1. 11
Work and Families
Laura MacIntyre

2. Work and Families
The relationship between work and families has grown more complicated in modern society (DeVault, 1991).
There is work that individuals do within the family and work that individuals do outside the family
The ways in which this work is distributed have shifted as society has become more modern.
The transformation of the family over the last 150 years has brought about several dramatic changes.
The tensions between work and family have grown increasingly severe.
Work-related decisions that individuals make have grown increasingly important.
The sociological perspective on work focuses, not only on the content of the work that individuals do, but also on the context in which they work.

3. Work in Institutional Arenas
Work is impacted by all three institutional arenas: the family, the market, and the state

4. Work in Institutional Arenas: Work
The exertion of effort to produce or accomplish something
A simple definition of work is the exertion of effort to produce or accomplish something.

5. Work in Institutional Arenas: Types
Types of Work
However, Cohen further distinguishes between three different kinds of work: care work, housework, and market work.

6. Work in Institutional Arenas: Care Work
Types of Work
Care Work
Care work is the first type of work identified by Cohen.
It is the most directly relevant for family studies because it is the most clearly identified with families.

7. Work in Institutional Arenas: Care Work Definition
Types of Work
Care Work
Work performed face-to-face for the purpose of enhancing the capabilities of another person
Care work is work performed face-to-face for the purpose of enhancing the capabilities of another person (P. England, Budig, & Folbre, 2002).
Care work is interpersonal.
The most fundamental care work is child care.
Child care is usually intimate work and should provide children with material, intellectual and emotional support.

8. Work in Institutional Arenas: Housework
Types of Work
Care Work
Housework
The second type of work is housework.
Care work and housework can overlap and can be stressful elements of modern family life.

9. Work in Institutional Arenas: Housework Definition
Types of Work
Care Work
Housework:
Work to maintain a household’s functions
Housework is defined as the work performed to maintain a household’s functions.
Most housework consists of cooking and cleaning.
Household maintenance, working in the yard, and paying bills are also considered housework.
Compared to care work, housework is seen as impersonal and solitary.
Sometimes this work is done with the help of machines and new technology (refrigerators, vacuums, washing machines, etc.).

10. Work in Institutional Arenas: Market Work
Sometimes these tasks are done for money (pay) in the market economy.
In modern society, the tasks of care work and housework are increasingly being performed by people outside of the family and the home.
The third type of work identified by Cohen is market work.

11. Work in Institutional Arenas: Market Work Definition
Work done by employees for pay
Market work is defined as work done by employees for pay.

12. Work in Institutional Arenas: System of Care
A system of care framework can be used to understand how each of these three types of work are related.

13. Work in Institutional Arenas: System of Care Definition
How a society accomplishes the necessary care work and housework
System of care is defined as how a society accomplishes the necessary care work and housework (Ferree, 2010.)
This is a system that is not an intentionally operated one, but rather a social system comprised of intricate layers of social structure.

14. Work in Institutional Arenas: Institutional Settings for Different Kinds of Work
This figure represents the institutional settings for different kinds of work.
This figure partly shows how housework and care work overlap within families.
Similarly, this figure also shows how either kind of work can be done at home without pay, or done in the market for a wage.
The overlapping areas also represent challenges for the study of work and family.

15. Work in Institutional Arenas: Decisions
Decisions Modern Families Must Face
When personal decisions in one institutional arena overlap with another institutional arena, there are interesting dilemmas for the study of family and work.
These challenges are distinctly modern.
The next three slides outline some of the decisions modern families must make (Hartman, 1981).

16. Work in Institutional Arenas: Division of Housework and Care Work
Decisions Modern Families Must Face
How to divide the housework and care work within the family
This can be a contentious issue between couples.
The decision between individuals may be cooperative, but often is not.
Economic pressures make the choices increasingly difficult ( Legerski & Cornwall, 2010).

17. Work in Institutional Arenas: When to Pay for Services
Decisions Modern Families Must Face
How to divide the housework and care work within the family
When to pay for household services instead of doing the housework themselves
Modern individuals are now faced with the choice of performing their own household chores or outsourcing these chores in the marketplace.
These decisions include factors like budgets and personal preferences.
Examples include deciding whether to eat out at a restaurant, whether to hire a housecleaner, and so on (De Ruijter, Treas, & Cohen, 2005).

