families do not all follow the same pattern. There is considerable variation in their commitment to work. At one end of the continuum are couples in which one of the spouses, usually the wife, works part time. At the other end is a small but growing number of couples in which both spouses are highly committed to work. These are what social scientists call dual-career couples. These households differ from other dual-earner households in their approach to work. Rather than simply having a job, these couples invest in careers, which have several identifying characteristics. First, they require extensive training, usually a college or professional degree. Second, careers are more structured than jobs, containing specific paths of upward mobility. Finally, careers involve commitment beyond a 9-to-5 workday.

COMMUTER MARRIAGES

Some couples work in different geographic locations and because of distance must maintain two separate places of residence. Social scientists refer to these arrangements as commuter marriages. Approximately 3.8 million Americans are currently in commuter marriages, a 30 percent increase since 2000 (“Love Tech Goes...,” 2008). That figure is expected to increase as more couples find it necessary to accept jobs in distant locations (Kridel, 2009). Couples in other countries face similar challenges. Estimates are that in the central region of Thailand, 41 percent of all couples live apart after marriage due to economic, occupational, or educational needs (quoted in Schvaneveldt, Young, and Schvaneveldt, 2001). One form of commuter marriage has existed for a long time. Couples in which one spouse, most frequently the husband, is a politician, professional athlete, traveling salesperson, seasonal worker, prisoner, or serves in the military, have had some experience with living apart while maintaining a marital relationship. Today, however, 15 percent of active-duty military personnel are women who have entered military life for many of the same reasons men do—better job opportunities than in civilian life, opportunities for education, travel, and adventure, patriotism, and a sense of duty. Many of these women are married; some have children who they have had to leave in the care of spouses, partners, or other relatives when called to serve in Afghanistan, Iraq, or other locations.

Dual-residency patterns were and continue to be common among low-income families around the world, where one spouse motivated by economic necessity migrates to another country, either making occasional visits home, such as many Latina/o migrants in the United States do, or works to reunite the family in her or his new location. Today, many commuter marriages develop because both spouses pursue careers but find that suitable jobs for each spouse are unavailable in the same location. Sometimes, too, the requirements of a job call for a transfer to a new area, and for whatever reason the other spouse cannot or will not relocate. A study examining corporate relocations found that families who opt for commuter marriage do so for specific reasons:

• • Sixty percent do not want to disrupt their children’s education.

• • Forty-five percent want a spouse to continue her or his career track.

• • Ten percent maintain homes in their old location so that a spouse and/or the children can continue to see familiar medical specialists and ensure continuity of care.

• • Others did not want to move or could not sell their house (Worldwide ERC 2008 Family Issues Report, 2008).

When couples do commute, they are most likely to see their accommodations to their careers as a temporary lifestyle arrangement (Marszalek, 2010). Generally, the geographic distance involved determines the length of separation. Some couples are able to be together on weekends; others can manage only monthly reunions. These arrangements are more stressful for younger couples, especially those with children, those who have been married for only a short time, and those who feel insecure in their relationship.

Commuter couples, of necessity, have developed coping strategies for maintaining a sense of family. Many of these strategies require significant outlays of resources, particularly frequent telephone calls and travel to each other’s place of residence. Through technologies like Skype, an Internet phone service, Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail couples can communicate in low-cost ways and have at least some virtual time together. Research comparing commuting and noncommuting dual-career couples found that commuters are more satisfied with their work life and the time they have for themselves but are more dissatisfied with family life, their relationship with their partner, and with life as a whole (Bunker et al, 1992). This finding appears constant across diverse racial and ethnic groups (Jackson, Brown, and Patterson-Stewart, 2000; Schvaneveldt, Young, and Schvaneveldt, 2001).

Would you be comfortable as a partner in a commuter marriage? Consider some of the unique problems you would face in such a relationship. How would you handle social events? Would you attend events alone or in the company of a same-sex or an other-sex friend? How would you convey emotional support and intimacy from a distance?

The Impact of Work on Family Relationships

Much of the research conducted in the past on the impact of work on family life has been sex-segregated—that is, based on the assumption that work has a different meaning for women than for men. For women, paid work was thought an option that had to be weighed against the disruption it would cause their families; for men, it was considered a given. Men might have choices in the type of work they selected but not in whether they would work. Therefore, outside of their earning power, there is “a dearth of empirical research on the effects of fathers’ employment on father-child interactions and their children’s behavior” (Barling, 1991:181).

Studies of working women, in contrast, focused on different questions. Recall from Chapter 2 Talcott Parsons’s functionalist view that a woman’s role in the family is expressive and a man’s is instrumental. According to Parsons, stepping outside these roles leads to family instability. Thus, before 1960, researchers assumed that the entry of mothers into the labor force would have negative consequences for the family, leading, for example, to children getting into trouble at school or with the law.

These traditional role definitions no longer (if they ever did) adequately reflect the work and family experiences of women and men, especially those in dual-earner families. A new theoretical model is required that acknowledges the labor force participation of both women and men. Thus, sociologist Joan Spade (1989) called for a sex-integrated model to understand the impact of work on the family. Such a model asks how the type of work women and men do shapes their orientations and behaviors in the home.

Given the increasing number of dual-earner families, this question takes on major significance. The attempts by dual-earner couples to integrate work and family experiences affect many aspects of family life: power relationships and decision making, marital happiness, and the household division of labor. In short, by examining dual-earner couples, we can learn how gender roles in the family are changing in response to both spouses taking on paid employment.

MARITAL POWER AND DECISION MAKING

One of the most consistent findings relating to the impact of work on family life deals with the relationship between income and power in decision making. Money frequently translates into power. When both spouses work, the traditional pattern of male dominance in the marital relationship shifts to one of greater equality in terms of more joint decision making (Cherlin, 2009; Amato et al, 2007). Spouses, most frequently wives, who do not contribute financially in general, have little power in the relationship. The consequences of this may be severe. If the marriage is an unhappy one, the spouse without independent financial resources may feel compelled to stay in the relationship, whereas working may give an unhappy spouse the ability to leave the relationship. This relationship between independent resources and choice is illustrated by one of the respondents in a study of Chicana cannery workers: “It wasn’t that my working hastened my divorce, in that it made my marriage worse, like Mario claims to this day. But rather it allowed me the freedom from a bad marriage” (Zavella, 1987:147). Examination of data from the National Survey of Families has provided empirical support for the observation that women’s employment does not destabilize happy marriages but increases the risk of disruption in unhappy marriages (Schoen, 2002).

This pattern of wives gaining more power as a result of their economic contribution holds true across most racial and ethnic groups. Researchers Jose Szapocznik and Roberto Hernandez (1988), for example, observed that Cuban women who migrated to the United States often found jobs sooner than their husbands did. Their economic contributions were then translated into gains in family decision making, thereby weakening the traditional Cuban patriarchal family structure. For the first generation of Cuban Americans, these changes were often disruptive. Second-generation Cuban American couples who grew up in the United States are less troubled by the greater equality in decision making and have tended to construct family relationships that are less male-dominated than those of their parental generation (Boswell and Curtis, 1983; Szapocznik and Hernandez, 1988). Similar patterns have been observed among Chinese American and Korean American families (Min, 1988; Wong, 1988), among couples in Mexico (Attanasio and Lechene, 2002), and in Cameroon (Sikod, 2007). Furthermore, given the consistently high level of labor force participation of African American women, it is not surprising to find that egalitarian decision making is common in African American families as well (McAdoo, H.P., 2006).

There are significant exceptions to these patterns. Differences in economic power and decision making are often reinforced or offset by ideological considerations. In a study of women in second marriages, Karen Pyke (1994) found that some remarried women stopped working and became full-time homemakers, yet increased their power in the marital relationship. According to Pyke, the meaning couples give to women’s paid employment or unpaid household labor is key to determining the woman’s power in the relationship. Thus, if the working spouse values unpaid household labor, egalitarian power sharing between spouses is likely. Conversely, if couples believe men should be the primary breadwinners and, correspondingly, have the final say in most decisions, then the man will have more power in the relationship regardless of the earnings of either spouse (Benjamin and Sullivan, 1996).

MARITAL HAPPINESS AND SATISFACTION

Are couples with one earner happier than those with two? The results of research on this question are inconsistent. Some earlier studies have found homemakers to be happier than working wives (Stokes and Peyton, 1986; Saenz, Goudy, & Frederick, 1989). However, these researchers found that much of the dissatisfaction the working wives felt was attributable to the quality of the jobs they held—jobs with low pay, little status, and considerable stress. Later research also found a correlation between a stressful job and lower levels of marital adjustment (Sears and Galambos, 1992).

Other research found that working wives report higher levels of happiness than nonworking wives. Similarly, more recent research has consistently found that wives in dual-earner couples are healthier, less depressed, and less frustrated than their homemaker counterparts (Coontz, 1997; Amato et al, 2007). This finding is probably related to the fact that a wife’s income contribution gives her more power within the family as well as being a source of satisfaction and self-esteem.

More important than work per se, however, is the couple’s attitude toward work. If the couple disagrees about spousal employment or if the wife works only because of economic necessity, some tension and conflict are likely. Some wives who desire only a domestic role may be embittered about their need to work, whereas some husbands who adhere strongly to the good provider role might feel threatened or inadequate as a result of having a working wife. This is especially the case for some husbands whose wives earn more than they do (Minetor, 2002). However, if couples see themselves as a team, differences in income are less significant (Marshall, 2010). According to a recent study, only 39 percent of women and 42 percent of men agreed with the idea that men should earn the money and women should take care of the children and family. In 1977, 54 percent of men and 52 percent of women agreed with that statement (Galinsky, Aumann, and Bond, 2009). Figure 10.3 shows that this shift in attitudes about gender roles has occurred for all generations, but it is greatest among those in the older generations. For example, among employees age 28 and younger, the percentage agreeing with the statement fell from 55 percent in 1977 to 34 percent in 2008, a decline of 21 percentage points. However, among employees age 63 and older, there was a decline of 39 percentage points. These attitudinal shifts, no doubt, reflect the fact that a family’s financial welfare is to a large degree dependent on women’s contributions. In 2008, 27 percent of working wives whose husbands also worked earned more than their husbands, up from 18 percent in 1987. If we count working women married to men who are unemployed, the percentage increases to 34, up from 24 percent in 1987 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010a).

FIGURE 10.3 Changes in Gender Role Attitudes Across the Generations, 1977 to 2008

Source: Galinsky, E., K. Aumann, and J.T. Bond. 2009. Times Are Changing: Gender and Generation at Work and at Home. New York: Families and Work Institute Figure 9, p. 11.

The experience of marital happiness is related to another constraint confronting dual-earner families: finding time to be together, especially recreational time. “Couples with less time together express less satisfaction with their marriages” (Nock and Kingston, 1990:133). According to Ellen Galinsky (2004), President of the Families and Work Institute, the majority of employees (67 percent) say they don’t have enough time with their children, while 63 percent say they don’t have enough time with their spouses. Children reflect these views as well. A nationally representative group of children, ages 8-18, reported that their number one wish to improve their lives was that their parents were less tired and stressed.

Time is also related to two other important aspects of family living: household tasks and the care of children. Parsons’s model of the family assumes that these are the wife’s responsibilities and that they complement the husband’s breadwinner role. Parsons did not anticipate the contemporary widespread need for two incomes, however. What happens to housework and child care when wives share the breadwinner function?

