Social Case Study Review

Work and Family

All families need economic resources. Throughout most of human history, families have met these needs by working cooperatively, and producing most of what was needed. Industrialization changed that, and modern families now primarily rely on wages received through labor force participation. Men were initially the primary labor force participants, entering the mills and factories in search of wages to support their families. This gave rise to the concept of the man as the primary breadwinner. The reason was that the majority of jobs created by industrialization were heavy, dangerous, and dirty. Women were considered unsuited for such work, and better suited to remaining at home and care for the household. This gave rise to the concept of the woman as homemaker. These ideas have hung on for generations, but have some gaping holes. The problem is that these concepts largely reflect the biases of middle class observers who only considered those who "officially" took employment that paid a designated wage, although some industries such as the textile mills and sewing shops employed both women and children in large numbers. However, women, particularly working, poor, and minority, also took in sewing, laundry, and other people's children, made paper flowers, and worked as maids, housekeepers, and cooks to supplement the family's income. It is accurate to say that women's official labor force participation was quite small, about 10% in 1900, but it must also be recognized that this figure probably is not a very accurate representation of women's actual economic contributions to the family.

Things have changed since 1900. More than 70% of women are in the paid labor force today, and almost one-half of the labor force is made up of women. How many are in the unofficial or "underground" economy is not known, but we can be sure that the number is still significant. In spite of increased participation, women still lag behind men in a number of important ways. Recent findings on gender inequality and women in the workplace have proven that women make only between 75 and 80 cents for every dollar earned by men. Most of the discrepancy is the result of the kinds of jobs in which women are likely to be employed. Roughly 80% of low-paying occupations such as cashiers, file clerks, and librarians, and over 90% of secretaries, receptionists, and childcare workers are women. In contrast, women make up about 10% of engineers, 20% of dentists, and 30% of physicians, all of which are high-paying occupations.

Women are also more likely to be employed in part-time jobs, and as a result, their incomes are often considered to be supplemental to the husband's. The reality is that part-time often refers only to the job classification, rather than to the number of hours worked. In many cases, a 35-hour-per-week job is classified as part-time, even though it is only about an hour a day shorter than a full-time classification. The pay is less and benefits are absent, but the actual hours spent on the job are virtually the same as in a full-time job. Women then find that they are expected to attend to their homemaking roles, as well as their paid workforce ones. The result is a second shift of labor in the home following the day at paid work. Men are beginning to take greater part in home and childcare duties, but there is still a very large gap. Men's tasks are generally those that require less frequent attention. Yard work, taking out the trash, moving furniture, and the like only need to be done on occasion, while the dishes, cooking, sweeping, and laundry are done nearly every day. When men do pitch in with these tasks, it is usually in the form of "helping out" or finding an alternative. Shared cooking responsibilities generally result in a home-cooked meal when it is the wife's turn, and either going out to eat or ordering something in when it is the husband's turn.

Communication

The ability of partners to communicate is a key factor in marital and family satisfaction. The day-to-day process of interacting involves constant compromise and accommodations requiring that all parties have the ability to communicate and interpret the wants, needs, and desires of all other parties. The concept of patriarchal norm, male marital dominance, is a common feature both in culture and in some social classes. Nearly all Western families are patriarchal to some extent, and that is generally considered to be a significant factor in the differences in gender communication styles. Men from the Western world have rather direct communication styles geared toward task completion and problem solving that are consistent with their more dominant gender roles. For them, communication is goal-oriented, and they are often confused or frustrated if the purpose of the conversation is only to share one's feelings about something. Western-world women are also concerned with task completion and problem solving, but are generally less direct in their communication styles—also consistent with their more passive gender roles. Women are more likely to phrase things as questions or suggestions, rather than direct statements. Women are also more likely to want to simply talk about something without a goal of resolving anything. In these cases, communication can become difficult and issues complicated when the reasons for a discussion and the desired outcomes are not made clear and agreed upon at the onset.

Conflict.

Conflict, like so many other aspects of relationships, is a process that operates on a continuum. On one end are the day-to-day frictions generated by different people with different viewpoints and desires. On the other are major crises that can be defining moments in the relationship. Most conflicts on the lower end are the unavoidable results of humans living together, and learning how to handle these small conflicts goes a long way in building the necessary skills to handle crisis. Probably the most important thing to keep in mind in this process is that conflict resolution is not a "zero sum" matter. Zero sum is the concept that, in an exchange, any person's gain must come at someone's loss. This may be necessary in many competitive activities—sporting events, business competition, or other types of interactions in which resources are finite, but in terms of human interactions, there are few cases in which resources are finite. A marital disagreement in which one party loses is a good indication of a lack of communication in the process. It is very hard to be satisfied with a relationship when the partners feel like they have to keep score. What may seem to be small and unimportant disagreements can generate a great deal of resentment if one partner always has to "win."

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.