18. Work in Institutional Arenas: When to Care for Children at Home
Decisions Modern Families Must Face
How to divide the housework and care work within the family
When to pay for household services instead of doing the housework themselves
When to take care of children at home versus using child-care services
Parents must decide between employment in the marketplace for wages and the use of child-care services or caring for children within the home (or a combination of the two).
Government policies affect these decisions by, for example, subsidizing or not subsidizing child care costs (Baum, 2002).

19. Paid Work Women’s employment patterns have transformed dramatically.
The transformation of work in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries involved men increasingly working outside the home for pay while women worked (without pay) in increasing isolation within the home.
However, women’s participation in the paid workforce increased rapidly in the three decades following 1960 (Cohen & Bianchi, 1999).
The increase was greatest for college-educated women.

20. Paid Work: Percentage of Women in the Labor Force
This figure shows the percentage of women in the labor force by education and presence of children in the home from 1950 through 2010.
The percentage of women working for pay during pregnancy and the percentage employed when the child reaches age 1 increased rapidly from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Since the 1990s, these rates have remained stable and women’s inclusion in the paid workforce is now seen as permanent.
Source: Cohen’s figure from Laughlin (2011).

21. Paid Work: Occupational Segregation
Women’s employment was quickly accepted as a part of the cultural mainstream.
This was partly due to the type of work that women tended to do.

22. Paid Work: Occupational Gender Segregation
Occupational Segregation
Occupational Gender Segregation
The U.S. labor force was – and still is – marked by occupational gender segregation.

23. Paid Work: Occupational Gender Segregation Definition
Occupational Segregation
Occupational Gender Segregation
Men and women having jobs in separate occupations
Occupational gender segregation means that men and women tend to have different types of jobs.
The kind of work most women do is often closely related to the work they traditionally performed within the home.

24. Paid Work: Gender Division of Labor
Occupational Segregation
gender division of labor
Occupational gender segregation, combined with the ways in which men and women divide unpaid care work and housework in the family, creates a gender division of labor.

25. Paid Work: Gender Division of Labor Definition
Occupational Segregation
gender division of labor:
The allocation of work between men and women in society.
The gender division of labor is how work is divided up and differentiated between woman and men in society.

26. Paid Work: Annual Earnings and Gender Composition
This figure reports the annual earnings and gender composition in jobs traditionally performed by women when done at home as of 2010.
These jobs involve tasks similar to those women are most likely to perform in the home.
These are some of the lowest-paid jobs in the economy.
The are all female dominated in the paid workforce (with the exception of cooking).
Source: Cohen’s graph from the 2010 American Community Survey data via American FactFinder (2014).
Popular attitudes toward the gender division of labor between men and women have gradually shifted.
More women and men express more support for gender equality (especially in the workplace) than in the past.
As attitudes shift, gender inequality declines somewhat.
However, most Americans work with coworkers of the same gender.

27. Housework and Child Care
Time Use Studies
Time use studies show that married women have cut their housework time almost in half, while married men have doubled theirs. In 1965, women performed four times as much child care as men, but only twice as much in 2010.

28. Housework and Child Care: Time Use in a Typical Day
This figure shows the time use of men and women during a “typical” day as of 2010.
Source: Cohen’s figure from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2011).

29. Class Activity: Housework and Child Care
Have students create a personal time diary and record how they spend their time within a 24 hour period (complete a time diary)
Instructors may allow students to merely keep a detailed account or provide a template for each student to fill out
At the very least, students should record what they were doing, where they were, and who they were with for every 15 minutes in a 24-hour period.
Have students use this data to estimate how much time they spend per week on housework.
Students should fill out their time diaries and make housework calculations before class and bring them to a specified class period.
Have each student answer the following clicker question so that everyone can see the overall results for the class.

30. Class Activity: Housework and Child Care Question
1. How much time per week do you spend on housework?
none
less than 10 hours per week
between 10 and 16 hours per week
more than 16 hours per week
Have students answer the clicker questions using either clickers or colored cards.
Display the aggregate results.
Remind students that recent time diary studies have shown that most men spend just 10 hours per week on housework; women spend approximately 16 hours per week (Bianchi et al., 2012).
How do students in the class compare to these numbers the second time around (or the first, if this is the first time the class is completing the workshop)?
If possible, show students the responses from the Chapter 1 Workshop and compare the results.
Are there any differences in the results?
Are there any differences in terms of how students interpret that question or results?
Use the answers to these questions as a point of discussion, either in pairs or small groups or as an entire class.