HUSBANDS AND THE DIVISION OF HOUSEHOLD LABOR

As more wives entered the labor force, social scientists began to investigate the degree to which husbands increased the amount of time they spent doing household work. Data collected from the 1960s to the mid-1970s show that family work remained almost exclusively the province of women, whether or not they were employed. For example, a study of 1296 New York State families found that husbands spent about 1.6 hours per day in family work compared with 8.1 hours per day for housewives and 4.8 hours per day for working wives (Walker and Woods, 1976). It is not surprising, then, that compared with their spouses, wives experienced more role overload, a situation in which a person’s various roles carry more responsibilities than that person can reasonably manage. As a result of role overload, women have less free time and experience a diminished sense of well-being (Robinson, 1977; Hochschild, 1997). This pattern led sociologist Arlie Hochschild (1989) to describe women’s dual role of worker and housewife as a “second shift.”

Recent studies have documented a shift to a more equitable, albeit not equal, division of labor, with men doing slightly more work and women doing less work than was the case in the 1970s. According to a 2009 Time Use Study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2010b), on an average day, 85 percent of women but only 67 percent of men reported spending some time doing household activities such as housework, cooking, lawn care, or financial and other household management. Women reported spending 2.6 hours on such activities, while men spent 2.0 hours. However, only 20 percent of men reported doing cleaning or laundry compared to 51 percent of women. Men were somewhat more involved in food preparation and clean-up, with 40 percent of men and 68 percent of women reporting doing these activities. In households with the youngest child under age 6, women averaged 1.1 hours providing physical care (bathing, feeding) to household children while men averaged 0.5 hours.

Reviews of other national cross-time series of time-use diary studies found that from the 1960s to the twenty-first century, men’s contribution to housework doubled, increasing from about 15 to over 30 percent of the total and that married women with children were doing, on average, two hours less housework per week than in 1965. Additionally, men’s contribution to child care tripled during that same period of time (Fisher et al, 2006).

Data from a cross-national study of 13 countries reflect similar patterns to those in the United States. In only one country, Russia, did spouses say housework was shared about equally. In the other 12 countries, spouses reported that wives did more housework than husbands (Davis and Greenstein, 2004). Individuals’ and couples’ characteristics were found to influence the division of household labor. In households where wives were employed outside the home and/or had education levels equal to or above that of their husbands, husbands were reported to perform about half of the household labor. However, other research found that macro-level factors such as a country’s level of economic development, female labor force participation, and gender ideology are equally important in the dynamics of how housework is divided between spouses. Overall, women in less egalitarian countries benefit less from their individual-level assets such as earning power and educational level than women in more egalitarian countries (Fuwa, 2004).

Similarly, gender equality in household work still eludes young girls. According to a study by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (2007), boys spend about 30 percent less time doing household chores than girls and more than twice as much time playing. Additionally, girls are less likely than boys to get paid for doing housework. Given that this gendered pattern is learned in childhood, it is not surprising that it is reproduced in adulthood.

Sharing the Load: Emergent Egalitarian Relationships

Inequity in family work can affect marriage satisfaction. Among wives, there is a clear and positive connection between an equitable division of family work and marital and personal well-being (Rogers and Amato, 2000; Frisco and Williams, 2003; Wilcox and Nock, 2006). Lebanese wives, like their U.S. counterparts, are dissatisfied when their husbands’ participation in household labor is only minimal (Khawaja and Habib, 2007). Data on couples in Moscow revealed similar patterns (Cubbins and Vannoy, 2004). Wives whose husbands do their share of family work are more satisfied with marriage than other wives. According to a 1990 national opinion poll, next to money, “how much my mate helps around the house” is the single biggest cause of resentment among women who are married or living as if married, with 52 percent of the respondents reporting this as a problem (Townsend and ONeil, 1990:28). Fifteen years later, wives still believe dads could do better. Forty-five percent of respondents wanted their husbands to provide more help with the kids and with household chores (“Voice of Mom Report,” 2005). Similarly, a recent study found that a decline in marital satisfaction among new mothers was linked to their perceptions that the increases in housework associated with motherhood were inequitable (Dew and Wilcox, 2011).

Thus, there seems to be some consensus among both women and men for the need to alter traditional gender roles. That some of this is occurring, albeit slowly, is indicated by Audrey Smith and William Reid (1986) in their study of role-sharing marriages, by Rosanna Hertz (1986) in her study of dual-career marriages, by Pepper Schwartz (1999) in her study of peer marriages, by Shelley Haddock and her colleagues (2002) in their study of couples who perceive themselves as successful in balancing family and work, and by Suzanne Bianchi and her colleagues (2006) who examined how American parents are working together to ensure that they preserve their family time and provide adequately for their children. Hertz argues that dual-career couples generally do not start out with an ideology of equality in marital roles, but that it often emerges out of the opportunities and constraints they experience on a day-to-day basis. In contrast, the couples in Schwartz’s study had strong ideas about building a marriage based on equity and equality and made conscious efforts to achieve their goal— “marital intimacy that comes from being part of a well-matched, equally empowered, equally participatory team” (1999:162). Other couples have altered traditional gender roles in the family as well. However, as Francine Deutsch (1999) discovered in a study of 150 dual-career couples with children, most couples had a work-centered family in which work and career advancement, usually the husband’s, was the priority. Nevertheless, 41 couples in her study (nearly 25 percent) had child-centered families in which their children’s needs were the central focus for both parents. By fully sharing all responsibilities, these parents managed to have successful work lives and well-balanced family lives. More recent research indicates that couples who share household duties on an equitable basis have greater marital satisfaction and a lower incidence of divorce than couples who rely on more traditional gender role patterns (Hall and MacDermind, 2009; Coontz, 2007; Sullivan and Coltrane, 2008). Findings from a four-generational study by the Family and Work Institute (2004) seem to indicate that younger workers are moving away from a work-centric orientation to a dual-centric (those placing the same priority on their job and family) and family-centric (those placing a higher priority on family than work) orientations.

THE IMPACT OF GENDER IDEOLOGY, SOCIAL CLASS, AND RACE AND ETHNICITY

Research shows that gender expectations play a significant role in the division of household labor. For example, men in dual-earner families who see themselves as co-providers with their wives do more domestic tasks than men who still believe in the good provider role (Perry-Jenkins and Crouter, 1990). A recent study of men’s household labor in 22 industrialized countries found a similar pattern. Men, who live in societies where breadwinning is strongly associated with masculinity, are more likely to feel considerable pressure to concentrate on work-related activities as opposed to doing household tasks (Thebaud, 2007).

Social class also affects who does domestic tasks. Spouses with higher levels of education are more likely to share domestic tasks, especially when the wife has high earnings and a professional status (Perry-Jenkins and Folk, 1994; Spain and Bianchi, 1996). Researchers examining data from Australia and the United States found that women decrease their housework as their earnings increase, up to the point where both spouses contribute equally to household income (Brittman et al, 2003). Like their U.S. counterparts, urban Chinese husbands with higher educational levels and whose wives’ earnings are close to theirs have the highest rates of participation in household labor (Lu, Maume, and Bellas, 2000). However, when a wife’s income is greater than the husband’s, researchers have observed a mixed pattern. Some husbands in this situation decrease their involvement in household tasks (Hartwell-Walker, 2006; Brittman et al, 2003), while other husbands increase their involvement (Coontz, 2007). Additionally, the affluence of these dual-earner couples allows them to hire others to do their household tasks and/or child care. Although this solution may work well for them, it often creates problems for domestic workers who must sacrifice time with their own families to accommodate the family needs of their employers.

Race and ethnicity are also factors in how family work is divided. Research has found that African American husbands are more likely than White husbands to share in household tasks (Gerson, 2010). Lillian Rubin (1994) found that Latinos and Asian American men, especially those who live in ethnic neighborhoods where traditional gender roles remain strong despite women’s employment, are less likely to share household work. However, other research on Mexican American couples found husbands participated more in domestic tasks if the wife’s earnings equaled or surpassed that of her husband (Coltrane, 1996). In off-reservation Navajo Indian families, mothers invested significantly more time in cleaning, food, and child-related tasks than fathers, but mothers and fathers participated equally in household maintenance (Hossain, 2001). Such diverse findings underscore the complex nature of the work-family linkage. More research is needed to determine the various ways in which micro-level and macro-level forces interact to produce different patterns of work and family role tradeoffs.

Nevertheless, one dominant theme that cuts across all of these studies regards the expectations that women and men bring to their roles as partners, parents, and providers. If women and men are to share equally in home production work, then women must redefine the value of their jobs or careers as providers and men must redefine the meaning of domestic work as something beneficial, not demeaning (Lorber, 1994). Additionally, researchers have found a positive relationship between negotiation skills and both marital happiness and career satisfaction. Respondents reporting relatively effective negotiation skills indicated greater degrees of marital happiness and career satisfaction compared to respondents possessing less effective negotiation skill (Bartley, Judge, and Judge, 2007). Thus, it seems couples planning to marry would benefit by learning negotiating skills to assist them in achieving a satisfying work-family balance.

CHILD CARE

When a couple has their first child, their life changes dramatically. Workloads increase. Often without conscious planning, many couples move to a more traditional division of household tasks, with women taking on more tasks. One study found that the time devoted to work responsibilities increased by 64 percent for mothers and 37 percent for fathers after childbirth (Gjerdingen, 2004). To avoid conflict and marital dissatisfaction, it is important that parental spouses regularly evaluate and negotiate a division of labor that satisfies both their and their children’s needs.

That some of this is happening is evidenced by the fact that fathers are spending more time with their children than fathers did 40 years ago (Aumann, 2011) and, as we saw earlier, a considerable number of fathers are stay-at-home dads. Although men’s parenting activities appear to be increasing, women still take the major responsibility for child care in the United States. This situation puts working women at a competitive disadvantage with male colleagues, who are freed of this responsibility by their spouses. For women, having children constrains their labor market activities. Women with small children have lower labor force participation rates, and when they are employed, they are more likely to work part time. This is especially true of poor women with limited education and skills. Finding a job that pays an income sufficient to cover child-care costs is problematic for them. According to the National

Association of Child Care Resource Referral Agencies (2010), the average cost of full-time child care for an infant in a child care center ranged from more than $4,550 in Mississippi to more than $18,750 in Massachusetts in 2009. The fee was slightly lower for infants being cared for in a family care home, $3,750 to $11,450. Consider this:

• • The average center-based child care fees for an infant exceeded the average annual amount that families spent on food in every region of the United States.

• • Monthly child care fees for two children at any age exceeded the median monthly rent cost, and were nearly as high, or even higher than, the average monthly mortgage payment for most families.

• • The cost of infant care in a child care center was higher than a year of tuition and fees at a four-year public college in 40 states (National Association of Child Care Resource Referral Agencies, 2010).

Some working parents, unable to meet these costs, reduce their hours of employment or drop out of the labor force completely. Other parents opt for split-shift employment and split-shift parenting, thereby enabling one parent to be home while the other is at work. Approximately one-third of dual-earner couples with children have one spouse working late or rotating shifts. Additionally, more than 66 percent of all dual-earner couples have at least one spouse working some time over the weekend. Both of these patterns are more common among low-income families and families with preschool children (Presser, 2003). These patterns also hold true for single mothers as well. Although a 24/7 economy provides a great deal of convenience for consumers and travelers, it creates serious problems for families whose members must work nonstandard hours. Often these hours mean that one parent is unavailable during dinnertime hours, a time that usually allows for meaningful family interaction. This lack of time together can cause tensions between spouses that can affect children as well. This is especially true for couples where one spouse works the late shift, as they have substantially less quality time together and experience more marital unhappiness. Although neither an evening shift nor weekend work seemed to affect the stability of marriages, couples with children where one spouse worked late night hours were more likely to separate or divorce than other couples.

Single working mothers and couples who work the same shift face a different set of problems, the most serious of which is finding alternative child care. Figure 10.4 on page 330 shows the distribution of primary-care arrangements for children ages 0 to 4 with employed mothers in 2010. Fathers cared for 18.6 percent of the preschool children, down from 20 percent in 1991; grandparents provided care for 19.4 percent of preschool children while siblings and other relatives cared for another 5.8 percent. Another 13.5 percent received care from a nonrelative and 23.7 percent were in enter-based care, including day care centers, nursery schools, preschools and Head Start programs. Mothers cared for 4.4 percent either while working at home or on the job. These mothers were frequently employed as private household workers or were themselves child-care workers who took in other children while caring for their own at home. Another 14.1 percent of these children had some other or no regular arrangement, including self-care. The type of child-care arrangements available to parents depends heavily on their resources and family systems. When families are poor or on government assistance, they must rely on relatives more so than other families. African American and Latina/o children are more likely to be cared for by grandparents and other nonparental relatives than White children.

A major concern of dual-earner families is finding adequate child care. In split-shift households one parent, like this father fixing dinner with his sons, takes primary responsibility for child care while the other parent is at work. In some cases, the child-care dilemma is resolved when one parent, like this executive, takes her child to work.

Regardless of the type of child-care arrangement in use, the majority of families who need child care confronts two major problems: high cost and limited availability. These problems stem, in large measure, from cultural attitudes that see child care as primarily a private matter requiring a private solution. In other words, if couples have children, the reasoning goes, it is their responsibility to care for them. Some employers are reconsidering this attitude as many of the new entrants to the labor force are mothers. To attract and keep these employees, a number of companies (9 percent of employers nationwide) are providing on-site day or near-site care so that parents can visit their children during work or lunch breaks, thus relieving them of worry over how their children are managing without them. A recent survey found that 31 percent of workers with employer-sponsored dependent benefits were less likely to report lost productivity due to stress than workers without such benefits. Workers without these benefits spent 20 percent more time dealing with childcare issues at work than workers with benefits (“Employer-sponsored..., 2010). Despite such findings, employer-sponsored child care in the United States is available to only 1 in 8 employees (13 percent), and even programs that offer tax savings for those able to pay for their own children are available only to 3 in 10 people (Heymann et al, 2004).

FIGURE 10.4 Primary Child Care Arrangements of Children Age 0-4 with Employed Mothers, 2010

Source: Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. 2011. America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being. Washington, DC

WORK-LIFE CONFLICT: THE “NEW MALE MYSTIQUE”

For decades, it has been a given that women bore the major responsibility for child care and household management regardless of their employment status. However, today’s workplace is no longer the major province of men and the traditional gender role of men as breadwinners is being replaced with a more egalitarian role. Increasing numbers of men are now co-providers with their wives and caregivers for their children. Such transitions do not occur without some degree of difficulty. When more and /o more women entered the labor force and still assumed majorer responsibilities at home, they experienced work-family conflict at much higher rates than their male counterparts. Work-family conflict is typically measured by asking employees with family b- responsibilities how much their work and family responsibilities in interfere with each other. Researchers at the Families and Work r- Institute analyzed data from a nationally representative study if of the U.S. workforce and found that 60 percent of fathers in dual-earner couples reported work-family conflict in 2008, up ie from 35 percent in 1977, while that of mothers in dual-earner it- couples remained relatively stable (41 percent in 1977 and 47 percent in 2008 (Aumann, Galinsky, and Matos,2011). These researchers suggest that the increase in work-family conflict is a symptom of the “new male mystique,” today’s version of the “feminine mystique” coined by Betty Friedan in 1963 to describe how assumptions about women finding fulfillment in traditional domestic roles created tension and conflict for many women. Applying Friedan’s reasoning to men, these researchers suggest, would reflect the idea that men should seek fulfillment at work and strive to be successful breadwinners for their families and at the same time increase their participation at home. Since the workplace does not easily accommodate their new involvement at home, they are bound to experience conflicting demands. One benefit that would help working couples is parental leave. Yet, this benefit is rare in the United States, particularly for fathers.

PARENTAL LEAVE: A PARTIAL SOLUTION TO WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT

European fathers have access to more paid leave than their American counterparts and use it more readily, yet even then many men are still reluctant to take time off from work. Sweden is a good case study of some of the issues involved. Although Sweden long had one of the most generous parental leave policies in the world, less than half of all fathers (42 percent) took advantage of it, averaging 28 days or about 15 percent of the 16 months of paid parental leave (approximately 80 percent of their gross salary) offered to either mothers or fathers. In the Netherlands, approximately 16 percent of fathers take parental leave. In Italy, Denmark, and Germany, the rate is less than 10 percent (Anxo, et al, 2007). Why do so many European men reject what on the surface seems like a great opportunity to spend time with their infants and young children? The answer, according to some men, is found in the structure and culture of work. Overall, men earn more than women. Therefore, it makes sense for women, usually the lower income earner, to stay home. Steen Broust Nielsen, a 36-year-old marketing director in Denmark, was reluctant to take the leave to which, as a new father, he was entitled because, as he said, “We have an interim report coming up, so I can’t possibly stay away too long, perhaps half a day here and half a day there when it’s convenient.” His reluctance was echoed by a 38-year-old Dortmund-based management assistant, who said, “When you are on your way up, you can’t take a time out. That will set you back no end career-wise” (quoted in James, 2004).

In the United States, there is no federal paid parental leave program; only 13 percent of employers provide paid parental leave. Workers can, however, take leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act that requires employers with 50 or more employees to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to both female and male workers with a new child. However, most workers do not take advantage of that policy because they cannot afford to lose income for any period of time. Although the concept of parental leave is gaining greater public acceptance, many men who have access to such leave do not act on it for the same reasons given by European men. According to a survey by the U.S. Department of Labor (2000), 42.6 percent of men who were considering parental leave cited “fear of hurting career advancement” as the primary reason for not doing so; 31 percent feared they might lose their jobs if they took a leave. Their concerns are not unwarranted. Research shows that men who take advantage of family medical leave are considered less conscientious employees than those who do not (Wayne and Cordeiro, 2003).

Employers who do not promote leave policies to their employees communicate a silent message that, for men at least, taking leave is not an appropriate career move. A recent survey in the United Kingdom found that only 18 percent of working men would take advantage of a proposed six-month parental leave. Although the primary reason given for not taking leave was concern about money (47 percent), 30 percent of respondents said they lacked the necessary support from their senior managers and colleagues (Clarke, 2010). Conversely, when employers actively promote parental leave for both genders, the results are quite different. For example, when New Jersey’s XPMG Company sent e-mails at work and letters home explaining the company’s parental leave policy and how to apply, 30 percent of eligible fathers took a leave in 2002. With those examples and the support of management, in the following year, 87 percent of eligible fathers took leave (Earls, 2003). Similarly, in Sweden, when the law was changed to reserve two months of the parental leave for fathers that were not transferrable to mothers and would be lost if not used, combined with more acceptance of the part of employers, the percentage of fathers taking leave rose to 80 percent of fathers now taking about a third of the total leave time (Bennhold, 2010). Other factors may influence a father’s decision to take leave. If wives do not ask their husbands, or at least discuss the possibility with them, men may conclude they do not care or do not want them to take leave. As we saw in Chapter 9, men may experience more pressure to be a breadwinner with the birth of a first child or additional children. And if there is an economic downturn, men may be more apprehensive of taking any action that may jeopardize their current position.

In sum, the United States has not yet resolved the dilemma surrounding the gendered ideology of the family that assigns housekeeping and child rearing primarily to women and assumes that balancing work and family needs is a personal matter. Cultural myths, about the appropriate roles for each gender, internalized by both women and men, can harm relationships, children, work, and the larger society (Barnett and Rivers, 2004). To phrase this dilemma as one of individual choice ignores the reality that current employment structures prohibit many parents from making satisfying choices, thus preventing many women from exercising full partnership with men in economic and political arenas as well as precluding many men from full partnership with women in family life. We will consider some structural changes that can help to overcome this problem at the end of the chapter.

Inequities in the Workplace: Consequences For Families

Although the labor force participation rates of women and men are converging, women still confront issues of inequity in the labor market. These issues, in turn, can have a profound effect on women’s sense of worth and their family’s economic well-being. Three issues are of special significance: occupational distribution, the gender gap in earnings, and sexual harassment.

 Read the Documen Detours on the Road to Equality: Women, Work, and Higher Education on myfamilylab.com

TABLE 10.1 Percentage of Work Force in Selected Occupations, and Ethnicity, 2009 by Sex, Race,

Source: Adapted from U.S. Census Bureau, 2011, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2011. Washington, DC: Table 615, pp. 393–396.

OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION

Occupational distribution refers to the location of workers in different occupations. Although the media like to highlight stories of women and men who are in nontraditional occupations, for example, women construction workers and male nurses, many occupations are still perceived as either women’s work or men’s work. Table 10.1 shows the percentage of the work force in selected occupations. Even work traditionally thought of as women’s work such as cooking, when done outside the home and “professionalized,” often becomes a male specialty. Only 20.7 percent of chefs and head cooks are women. Even though slightly more women than men are working in a management or professional specialty (51.4 percent), women tend to be working in the lower-paid professions such as nursing or elementary school education, whereas men are more concentrated in the higher-paid professions of law, medicine, architecture, and engineering. In 2009, only 32.4 percent of lawyers, 32.2 percent of physicians, and 13.8 percent of architects and engineers were women. Women and people of color are more heavily concentrated in low-paying clerical or service jobs, whereas men are concentrated in the higher-paying jobs of craft workers and operators.

The good news is that in the last three decades increasing numbers of women have entered many occupations traditionally thought to be exclusively male, for instance, computer and mathematical occupations (24.8%) and the clergy (17.0 percent). Women have been less successful in breaking other barriers; for example, only 1.6 percent of women are carpenters. An even smaller percentage of women are aircraft pilots and flight engineers (1.3 percent) and electricians (2.2 percent). Men, in contrast, have been more reluctant to enter “women’s” occupations in any significant numbers. Thus, some job categories remain overwhelmingly female—for example, preschool and kindergarten teachers (97.8 percent) and nursing (92.0 percent)—although men have made gains as social workers (19.3 percent) and librarians (18.2 percent), once thought to be the domain of women. We can see that race and ethnicity also play a role in occupational distribution. Although African Americans make up 10.7 percent of all employed civilians, Latinas/os 14.0 percent, and Asians 4.7 percent, they often are underrepresented in the higher paying jobs and overrepresented in lower-paying jobs.

Women have fared even less well in business. Although women make up almost half of the U.S. labor force (46.7 percent), as Figure 10.5 clearly shows, in 2010 they constituted only 3.2% of Fortune 500 CEOs. And, despite gains since 1999, only 7.6 percent of the nation’s top earners were women and only 15.7 percent of women held Fortune 500 seats; only 3 percent were Black women (Catalyst, 2011).

As Figure 10.6 shows, business women in the United States have not done as well as their counterparts in European countries. A recent survey of European companies with market capital of over 1 billion pounds found significantly higher percentages of women serving on corporate boards. Norway led with 37.9 percent; Sweden followed with 28.2 percent. Portugal had the lowest representation with just 3.4 percent. Norway’s top position is not accidental. Gender equality is part of Nordic traditions. As long ago as Viking times, women ran farms and businesses while men were away at sea. In recent years, women have held approximately 40 percent of cabinet and parliamentary positions. In 2003, concerned with an underrepresentation of women in higher levels of business, Norway enacted a law requiring companies to fill 40 percent of corporate board seats with women by 2008 or face penalties. Many other European companies adopted corporate governance codes and/or legislation similar to Norway’s, resulting in increased representation of women.