31. The Story behind the Numbers: Housework
This graphic shows the division of labor within married couples for housework.
Men are depicted in black; women are depicted in green.
Specifically, it shows the average number of weekly hours men and women spent on housework in 1965, 1975, 1985, 1996, 2004, and 2010.
Time use surveys show that married women reduced their housework approximately by half, while married men doubled theirs.
At one time, married women spent seven times as many hours on housework as married men.
The difference today is less than two to one and shows a significant decrease in the gender gap.
Source: Bianchi et al. (2012).

32. The Story behind the Numbers: Child Care
This graphic shows the division of labor within married couples for child care.
Men are depicted in black; women are depicted in green.
Specifically, it shows the average number of weekly hours men and women spent on child care in 1965, 1975, 1985, 1996, 2004, and 2010.
At one time, mothers once performed four times as much child care as fathers.
Today, mothers only perform twice as much child care as men .
These numbers still show a gender gap, but it has narrowed considerably .
Source: Bianchi et al. (2012).

33. Housework and Child Care: Gender Balance
Time Use Studies
Toward Gender Balance
More equal divisions of labor between married male-female couples are more likely (though still rare) where both partners are employed, where demands on their time are lower (couples with no children, for example), where their earning potential is equal, and where they share a set of beliefs that encourages equality between men and women.

34. Housework and Child Care: Percentage of Relative Earnings of Husbands and Wives
This figure shows the percentage of relative earnings of husbands and wives as of 2012.
Source: Cohen’s figure from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2011).

35. Housework and Child Care: Ratio of Wives’ to Husbands’ Housework Time
This figure shows the ratio of wives’ to husbands’ housework time.
Source: Cohen’s figure from Sayer and Fine (2011).

36. Housework and Child Care: Social Change
Time Use Studies
Toward Gender Balance
Social Change
Although family decisions seem highly individual, they are strongly influenced by the larger social context.
Examining the institutional setting surrounding families is critical.
This setting includes a number of social factors (next four slides).

37. Housework and Child Care: Labor Market
Time Use Studies
Toward Gender Balance
Social Change
A labor market where men usually earn more than women, which encourages couples to decide that wives should stay home with the children
Source: Lincoln (2008).

38. Housework and Child Care: Service Economy
Time Use Studies
Toward Gender Balance
Social Change
A relatively low-wage and low-cost service economy that permits those women who have their own earnings to avoid housework that their husbands are unwilling to do
Source: Gupta (2007).

39. Housework and Child Care: Government Policies
Time Use Studies
Toward Gender Balance
Social Change:
A variety of government policies that affect employment, such as offering paid leave or subsidized child care, which can also affect how couples divide their labor
Source: Fuwa and Cohen (2007).

40. Housework and Child Care: Gender Socialization
Time Use Studies
Toward Gender Balance
Social Change
A pattern of gender socialization that affects how men and women feel about the division of labor within their families, their ambitions, and their ideals for family life
This refers to gender socialization primarily through families, schools, and the media (from Chapter 5).

41. Conflicts and Solutions
Work-Family Conflict
Work-family conflict has become a pervasive and costly experience.

42. Conflicts and Solutions: Work-Family Conflict
The conflict that occurs when the time demands, strains, or obligations of work or family roles make it difficult to fulfill obligations in either role
Work-family conflicts harms employers when employees can’t be productive, and it harms families by increasing their stress and hardship.

43. Conflicts and Solutions: Single Parents
The growing number of single parents experience the most sever work-family conflict. Most, but not all single parents are women, who lead 84% of poor single-parent households.

44. Conflicts and Solutions: Figure 11.9
This figure shows the number of single-parent families who are in poverty and are receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), 1996–2012.
Source: Cohen’s figure from data from the Administration of Children and Families (2014) and the U.S. Census Bureau (2012).

45. Conflicts and Solutions: Motherhood Penalty
Single Parents
The Motherhood Penalty
Another cost of work-family conflict is the motherhood penalty.
This is the loss of earnings women experience after they have children.
Women earn less if they have children (Budig & England, 2001).
Research shows that this is not merely the result of personal choices on the part of a woman who decides to be a mother (Glauber, 2012).
Many mothers lose earnings because of employer discrimination.
Many people believe that mothers will be less devoted to their jobs and should be paid less and even not hired altogether (Correll, Benard, & Paik, 2007).
Similarly, the time a woman spends on her family takes away from her earning potential.
Poor mothers are at a greater disadvantage because they often lack adequate resources for their families (Budig & Hodges, 2010).
Modern mothers thus pay a steep price for having children, while modern fathers (generally) do not.
The roles of worker and mother remain in conflict in modern society.