FIGURE 10.5 Women in the Fortune 500

Source: Catalyst. 2011. “The Catalyst Pyramid: U.S. Women in Business (May 2). www.catalyst.org/publication/132/us-women-in-business (2011, July 5).

Women face many obstacles in reaching top positions. Among them is the fact that women are poorly represented in line positions, those jobs with profit-and-loss responsibilities that are the traditional route to executive promotion. Surveys of executives in the United States point to gender-based stereotyping as a major barrier to women’s advancement (Prime, 2005).

FIGURE 10.6 Women in European Boardrooms

Source: Data from European Professional Women’s Network.2010. EPWn Board Women Monitor, 2010, 4th Ed.www.europeanpwn.net/files/euroeanpwn_boardmonitor_2010.pdf (2011, July 5).

As these data demonstrate, occupational segregation has consequences for the well-being of workers and their families. First, it restricts the options of both women and men. Men are less likely than women to enter a sex-atypical occupation. Second, when workers enter occupations that are not traditional for their race or gender, they often encounter prejudice and hostility, resulting in high levels of stress. For women and people of color, this hostility often takes the form of exclusion from the informal work groups so necessary to successful job performance and advancement. In contrast, men in nontraditional occupations experience prejudice from people outside their occupation, but are less likely than women to experience discrimination at work. Sociologist Christine Williams (1992) found that although women often encounter a “glass ceiling” that limits their advancement, men in sex-atypical occupations experience a “glass escalator” that propels them to higher positions in that field. Finally, occupational segregation results in an earnings gap between women and men and between Whites and people of color that limits the resources families receive when female members work.

THE RACE-GENDER GAP IN EARNINGS: GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS

No matter how earnings are measured, women’s wages are lower than men’s, regardless of race and ethnicity. Similarly, men of color are disadvantaged in comparison with their White counterparts. In the first quarter of 2011, the median weekly earnings for female full-time wage and salary workers were $683, nearly 82 percent of the $829 median for their male counterparts. In 1979, when comparable earnings data were first available, women earned only about 63 percent as much as men. However, White workers of either gender earned more than their Black or Latina/o colleagues. The differences among women were considerably smaller than those among men. White women earned $699, nearly 16 percent more than Black women ($590). In contrast, White men outearned their Black counterparts by 27 percent ($856 to $621). Asian men had the highest median weekly earnings (948); Asian women had median weekly earnings of $762 (U.S. Department of Labor, 2011).

Age, occupation, and education all impact wages. By and large, older workers (ages 45-64) earned more than younger workers. Persons employed in management, professional, and related occupations had the highest median weekly earnings, $1,266 for men and $939 for women. Full-time workers age 25 and over without a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $444 compared with $633 for high school graduates and $1,150 for college graduates. Yet, even at the highest levels of education, the highest-earning 10 percent of male workers made $3,336 or more per week, compared with $2,291 or more for their female counterparts (U.S. Department of Labor, 2011).

The narrowing of the race-gender earnings gap in recent years can be attributed to a number of factors: women’s increased investment in education and professional training, entry into higher-paying nontraditional occupations, fewer and shorter interruptions in their work lives, and a decline in men’s wages. However, the gains many workers made in the 1990s as a result of low unemployment, low inflation, and the increase in the minimum wage started to erode in the economic downturn beginning in 2001 and the recession of 2007-2009. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, natural disasters like the earthquake in Japan and flooding in the Northwest and Midwest, and state and local budget cuts have exacerbated this trend as public and private businesses alike laid off thousands of workers.

Although the earning gap between women and men has narrowed in recent years, gender discrimination in employment still deprives women of many benefits enjoyed by their male colleagues.

For years, researchers have struggled to explain why the wage gap persists even when workers are matched on the basis of years of experience, number of hours worked, education, occupation, and union membership. The general consensus of many of these studies is that discriminatory treatment is the major cause of the earnings gap between women and men and between Whites and people of color (Prime, 2005; Cherry, 2001). Discrimination takes many forms—lack of access, denial of promotions, assignment to lower-pay jobs, violations of equal pay laws, and devaluation of women’s work. Additionally, researchers have found that family responsibilities contribute to women’s lower wages. For example, childbearing can lead to career interruptions that hinder women’s overall advancement (Hewlett, 2007).

CONSEQUENCE OF THE EARNINGS GAP

Gender and racial inequalities in pay deprive families of greater purchasing power and this inequity accumulates over a lifetime. Economist Evelyn Murphy, president of the Wage Project, estimates that over a lifetime of full-time work, this gap amounts to a loss in wages of $700,000 for a high school graduate, $1.2 million for a college graduate, and $2 million for a professional school graduate (National Committee on Pay Equity, 2010). Another way to see the impact of the gender-wage gap is to examine the mean earnings of women and men. As Table 10.2 shows, at every educational level and across all race and ethnic groups, women earn less than men. This gap also impacts her social security benefits and pensions. Economists like Murphy believe much of the race-gender wage gap could be eliminated by more vigorous enforcement of current equal pay laws as well as implementation of the principle of pay equity— equal pay for work of equal value.

THE UNION DIFFERENCE

Another potent tool for eliminating some of the current disparity in wages and thereby improving the well-being of families would be to strengthening protections for workers’ right to organize in unions and to bargain collectively with their employers. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2011d) show that in 2010, the median weekly earnings of union members were $917, considerably higher than the $717 earned by their nonunion counterparts. That amounts to a yearly difference in salary of $10,400 for union vs. nonunion members. Figure 10.7 shows that union workers are more likely than their nonunion counterparts to be covered by health insurance and to receive pension and other benefits.

TABLE 10.2 Mean Earnings by Highest Degree Earned, 2011

Source: Adapted from U.S. Census Bureau. 2011. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2011. Washington, DC: Table 228, p. 150.

Despite these union advantages, union membership is at a historic low in the United States. In 2010, only 14.7 million workers (11.9% percent of all workers) belong to a union. Workers in the public sector are more than four times as likely to be union members as private-sector employees—36.2 percent to 6.9 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011d). Men are more likely to belong to unions than women (12.6 percent to 11.1 percent). Union membership is highest among Black workers (13.4 percent), followed by White workers (11.7 percent), Asian workers (10.9 percent), and Latino workers (10.0 percent).

FIGURE 10.7 Health Insurance and Other Benefits by Union Membership

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistic. 2010. National Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in the U.S, March 2010. Bulletin 2752. (September),www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2010/ebb10046.pdf (2011, July 7).

Several factors combined to produce a decline in union membership from its high of 35 percent in the mid-1950s to its current low level. For the last four decades, companies routinely outsourced many manufacturing jobs, which tend to have a high concentration of union workers, to other countries with lower labor costs. As new information technology developed, companies also began to outsource white collar and professional occupations to improve their bottom line. President Ronald Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers in 1981 encouraged many employers to develop more aggressive antiunion campaigns. The country’s shift to a more conservative mood and some well-publicized corruption scandals involving union officials turned some people against unions. Additionally, unions lost members as a result of their success. As union members income increased, they sent their children to college and professional schools, traditionally not union strongholds. In the past when children followed their parents into the factory or other work settings, unions regenerated themselves. Whether under current economic conditions unions will be able to regenerate themselves is an empirical question. The recent financial crisis and the recession of 2007-2009 led to huge budget deficits for state and local governments. Public officials responded by asking public unions to agree to salary and benefit cuts and, in some cases, laying off union members. Following their election victories in 2010, several Republican governors and legislatures went further and passed legislation restricting traditional collective bargaining rights for public employees which led to mass protests in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana. A USA Today/Gallup poll found that 61 percent of respondents opposed reducing collective bargaining rights (Saad, 2011b).

In an economy where higher-paying jobs are disappearing and are often being replaced with lower-paying jobs, the role of a union may be even more critical than in the past. According to a report by the Center for American Progress, there is a strong correlation between the presence of a strong labor movement and a vibrant middle class. The authors argue that as union membership has declined, income inequality has increased dramatically. Their research suggests that modest increase in unionization rates would help restore the broken link between productivity and wage gains adding billions of dollars more in wages and salaries to family budgets and the economy (Madland, Walter, and Bunker, 2011)

Demonstrators merge on the capital in Madison, Wisconsin, to protest anti-collective bargaining measures supported by Governor Scott Walker. Similar protests took place in other states. On November 8, 2011, Ohio voters repealed a controversial law limiting collective bargaining signed by Governor John Kasich earlier in the year.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Another problem workers may experience is some form of sexual harassment, unwanted leers, comments, suggestions, or physical contact of a sexual nature that the recipient finds offensive and causes discomfort or interferes with academic or job performance. Sexual harassment occurs in all types of educational and work settings. Because of the sensitive nature of sexual harassment, accurate data on its extent are difficult to collect. However, numerous studies both in and outside the United States indicate that it is an enormous problem (see the In Other Places box). Here in the United States the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), established by the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is charged with investigating alleged violations and enforcing the laws against sexual harassment. In 2010, the EEOC resolved 12,772 sexual harassment charges and recovered $48.4 million in monetary benefits for charging parties and other aggrieved individuals, not including monetary benefits obtained through litigation (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2011b). Public and private employers that ignore the problem of sexual harassment can pay a high price. For example, Madison Square Garden and New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas reached an $11.5 million settlement of a sexual harassment case brought by a former team executive (ESPN.com news services, 2007).

Sex, Race, Sexual Orientation, Age, and Marital Status

Sexual harassment appears more prevalent in male-dominated occupations. For example, women soldiers, physicians, lawyers, coal miners, and investment bankers have all reported high levels of sexual harassment (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2011a; Berdahl, 2007). One 29-year-old returning woman student provided a personal illustration of harassment at the job site: “I worked as a carpenter for 7 years. Many nights I came home and cried. I was the only woman on my first job. The men didn’t want me there. They used to hide my tools and put obscene notes in my lunch bucket.”

Although still quite low compared with that of females, sexual harassment of males maybe increasing. Men’s claims now account for 16 percent of all sexual harassment charges being brought to the EEOC, up from 9 percent in 1992 (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2011a). Juries are taking men’s complaints seriously. A jury awarded a male prison guard $750,000 in actual damages and $3 million in punitive damages after he claimed he was sexually harassed by a female guard (“Female on Male Sexual Harassment,” 2004). Although the perpetrators in male complaints include both women and men, the overwhelming majority of the claims by men are male-on-male harassment. Men, either gay or straight, who do not conform to masculine stereotypes are frequently the target of harassment from other men.

Women of color are more likely to experience sexual harassment than White women, and the harassment is likely to include racial stereotypes (Berdahl and Moore, 2006).). Single, divorced, and younger women report being sexually harassed more often than then married and older counterparts. Lesbians, like gays, experience physical and verbal harassment because of their sexual orientation.

Although sexual harassment violates equal-employment laws, enforcement is difficult. Many victims are afraid to report the harassment for fear of losing their jobs, or being blamed for bringing it on themselves. All too often, victims do not believe anything can be done or they do not trust the organization to take any meaningful action to change the situation. Workers who are sexually harassed report a number of problems both physical (chronic neck and back pain, gastrointestinal disorders, sleeplessness, and loss of appetite) and psychological (feelings of humiliation, helplessness, and fear). Recent research suggests that experiences of sexual harassment may lead to use of alcohol and prescription drugs (sedatives and antidepressants) as a means to self-medicate the distress engendered by sexual harassment (Richman and Rospenda, 2005). Sexual harassment has other costly outcomes for employers as well, including high turnover and absentee rates (Merkin, 2008). Harassment victims frequently bring these problems home with them (recall the spillover effect discussed earlier), thereby adding tension to family relationships.

In Other Places SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Sexual harassment as a legal concept is still unknown in many parts of the world. Even among the countries where it is recognized, there is still no universally agreed upon definition as to what constitutes sexual harassment. Therefore, it is difficult to compare the prevalence from one country to another. Nevertheless, there are movements in this direction. After a survey revealed that close to 50 percent of European women reported that they had been victims of sexual harassment at some point in their lives, the European Union Parliament called on its member states to investigate the extent of sexual harassment in their countries and to develop policies to remedy it (Moline, 2002). Although not strictly comparable, reports from various countries show that sexual harassment is a problem in all corners of the world.

• • A joint Reuters/lpsos global poll of 12,000 people in 24 countries found that 1 in 10workers have been pressured to have sex by a senior employer. Workers in India were the most likely to report sexual harassment (26 percent) followed by workers in China (18 percent, Saudi Arabia (16 percent), Mexico (13 percent), and South Africa (10 percent). (“Indians Most Likely..., 2010).

• • According to the Egyptian Information and Decision Support Center, 44 percent of females in that country are subjected to sexual harassment. CBS Reporter Lara Logan was attacked by a group of men in Cairo’sTahrir Square where she was covering the reaction to the resignation of President Hosni.

• • About 27 percent of Algerian female university students said that they were subjected to sexual harassment from their professors.

• • In Qatar, 30 percent of working females reported being sexually abused by their bosses (Shalaby, 2011).

• • In Japan, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 8,120 women filed sexual harassment complaints with equal opportunity offices in 2008 (Silver, 2010). In Indonesia, after numerous complaints of groping by men, the rail system introduced train cars for women only (Firdaus, 2010). Earlier, Japan and Korea made women-only cars available to prevent this type of harassment against women.

• • In 2010, the Turkish ambassador to Rome was found guilty of sexual harassment (Adinah, 2010).

• • In 2011, the biggest sexual harassment case in Australian history was settled for $850,000 from the country’s oldest department store, David Jones (Malkin, 2011).

• • A national telephone survey conducted by the Australian Human Rights commission found that 22 percent of females and 5 percent of males had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace (Sexual Harassment in Australia, 2009).

What do you think? Why does there appear to be such extensive patterns of sexual harassment in the United States and around the world? What strategies would you suggest for combating sexual harassment? Is the experience of sexual harassment the same or different for women and men?

The Economic Well-Being of Families

Women’s wages play an important part in the economic well-being of families. In families where both husband and wife work full-time throughout the year, the wife’s wages account for 44 percent of family earnings. In 2008, the median income for all married-couple families was $72,743; half of those families had an income higher than that and half of those families had lower incomes.

Table 10.3 on page 338 reveals how important family structure has become to the economic well-being of families and the amount of money available to families to meet their ongoing needs. Dual-earner couples had incomes of $86,621, compared to the $48,502 of married couples where the husband was the sole breadwinner. Single householders, whether male or female, made less than their married counterparts even when the wife was not working. And, as we have seen before, female householders made considerably less than male householders. This aggregate figure, however, conceals important differences by race and ethnicity. For example, the median income for all White families in 2008 was $65,000, but only $39,879 for African American families, and $40,466 for Latinas/os families. Asian/Pacific Islanders had the highest medium income at $73,578. Their earning power and the fact that, in general, Asians Americans have higher levels of education than other groups, has led many observers to see them as a “model minority.” However, this stereotype obscures the diversity within the Asian American population and the processes involved in reaching that income level. For example, Asian American household income generally reflects multiple wage earners, not necessarily high salaries per worker. Further, approximately half of the Asian American population is composed of the highly educated immigrants who came to the United States in the 1960s. Asian refugees who came to the United States after the Vietnam War were fleeing wartime persecution and had few resources. In 2009, 52.3 percent of Asian Americans age 25 or older had a college or professional degree compared to 29.9 percent of Whites, 19.3 percent of African Americans, and 13.2 percent of Latinas/os. However, there was considerable variation in educational levels within groups. For example, among Latinas/os, 27.9 percent of Cubans, 16.5 percent of Puerto Ricans, and 9.5 percent of Mexicans have college or professional degrees (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011e). Similarly, many within the Asian population were educationally disadvantaged. In 2000, almost 53 percent of Cambodian, Hmong, and Laotian adults did not have a high school education (Le, 2011).

TABLE 10.3 Median Income of Families, by Type of Family, 2008

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2011. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2022 (Washington, DC: Table 698, p. 457.)

These statistics take on even more significance when we look ahead to the future. In 2005, there were 15.7 million children in immigrant families residing in the United States. If current immigration levels continue, children in immigrant families will constitute 30 percent of the nation’s school population in 2015. One in every five children in immigrant families (2.2 million) had difficulty speaking English in 2005. An even greater number, 4.3 million children, lived in linguistically isolated households in which no person 14 years or older speaks English very well. (“One Out of Five...,” 2007). Although most immigrant parents have high educational expectations for their children, they often lack the resources required to achieve this goal. Consequently, their children are likely to go to poor schools, live in unhealthy and even dangerous neighborhoods, and, when adults, are quite likely to be unemployed and even unemployable.

GROWING INEQUALITY AND THE DECLINE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS

The latter part of the 1990s saw real gains in income for most Americans. Inflation and unemployment were at their lowest in many years. However, many of these gains proved to be short-lived as the economy slowed in 2001 and moved into a recession in 2007. Many workers lost their jobs as companies reduced their labor costs by outsourcing jobs to other countries and introducing more automation in the workplace. Automation is not only changing the factory floor but it has made inroads into the service sector. Just as consumers learned to pump their own gas, they are now learning to check out and bag their own groceries, and cashiers are almost extinct in parking garages.

Automation and new technology have eliminated many service jobs. Like many other consumers, this woman is checking out and bagging her own groceries at her local supermarket.

At the same time that many families lost economic ground, there was a financial resurgence among the world’s wealthy. According to the World Wealth Report (2011), there were an estimated 10.9 million high net worth individuals (HNWIs)—people with financial assets of at least $1 million, excluding primary residences and collectibles—at the end of 2010, an increase of 8.3 percent over 2009. The combined wealth of these individuals is estimated to be $42.7 trillion, an increase of 9.7 percent during 2009. The global HNWI population is still highly concentrated in only three countries—the United States, Germany, and Japan. Together, they account for 53 percent of that population. Despite the financial crisis of the last few years, the United States remains home to the single largest HNWI segment in the world with 3.1 million accounting for almost one-third (28.6 percent) of the global HNWI. The Asia-Pacific region, for the first-time is a close second with 3.3 million, followed by Europe with 3.1 million. India made it into the top 12 for the first time, and Australia edged up another notch to the number 9 spot.

In the United States, the disparity between rich and poor families grew ever wider during the last three decades. Figure 10.8 shows that in 1980, the richest fifth of all families received 44.1 percent of all aggregate income, compared to the 4.2 percent received by the poorest fifth of all families. By 2008, the gap had widened to 50.0 and 3.4 percent, respectively. Families at all other income levels, with the exception of the wealthiest families (the top 5 percent), who saw their share of income jump from 16.5-21.5 percent, experienced a decrease in their share of aggregate income.

Economists attribute this trend toward greater inequality to a number of factors: the loss of high-paid manufacturing jobs, the decline in union membership, the growth in low-paid service sector jobs, the increase in families with two high-wage earners, the higher salaries paid to people with higher education and technical skills, the increasingly popular practice of rewarding executives with stock options and bonuses and tax cuts for the wealthy. An analysis by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations of 299 companies in the Standard and Poor’s Index found that in 2010, the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of the largest companies received, on average $11.4 million in total compensation. This pay average amounted to 343 times the workers’ median pay, up from about 40 to 1 in the early 1980s (“Trends in CEO Pay,” 2011). As the Applying the Sociological Imagination box on page 340 shows, Michael T. Duke, President and CEO of Wal-Mart, made more than $18.7 million dollars in 2011. By comparison, the median worker made $33,190 in 2010. Although Mr. Duke does not even make it to the top ten most highly paid CEOs, his pay is 563 times the median worker’s pay. Wal-Mart is one of the largest employers in the United States and has been the subject of considerable controversy over the pay and benefits its employees receive.

FIGURE 10.8 Share of Aggregate Income Received by Each Fifth and Top 5% of Households, 1980 and 2008

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2011. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2011. Washington, DC: Table 693, p. 454.

WHO ARE THE POOR?

As we have just seen, all families do not share equitably in America’s wealth. In 2008, more than 8.1 million families (10.3per-cent of all families) were poor (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011e), a figure that has probably increased due to continuing high rates of unemployment. Each year, the federal government calculates the minimum level of income necessary to meet basic subsistence needs of families according to size and type. In 2011, the poverty level, as determined by the federal government, was $22,350 in annual income for a family of four in the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia. Hawaii and Alaska have slightly higher rates. Even so, many economists believe this overall threshold is too low because it does not take into account the variation in costs of living in different regions of the country nor the special needs some families have for elder or child care. A minimum-wage worker ($7.25) would have to work more almost 60 hours a week, 52 weeks per year, just to keep her or his family of four at the poverty line.

Jim, left, Alice, and Rob Walton, children of the late Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. founder Sam Walton, are in the top 10 of Forbes 400 wealthiest people, each worth over $20 billion.

Poverty rates are not randomly distributed across the population. They vary by family type, race, and ethnicity. Married-couple families have a relatively low poverty rate (5.5 percent) compared to families with a female householder, no husband present (28.7 percent). Although families with a male householder, no wife present, fared better, their poverty rate was still high at 13.8 percent. More than 60 percent of the children born since 1980 will spend some part of their life in a single-parent household, and hence are vulnerable to the risk of being poor. This increase in the numbers of women and children who are poor is referred to as the feminization of poverty. In 2008, the overall poverty rate among children was 19 percent (14 million children). The poverty rates remains alarmingly high for African American and Tatina/o children, 34.7 and 30.6 percent, respectively. Although in absolute numbers most poor children are White, White children had one of the lowest poverty rates overall (15.8 percent). Only Asian/Pacific Islander children had a lower rate (14.6 percent). Having immigrant parents increases a child’s chance of being poor. Almost 18 percent of all the foreign born are poor, compared to 12.6 percent of the native born population (Census Bureau, 2011e).

APPLYING THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION PAY WATCH FACT SHEET: MICHAEL T. DUKE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, WAL-MART STORES, INC.

Total 2011 Compensation (according to sa/ary.comj: $18,712,721

This information can be found at http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/paywatch/ceou/databasecfm?tkr=WMT&pg=6. Follow this and the related links to determine how your current income or your expected income after graduation compares with the CEO of your choice. Think for a moment about how your life would be different if you had the $33,190 income or the $18.7 million. Where would you live? What changes would you make in your lifestyle? What do you think about the growing income gap between top executives and rank-and-file workers? Is this trend something Americans should be concerned about? Explain. A growing number of shareholders and groups like Responsible Wealth have proposed that there be a maximum ratio between CEO and worker earnings. Do you agree or disagree with this concept? Explain.

Too often many people, including public officials, believe people are poor because they are lazy and do not want to work. However, the reality is that the majority of people living in poverty are in households where individuals work full-time but make very

low wages. They are called the working poor. According to a team of Penn State researchers, as many as 25 percent of all jobs in the United States pay less than a poverty-level income. The rate reaches as high as 30 percent in some states (Glasmeier, 2005). Consider:

• • In 2009, there were more than 10 million low-income working families in the United States, an increase of nearly a quarter million from the previous year.

• • Forty-five million people, including 22 million children, lived in low-income working families, an increase of 1.7 million people from 2008.

• • Forty-three percent of working families with at least one minority parent were low-income, nearly twice the proportion of White working families (22 percent) (Roberts, Povich, and Mather, 2010-2011).

Although the working poor live in every state of the union, in 17 states the majority of working poor totals more than 50 percent of the working age population. These states are concentrated in the Farm Belt, where economic decline has been going on for the last two decades, and in the West where, according to the Penn State researchers, population growth has helped to keep wages low. Additionally, the South and Southwest, states traditionally with low union membership, have high concentrations of working-poor families with children.

Many jobs pay only the minimum wage and offer few, if any, benefits. Many are part-time or temporary jobs. Although educational and skill deficiencies contribute to the employment problems of some poor workers, two-thirds of poor workers have high school diplomas. Thus, for many, it is not a lack of basic skills but a scarcity of higher-paying positions that keeps them in poverty. In the future, workers with limited education will be even more disadvantaged. A recent national study predicts that 63 percent of all job openings occurring by 2018 will require workers with some postsecondary education (Carnevale, Smith, and Strohl, 2010).

Unemployment and Underemployment

To this point, we have discussed the complex connections between work and families. But what happens to families when this connection is broken or nonexistent? To date, the U.S. economy has been unable to provide jobs for everyone who wants to work. In June 2011, the U.S. unemployment rate was 9.2 percent (14.5 million people), double the rate of 4.6 percent in 2006. As Table 10.4 shows, other countries also experienced dramatic increases in their unemployment rates while rates in other countries either remained stable or declined. The level of unemployment in any country depends on a number of factors: structural transformations (economic growth or slowdowns, global competition, mergers, and new technologies), political events, governmental policies, as well as consumer confidence.

TABLE 10.4 Unemployment Rates by Country, 2005-2009

Source: Adapted from: U.S. Census Bureau. 2011. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2011 Washington, DC: Table 1366, p. 857

Any one set of figures, however, does not tell the full story of unemployment in this country. In any given year, hundreds of thousands of other people are not counted among the unemployed. Some cannot seek work at any given moment because of family responsibilities, illness, or disability, or because they are in school. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not count these individuals in their monthly unemployment rate, and they are considered “marginally attached” to the labor force. These numbers rise and fall with business cycles as people withdraw from the labor force when job opportunities contract and they return when job opportunities expand. Others, unsuccessful in their job quest, give up looking for work altogether, convinced no one would hire them. The federal government calls these individuals “discouraged workers.” In June 2011, the BLS estimated that there were 2.7 million marginally attached workers, with 982,000 listed as discouraged. If marginally attached workers were counted in Bureau of Labor Statistics calculations of the unemployment rate, it would increase by several percentage points.

Unemployment affects individuals and families in many ways. Clearly, the immediate result of becoming jobless is the loss of or at least a lowering of income. This loss of income puts a severe strain on family budgets and in extreme cases can lead to homelessness. Unemployment can also have a negative impact on family and social life. For example, things we take for granted—home entertaining, going out with friends for dinner or a movie, exchanging cards and presents—may no longer be possible. Children may feel isolated and rejected when they cannot participate in the activities of their friends.

To understand how devastating the experience of unemployment can be requires an appreciation of the role work plays in our lives. Paid employment is a means for earning a living, for providing food, clothing, shelter, and other basic necessities for ourselves and our families. Success or failure at this task is often the yardstick by which individual self-worth is measured. The unemployed repeatedly describe themselves as “being nothing,” as “being looked down on,” or as “having self-doubts.” Some people who lack this ordering in their lives frequently feel psychologically adrift and may seek to escape these feelings through alcohol or other drugs. Other reactions to unemployment can be deadly. One researcher has statistically correlated the increase in the aggregate unemployment rate with increases in deaths, suicides, and homicides (Bender and Theodossiou, 2007).

Have you ever been unemployed when you wanted to be working? If so, how did you feel about that experience? Do you know anyone who is currently unemployed? How does that person feel about being unemployed? How accurate is the argument made by some members of Congress that providing unemployment benefits do the unemployed only encourages people to not look for work? Many employers no longer consider people who are unemployed for any new positions in their company. What is the basis for such a policy? Is it fair? How are family relationships changed when one or more members are unemployed?

UNEMPLOYMENT AND MARITAL FUNCTIONING

In addition to causing distress for individual family members, unemployment can affect the functioning of the family as a unit. Many researchers have found that unemployment is associated with lower levels of marital satisfaction, marital adjustment and communication, harmony in family relations, and even divorce (Hetherington and Kelly, 2002; Kalil, 2005). Joblessness can also lead to a disruption in previously agreed-upon family roles, resulting in dissatisfaction for one or both partners. For example, Patrick Burman (1988), in his study of unemployment in Canada, found that when wives were unemployed, the egalitarian norms they had negotiated with their spouses disappeared. Consequently, the wives were forced back into the traditional role of housekeeper. Burman also found that when husbands were unemployed, they tended to do more housework, but not significantly more.

When parents are psychologically stressed by unstable work and unemployment, they may show less emotional warmth toward their children that, in turn, can lead to academic and emotional problems for their children. Additionally, parental unemployment can have intergenerational aspects. If children perceive their parents’ labor market experiences in pessimistic ways, they may disengage from school and/or work and eventually be in the ranks of the unemployed themselves (Kalil, 2005).

Variations in Family Responses to Unemployment

As in other areas of family life, families differ in their ability to respond to a member’s unemployment. In some cases, families can absorb the loss of income and provide emotional and physical support for their unemployed member until such time as new work is found. How family members react to unemployment depends a great deal on how the family functioned prior to the onset of unemployment as well as on the reasons for the unemployment. Patricia Voydanoff (1983) uses family stress theory to explain the conditions under which unemployment contributes to family crisis or disrupts family functioning. The model she uses is Reuben Hill’s (1958) formulation of the A, B, C, X model of family crisis. A is the event (unemployment) that interacts with B (the family’s crisis-meeting resources) that interacts with C (the definition the family gives to the event). This produces X (the crisis—the degree to which family functioning is affected).

Unemployment (A) hits some families harder than others. Families who receive unemployment compensation or severance pay or who anticipate new employment might experience fewer financial and psychological hardships than families lacking these benefits. Among the unemployed, women are least likely to have these benefits. Families also differ in the number and effectiveness of the resources (B) they have for coping with stressful events. Family savings, homeownership, additional sources of income, good communication, and problem-solving skills can minimize the problems associated with unemployment. Research shows that marriages based on a sharing model, in which both partners can perform economic and household labor competently, are more flexible and therefore better equipped to respond to the unemployment or loss of a partner than marriages based on strict gender specialization (Oppenheimer, 1997). Additionally, how the family defines unemployment (C) is critical to the outcome. “If the family perceives the event as a crisis-producing situation, the likelihood of crisis is increased; if the family considers the event to be normal or manageable, family vulnerability to crisis is reduced” (Voydanoff, 1983:244). Implicit in the family stress model are mechanisms for minimizing the negative consequences of unemployment. Leaving aside the need for more jobs, adequate financial assistance in the form of unemployment compensation and health insurance would help families get through a period of unemployment with fewer difficulties. In addition, educational or counseling programs aimed at improving family functioning would help families cope with the stresses of unemployment. Finally, knowledge about the structural causes of unemployment would help families define unemployment in a realistic way and lessen the tendency to blame individual members for the problem.

Age, Race, Ethnicity, and Unemployment

Table 10.5 shows that like social rewards, unemployment is unevenly distributed throughout the population. The recent recession has disproportionately affected America’s youngest and most inexperienced workers. In June 2011, the unemployment rate for teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 was 24.5 percent, compared with 9.2 percent for the adult population. Although this rate is at the highest level since the government started keeping track of it in 1948, it remains an underestimate since this figure does not take into account those teenagers who have given up looking for work. Including them would more than double the rate. The unemployment rate for Black teenagers was 39.9 percent, almost twice that of White teenagers (21.8 percent). Latinas/os had a rate of 35.4 percent. Comparable data were not available for Asians teens (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011b).

TABLE 10.5 Age, Race, Unemployment Rates by Sex, and Ethnicity, June 2011

Source: Adapted from Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2011. Employment Situation—June 2011 (July 8).http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf.empsit.pdf (2011, July 11).

Youth unemployment is troubling for a number of reasons. First, a family may depend on income contributions from teenaged members for its economic wellbeing. Even when teenagers’ earnings go directly toward meeting personal needs—clothing, books, and entertainment—this contribution is likely to relieve some of the pressure on household budgets. Second, research indicates that adolescents who have a job are less likely than their unemployed counterparts to become involved in illegal activities such as drug dealing and theft. Finally, if this high teen unemployment rate continues, the likelihood that these teenagers will establish stable marriages and make long-term commitments to the labor force will diminish. Research shows that those who do not work as teenagers have lower long-term wages and chances of employment even after 10 years (Graver, 2011).

Similarly, in adulthood the burden of unemployment continues to fall more heavily on people of color despite the progress in civil rights and affirmative action of the last three decades. Among the hardest hit by unemployment are Native Americans. Their unemployment rate is double the national average (Burke and Sikkema, 2007). However, this figure underrepresents the extent of the problem because large numbers of Native Americans live on reservations where few employment opportunities exist. On some reservations, as many as 50 to 80 percent of the tribe’s adults may be unemployed and/or have given up looking for work. Blacks and Latinas/os also experience higher rates of unemployment than their White counterparts.

In the past, unemployment was more likely to affect blue-collar workers. Today many college educated and professional workers are also experiencing high rates of unemployment.

Additionally, significant numbers of people experience what economists call underemployment, a situation in which a worker is employed but not in the desired capacity, whether in terms of compensation, hours, or level of skills and experience. One form that underemployment takes is involuntary part-time employment, a person works part-time but desires full-time work. A recent Gallup survey found that nearly 1 in 5 Americans (19.3 percent) describe themselves as underemployed (either unemployed or involuntarily working part-time). The underemployed respondents reported higher levels of stress, worry, sadness, and anger than did responders who were employed or voluntarily working part time (Mendes and Marlar, 2011). Damian Birkel was a marketing manager at Sarah Lee when he was downsized. Thereafter, he was laid off from three other jobs. He said, “I felt like I had ‘loser’ tattooed to my forehead, and ‘will work for food’ tattooed to my chest” (quoted in Roberts, 2011). For Birkel, the hardest part was telling his young daughter that there might not be enough money to pay the bills—among them, sending her to camp. He now teaches part time at a community college and founded Professionals in Transition, a non-profit that counsels the underemployed.

Janet Raiffa was a recruiting manager at a major law firm. She lost her job. Despite credentials from Dartmouth and Columbia, she was unable to find work that matched her skill set. “I got tremendously depressed. I had days where I couldn’t get out of bed. It’s difficult to motivate yourself,” she said (quoted in Roberts, 2011). Like Birkel and Raiffa, other underemployed workers face serious problems; they are more likely than regular full-time workers to earn minimum wage and much less likely to receive health and pension benefits. In addition, such workers are likely to be dispirited. Like the unemployed, those who are underemployed worry about family finances and may experience low levels of marital and family satisfaction as a result.

This discussion of unemployment and underemployment illustrates C. Wright Mills’s distinction between personal troubles and social issues (see Chapter 1). Unemployment of this magnitude is not simply a personal trouble of affected families; it is also a social problem. Thus, solving the problem of unemployment and underemployment requires action on the part of the larger society to create more jobs or to provide meaningful alternatives for those who cannot work.

HOMELESSNESS: OFTEN ONLY A PAYCHECK AWAY

As we have seen, millions of people live below or at the poverty level and, at any given time, millions of people lose their jobs. Thus, a missed paycheck, a medical emergency, or debt may push people out of their homes and in to homelessness. According to a survey of 27 cities by the U.S. Conference of Mayors (2010), the leading causes of homelessness among households with children are: unemployment (76 percent), lack of affordable housing (72 percent), poverty (56 percent), domestic violence (24 percent), and low-paying jobs (20 percent). The homeless inhabit every region of the country, from inner-city neighborhoods to the rural countryside. If you spend any time in parks or public facilities, be they bus or train stations, libraries, or airports, you will encounter the homeless. What you will observe if you look closely is a diverse population that includes the young and the old, every race and religion, as well as the unmarried and family groups. Additionally, 24 percent of homeless adults are mentally ill, 20 percent are physically disabled, 19 percent are employed, 14 percent are veterans, 14 percent are victims of domestic violence, and 3 percent are HIV positive (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2010).

How many Americans are currently homeless? No one can answer this question with certainty because there is no agreement on how to define homelessness. Sociologist Peter Rossi (1989) distinguishes two kinds of homelessness. The “literally homeless” are those who already live on the streets. The “precariously housed” are those in danger of losing their homes or who have lost their homes but have found temporary shelter. Extended families often provide support by taking in homeless relatives, sometimes exhausting their own resources in the process. Therefore, if we use the first definition only, the number of homeless we count will be smaller than if we expand our definition to include those who are poorly or only temporarily housed. Most studies of the homeless have used the first definition, thereby understating the extent of the problem. That homeless people tend to move in and out of shelters and public view on a regular basis also makes counting them difficult. Finally, we can count people only if we can locate them. Not all homeless people are in shelters. Many live in parks, cars, cardboard boxes, doorways, or other places not readily accessible to researchers. Thus, any published figures on homelessness must be interpreted with caution. Estimates range from 600,00 to 3.5 million people.

If you suddenly found yourself homeless, where would you go? Who would you contact? What problems would you encounter on a daily basis? How would you attempt to solve them? What is your reaction when you meet a homeless person on the street? Do you think your attitude reflects that of most other people? To what extent is homelessness a personal problem or a structural problem? Do you think private efforts can solve the problem of homelessness? How is the structure and functioning of a family affected by homelessness? Whose responsibility is it to try to end homelessness?

The problems of poverty, unemployment, and homelessness are likely to grow in coming years unless the United States finds ways to create new good-paying jobs and to get its financial house in order. Thus far, government officials are divided on what policies would be most effective in this regard (see the Debating Social Issues box).

Debating Social Issues SHOULD THE WEALTHY PAY MORE IN TAXES?

Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York and over 1500 other cities have put economic inequality on the political agenda.

No one doubts that the United States economy is in serious difficulty, but there is little agreement on what

should be done about it. A controversial and contentious debate has been going on in Congress for several years. Although both Democrats and Republicans agree that the federal government must reduce its spending, they don’t agree on what should be cut or how deeply. The Democrats want to combine budget cuts with increases in tax revenues, including higher taxes on the wealthy, while the Republicans oppose any tax increases.

Those who favor increasing taxes on the wealthy argue that for decades, America’s top earners have accumulated a larger and larger share of the nation’s total income, from 10 percent in the 1960s to more than 20 percent today. During that same period, however, their tax rates have steadily declined. In the 1950s, the top marginal rate was 91 percent; today, it’s 35 percent. When you include deductions and tax credits and the fact that as recently as the 1980s capital gains and dividends were taxed at 35 percent and not today’s 15 percent, the wealthy are now paying a much lower portion of their incomes than any time since World War II (Reich, 2011).

Thus, they argue, fairness demands the wealthy pay more. Representative Jan Schakowsky, a member of President Obama’s 18-member fiscal Commission introduced the Fairness in Taxation Act, which would create new tax brackets for millionaires (45 percent) and billionaires (49 percent) and would tax capital gains and dividend income as ordinary income for those taxpayers with incomes over $1 million. Such a change could raise an estimated $78 million dollars (Folbre, 2011). Increased revenue could then be invested in programs that would increase jobs and thus stimulate the economy. Raising taxes on the wealthy seems to resonate with the American public as well. A NBC Hews/Wall Street Journal poll found that 81 percent of respondents favor placing a surtax on federal income taxes for those who make more than $1 million a year. Other polls show that the majority of Americans favor some form of tax increases on the wealthy (Folbre, 2011). Finally, those favoring higher taxes for the rich point out that the United States is one of the least taxed countries in the developed world. In 2009, total federal, state, and local taxes in the United States were 22.6 percent of our gross domestic product, ranking 26th among the 28 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries for which data are available (Citizens for Tax Justice, 2011).

Opponents of increasing taxes on the rich believe that such a tax increases would have a negative effect on the economy by providing less incentive for government to cut spending. At the same time, they argue higher taxes would lower potential profit and, therefore, create less incentive for business owners and the wealthy to invest, start new businesses, and create jobs. Additionally, they argue this would further divide Americans by turning the lower and middle classes against the rich who already pay more in income than the other classes. According to the Congressional Budget office, in 2007, the top 20 percent of households earned 55 percent of before-tax income and paid almost 70 percent of all federal taxes; for all other quintiles, the share of federal taxes was less than the share of income (Congressional Budget Office, 2010). Further, the poor and middle-income earners benefit as much or more from the tax code as do the wealthy (Dubay, 2009). Finally, opponents argue, if marginal rates are increased, it might motivate some of the richer people to move to another country, taking their potential tax dollars with them, or putting their money in “offshore tax havens.” It is estimated that one-third of all wealth is currently held in such places.

This debate will not be resolved any time soon. However, there is no doubt, whatever its resolution, it will have a major impact on workers and their families.

What do you think? Who qualifies as wealthy and how are those decisions made? At what income threshold should households be expected to pay more in taxes? Do you think there is more or less to be gained by raising taxes on the wealthy? Explain.

BALANCING WORK AND FAMILY: RESTRUCTURING THE WORKPLACE

As this cartoon illustrates, balancing work and family is not an easy task.

Throughout this chapter, we have seen how the relationship between work and families has changed drastically. However, a gap still exists between the current structures of families and the way other institutions continue to relate to them. For example, one of the major problems working parents face is getting children off to school in the morning and having a parent there to greet them when they come home. We are probably all familiar with stories of “latchkey children,” children who return home after school to an empty house. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2008), 6 percent of children ages 5-11 and 33 percent of children ages 12-14 regularly care for themselves after school. Children who are home alone confront many issues. For example, should they answer the doorbell? If they do, someone will know they are home alone. If they do not, someone will assume the house is empty. Both could lead to serious problems. Parents worry about this and other safety issues, so they use the telephone to keep in contact and to monitor their children’s activities. Telephone companies report an increase in calls around 3 p.m. as children return from school.

Some school districts offer after school programs to assist working parents, but most do not. Without outside support, families frequently find they must solve this problem by having one parent, usually the wife, work part-time rather than full-time. The economic consequences of this approach include low pay, few benefits, and little or no mobility for the affected worker.

FAMILY-FRIENDLY POLICIES AND BENEFITS

Many employers are increasingly aware that they must institute organizational changes and provide family-friendly benefits to help employees balance work and family demands. One indication that this is happening is the increase in the number of companies identified and ranked as family-friendly businesses. In 1986, Working Mother magazine began compiling of list of family-friendly companies. Only 30 companies made the initial list; by 1992, 100 companies made the list, and each year since then the magazine has been able to run a list of the 100 best companies for working parents. To see which companies are family-friendly, go to www.workingmother.com. Among some of the most popular family-friendly benefits are child and dependent care, job sharing, flextime, and family leave. However, a word of caution is in order here. The Society for Human Resource Management conducts annual studies of the type of benefits employers offer their employees. In their 2010 report, the majority of companies surveyed said the U.S. and global recession have negatively affected them, and 72 percent reported that their benefit offerings have been affected in some way as a result. Consequently, some of these benefits may be at risk.

Child- and Dependent-Care Programs

In the past, employers were reluctant to offer on-site day care because of cost. However, over time employers began to realize that employee concern about their children and other dependent relatives was a drain on productivity and morale. This growing realization was reinforced by a recent study that found a positive relationship between the availability of child-care centers, and employee’s performance, attitudes, and retention rates (Connelly, DeGraff, and Willis. 2004). A majority of workers said they would be willing to contribute, on average, between $125 and $225 to subsidize on-site day care whether or not they used the benefit themselves. Respondents explained their willingness as both a concern for working parents and a concern to see their company stay profitable by reducing the rates of turnover and absenteeism and increasing worker productivity.

Job Sharing

Another innovation allows workers more time for family matters through is job sharing, in which two workers split a single full-time job. Each job sharer gets paid for half-time work, although most usually contribute more than a half-time performance. Thus far, the existing evidence suggests that companies would benefit by getting more than half-time performances for half-time wages.

Flextime

This represents yet another approach to meeting family scheduling needs. Flextime arrangements allow employees to choose when they arrive at and leave work within specified time limits. Flextime is especially helpful when one parent can start work early and arrive home early, while the other works a later shift. To date, only about 28 percent of U.S. workers have flextime, compared with more than 50 percent of the work force in Western European countries. However, this benefit is not evenly distributed among workers. Approximately 29 percent of White workers and 27 percent of Asian workers are on flexible schedules compared to 20 percent of African American workers and 18 percent of Latinas/os. Men are slightly more likely to have flexible schedules (28 percent) than women (27 percent) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008).

Family Leave

Until recently, the United States was one of the few industrialized countries that did not have a national family leave policy. Finally, in 1993, after two previous failed attempts, Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which allows either parent to take up to 3 months of unpaid leave for births, adoptions, and family emergencies. The bill excludes workers in companies with fewer than 50 employees; thus, almost 41 million Americans, more than 40 percent of the private-sector work force, are not eligible. Because it provides only for unpaid leave, it is of little help to low-income workers. The benefits fall far short of those in other countries. A recent survey found that 169 countries offer mothers paid maternal leave and 66 offer new fathers paid leaves. Thirty-nine nations grant paid leave to workers whose children are ill and 23 offer it to employees to care for other family members (Heyman, Earle, and Hayes, 2007). The United States provides only unpaid leave for serious illnesses through the FMLA, which does not cover all workers. Congress is considering legislation to expand FMLA to provide up to 8 weeks of paid leave to workers for the birth or adoption of a child or to care for a family member with a serious illness.

Furthermore, unlike all other advanced industrialized countries, the United States has no statutory provision that guarantees a woman pregnancy leave, either paid or unpaid, or that guarantees that she can return to her job after childbirth. In the United States, pregnancy leaves are covered by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, which requires that pregnant employees be treated the same as employees with any temporary disability. One obvious limitation to this law is that employers that do not offer disability insurance to their other employees are not required to provide pregnancy leaves to their workers. Family sociologist Joseph Pleck (1988) points to an additional problem with using disability as the mechanism for dealing with childbirth: It excludes fathers from parental leave.

Continuing Progress or Retrenchment?

Although the last three decades have brought considerable changes to the workplace, demographic trends (increases in number of dual-earner couples, in single parents, and in the elderly) argue that more change is needed. Yet the volatility of the current economy may jeopardize existing benefits as companies struggle to contain costs and maximize profits. The Families and Work Institute’s 2009 National Study of the impact of the recession on employers found that two-thirds of employers surveyed have suffered declining revenues with another 28 percent reporting that the revenues have held more or less steady. Only 6 percent have experienced growth. In response, 77 percent of employers have found ways to cut or control costs, most frequently decreasing or eliminating bonuses, eliminating salary increases, laying off employees, and instituting hiring freezes. Additionally, employers

Writing Your Own Script WORK-FAMILY DECISIONS

As we have seen in this chapter, the link between work and family is complex and constantly changing Most families can no longer expect to survive with only the traditional male wage earner. Thus, partners in a relationship have to make considerable personal adjustments if both are working, especially if they have children.

Questions to Consider

1.

Do my partner and I want jobs or careers? Will one of our jobs

or careers take priority over the other? How will we make employment decisions that involve the other partner? How will we deal with career moves, including geographic relocation, especially if one of us does not want to relocate? If we both work, how will that affect our division of household labor? How will it affect our decision if and when to have children?

2.

If our family does not need two wage earners, will we both work anyway? Can either of us consider staying home to take care of the children? Why or why not? If we both need to or want to work, what options do we have for quality child care? What can we do to reduce the stress of work-family conflicts? Some working parents have tried to resolve their work-family conflicts by working at home. Would one or both of us want to work at home? What would be the advantages and disadvantages of this for our personal and family relationships?

• • reduced health care costs or increased employee costs, (29 percent);

• • instituted voluntary reductions in hours (29 percent); 28 percent instituted involuntary reductions in hours;

• • allowed employees to compress their workweeks (22 percent); 19 percent increased telecommuting to save on occupancy costs;

• • hired workers who earn less (13 percent); 11 percent outsourced work or moved employees into contract work;

• • reduced sick time (8 percent), 7 percent reduced paid vacation time; and

• • offered buyouts or other inducements for early retirement (7 percent); 7 percent encouraged phased retirement by working reduced hours (Galinsky and Bond, 2009).

Although most of these actions negatively impacted employees, some employers took actions to help those most adversely affected. Thirty-four to 44 percent of employers provided assistance to laid off employees in their new job search, helped employees to manage

their own finances more effectively, and connected them to publicly funded benefits and services.

Supporting Marriages and Families

The United States lags behind most other countries in providing benefits that would help working families live less stress-filled lives. Overcoming this situation requires major efforts. Resolving work and family conflicts can no longer be seen as primarily a mother’s issue, in which the solution puts the major responsibility on her, requiring her to reduce work hours or to leave the labor force entirely, thus becoming a low earner or even nonearner. However, to move to a more egalitarian culture requires women to share some of the more enjoyable aspects of parenting as well as their authority in the domestic sphere with men and it requires men to share power in the public square as well as to share more fully in family work. Nevertheless, changes in personal attitudes alone are insufficient. The larger society must more fully recognize and reward women’s competence in the public spheres as well as men’s competence in the private sphere of family life. In her book, Restructuring Gender Relations and Employment: The Decline of the Male Breadwinner, British sociologist Rosemary Crompton (1999) outlines a “dual-earn/dual-career” society in which women and men engage symmetrically in market work and in caregiving work. To achieve this does not require wives to become like husbands who work 40+ hours outside the home but rather that both wives and husbands equalize paid work hours and unpaid caregiving hours.

The ability for couples to implement more egalitarian attitudes and arrangements depends on structural changes in the workplace, including but not limited to the following:

• • Revising work schedules that would allow for a shorter work week and allowing both female and male workers to request reduction in hours for a prorated reduction in wages and benefits as well as paid family leave for the birth or adoption of a child and for major family emergencies.

• • Providing job opportunities for teenagers and education and skills development programs for low-skilled workers so they can obtain postsecondary credentials valued in the labor market.

• • Providing a living wage for all workers and eliminating the existing discrimination in wages among different categories of the population.

• • Providing a national system of affordable and quality day care.

• • Ensuring a safety net for all workers and their families by providing universal health care and adequate retirement benefits.

Unquestionably, such policies would be expensive—thus, they are likely to be opposed by employers and even many taxpayers. However, implementing such benefits is not impossible. Many other countries have had similar benefits in place for many years (see, for example, Widener, 2007; Heymann, Earle, and Hayes, 2007). None of these countries rely on individual employers providing wage replacement for their own employees. Rather, paid leaves are funded through a variety of social insurance plans and/ or general tax revenues. Because these proposals stand to benefit all segments of the population, the expenses should also be borne by all segments of the population.

SUMMARY

Although we frequently think of work and family life as discrete activities, research shows that the worlds of work and family affect each other in significant ways. The quality and stability of family life depend to a large extent on the type of work available to family members, and work can have spillover effects, both positive and negative, on family life.

In 1900, only 20 percent of women age 14 and older were in the labor force, compared with approximately 86 percent of men in that age category. One hundred years later, 60 percent of women and 75 percent of men age 16 and older were in the labor force. Before World War II, the majority of women workers were young, single, poor, and women of color. As late as 1975, only 36.7 percent of married women with children under age 6 were in the labor force. By 2008, the comparable figure was over 62 percent.

Women work for many of the same reasons men do, particularly to support themselves and their families. The rapid entrance of married women with children into the labor force has altered family life in many ways. The traditional nuclear family consisting of a working husband and a full-time homemaker with dependent children is in the minority today. The typical family today is a dual-earner, or “two-paycheck” family. The attempts by dual-earner couples to integrate work and family experiences affect many aspects of family life: decision making and power relationships, marital happiness, and the household division of labor. Working couples often experience role overload and role conflict as they struggle to balance the demands of work and family. Lack of affordable quality child care is particularly stressful for working parents of preschool children.

Although the labor force participation rates of women and men are converging, women still confront issues of inequity in the labor market. Among them are occupational segregation, a gender gap in earnings, and sexual harassment. Parents differ in their ability to provide a decent standard of living for themselves and their families. The disparity between rich and poor families grew even wider during the last three decades due to loss of high-paid manufacturing jobs, the decline in union membership, the growth in low-paid service sector jobs, the increase of in families with two-wage earners, tax cuts that primarily benefited the wealthy, and the increasingly popular practice of rewarding executives with stock options and other financial benefits. An increasing number of families are living in poverty. Being employed is not always sufficient to avoid poverty. Nearly two-thirds of all people living in poor families with children live in families with a worker.

The experience of unemployment or underemployment can have severe negative impacts on marital functioning and family life. Unemployment is unevenly distributed throughout the population. It is particularly high among teenagers and people of color.

The United States is one of the few countries that does not offer paid maternity leave for its workers. Although many employers are becoming more sensitive to the family needs of their employees, the volatility of the current economy has led to decreases in some family-friendly benefits. Some programs that have been introduced to help workers are job sharing and flextime. Given the widespread movement of mothers into the labor force and the growing number of workers caring for elderly parents, pressure will likely build for improved work-family policies. However, this is likely to come about only when work-family conflict is seen as a problem for both women and men.

KEY TERMS

labor force participation rate

commuter marriage

role overload

occupational distribution

pay equity

sexual harassment

feminization of poverty

working poor

underemployment

job sharing

flextime

Family and Medical Leave Act

Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978

QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND REFLECTION

1.

Describe the major changes in the characteristics of the U.S. labor force during the last six decades. How have these changes affected the quality of family life in the United States? Today, approximately 70 percent of families have two earners. For this reason, many people argue that the United States needs a national family policy. To what extent do you think the federal government and employers have a responsibility for resolving some of the problems confronting working parents? Would you be willing to see tax dollars subsidize all or a portion of child care for all working families? Explain.

2.

How were household tasks divided in your family of orientation? What was the basis for this division of labor? Did family members perceive this division as equitable? Do you plan to replicate this division of labor in your family of procreation? Why or why not? How is the division of household labor related to marital functioning and satisfaction?

3.

How have recent economic, social, and political trends, including the recent recession, impacted your lifestyle? Have they caused you to be optimistic, unenthused, or pessimistic about the future of the national economy? How has the evolution of a global economy affected the structure and functioning of families throughout the world? Discuss the pros and cons of the global economy that has developed in conjunction with the spread of capitalism. How do you feel about corporations relocating jobs to other parts of the country and to other countries to save on labor costs? Should corporations have an obligation to employees to pay living wage regardless of their geographic location? Explain.

4.

In the section on Supporting Marriages and Families, we call for changing our cultural ideas about gender as a way to balance work and family. Do you agree or disagree? In your answer, consider the likely consequences of such a change, both positive and negative. Do you agree or disagree with the suggestions for changing the workplace environment? Are such proposals achievable? Under what conditions?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

SOCIOLOGICAL

DRAUT, TAMARA. 2006. Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead. New York: Doubleday. If you are feeling financial strapped, Draut provides statistical data to show that you are not alone. The author argues that depressed wages, inflated educational costs, and credit card debt are making it difficult for young adults to reach financial independence, and she advocates political action to reverse these trends.

GREENHOUSE, STEVEN. 2008. The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker. New York: Knopf. A New York Times labor correspondent provides a sobering look and the stresses and strains faced by tens of millions of American workers as a result of globalization, the influx of immigrants, and the Wal-Mart effect.

LEWIS, JANE. 2009. Work-Family Balance, Gender and Policy. Camberley Surrey, UK: Edgar Elgar Publishing. The author presents a comparative analysis of the multiple dimensions and relationships involved in balancing family and paid work demands in European countries as well as the United States.

SMITH, JEREMEY A. 2009. The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms and Shared Parenting Are Transforming the American Family. Boston: Beacon Press. Scholarly research is coined with profiles of stay-at-home dads and their families to illustrate the many changes families have made in adapting to the uncertain global economy.

FILM

Capitalism: A Love Story. 2009. Filmmaker Michael Moore examines the impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans with humor and outrage.

Larry Crowne. 2011. After losing his job, a middle-aged man reinvents himself by going back to college.

LITERARY

HICKMAN, CRAIG. 2009. The Insiders. BookSurge Publishing. This thriller captures some of the corporate financial malfeasance of recent years—insider trading and stock manipulation—that have resulted in the collapse of companies and left many families in serious economic difficulties.

SINCLAIR, UPTON. 1981. The Jungle. New York: Bantam. Sinclair provides one of the most important and moving works in the literature of social change as he tells the story of Jurgis Rudkus, a young Lithuanian immigrant who arrives in America with dreams of wealth, freedom, and opportunity, but instead encounters injustice and “wage slavery” in the turn-of the-century meat-packing industry. This grim indictment led to government regulations of the food industry.

INTERNET

http://www.familiesandwork.org The Web site of the Families and Work Institute provides data to inform decision making on the changing work force, changing family, and changing community to improve working conditions and family lives.

http://www.mobiliyagenda.org The Mobility Agenda is a think tank that seeks to stimulate and shape a dialogue to build support for strengthening the labor market, the economy, workers, and communities.

http://www.studtentsagainsthunger.org The goal of the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness is to end hunger and homelessness by educating, engaging, and training students to meet individuals’ immediate needs while advocating for long-term systemic solutions. Their Web site provides information and links to many other resources and provides information for how you can get involved.

http://www.epi.org The Economic Policy Institute is a nonpartisan think tank that seeks to broaden public debate about strategies to achieve a prosperous and fair economy.

Succeed with MyFamilyLab® www.myfamilylab.com

Watch. Explore. Read. The New My FamilyLab is designed just for you. Each chapter features a pre-test and post-test to help you learn and review key concepts and terms. Experience Marriages and Families in action with dynamic visual activities, videos, and readings to enhance your learning experience.

Here are a few activities you will find for this chapter.