46. Conflicts and Solutions: Why?
Single Parents
The Motherhood Penalty
What Gives?
Modern work-family conflicts remain a problem.
There are time and money demands of intensive parenting.
There are tensions over the gender division of unpaid labor in the home.
What choices do people have?
Cohen identifies three possible areas for change:
work
families
the balance between work and family
Source: Damaske (2011).

47. Conflicts and Solutions: Work
Single Parents
The Motherhood Penalty
What Gives?
Work
Ongoing debate over who is responsible for creating policies to ease the relationship between work and family demands
Employers or government?
Cohen suggests a number of work-based reforms that would help (see the following three slides):
reduce worker hours
make worker hours more flexible
establish family supports by employers

48. Conflicts and Solutions: Reduce Worker Hours
Single Parents
The Motherhood Penalty
What Gives?
Work
Reduce Worker Hours
But workplace reform is complex, and it has been difficult to effect change in the workplace,

49. Conflicts and Solutions: Flexible Worker Hours
Single Parents
The Motherhood Penalty
What Gives?
Work
Reduce Worker Hours
Make Worker Hours More Flexible
But workplace reform is complex, and it has been difficult to effect change in the workplace.

50. Conflicts and Solutions: Family Supports
Single Parents
The Motherhood Penalty
What Gives?
Work
Reduce Worker Hours
Make Worker Hours More Flexible
Establish Family Supports By Employers
But workplace reform is complex, and it has been difficult to effect change in the workplace.

51. Conflicts and Solutions: Family
Single Parents
The Motherhood Penalty
What Gives?
Work
Family
Another cost of the work-family conflict is the “motherhood Penalty,” the loss or earnings women experience when they have children.
To alleviate work-family conflict, something has to change: work has to change, families have to change, or people have to alter the balance of work and family in their lives.

52. Conflicts and Solutions: Time Spent in Primary Activities
Paid work includes travel time.
Unpaid work includes housework, child care, caring for others, yard work, repairs, shopping, and procuring services.
Personal care includes grooming and other private time (including sex).
The combined total of paid and unpaid work for men and women are very close to equal, with men doing more paid work and women doing more unpaid work.
Additionally, men spend more time on TV, leisure, and sports.
Women sleep more.
Source: Cohen’s figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics data (2011).

53. Conflicts and Solutions: Ideal Working Situations for U.S. Mothers
This figure shows the ideal working situations for U.S. mothers from 1997 through 2007.
Source: Cohen’s figure from Pew Research Center (2007.)

54. Conflicts and Solutions: Government Action
Single Parents
The “Motherhood Penalty”
What Gives?
Government Action
Government policies that can address work-family conflict include incentives for reform that are more universal, and more equalizing, than families or the market can achieve on their own.

55. Conflicts and Solutions: Family Leave
Single Parents
The “Motherhood Penalty”
What Gives?
Government Action
Family Leave
Many parents cannot afford to take unpaid leave. The United States is the only developed country that doesn’t require employers to offer some paid time off after the birth of a child.

56. Conflicts and Solutions: Working Time
Single Parents
The “Motherhood Penalty”
What Gives?
Government Action
Family Leave
Working Time
Most adults, especially mothers, face family-related demands that can disrupt work. A number of countries have reduced their working hours through shortening the work week, increasing the number of part-time workers, or offering more time off from work.

57. Conflicts and Solutions: Average Annual Hours per Worker
This figure shows the average annual hours worked per worker in selected countries in 2012.
The difference in countries reflect different rates of part-time work, differences in the length in the standard workweek, and different levels of time off from work.
Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2012).

58. Conflicts and Solutions: Early Childhood Care
Single Parents
The “Motherhood Penalty”
What Gives?
Government Action
Family Leave
Working Time
Early Childhood Care
Only 28 percent of U.S. 4-year-olds attend public preschools.
The cost of child care and the time required to manage it are a major impediment to parents’ careers in the early years of parenthood.
In most European countries, most children attend a public preschool by age 3.

59. Review Question 1
1. A ______ occurs when the time demands, strains, or obligations of work or family roles make it difficult for people to fulfill their obligations in either role.
gender division of labor
work-family conflict
motherhood penalty
role ambiguity
Answer: B
Discussion: The problem of work-family conflict occurs when the time demands, strains, or obligations of work or family roles make it difficult for people to fulfill their obligations in either role. Many of the work-related problems that families experience today arise from work-family conflict.

60. Review Question 2
2. ______ is a type of work that is performed face-to-face in order to enhance the capabilities of another person.
person work
housework
care work
market work
Answer: C
Discussion: Care work is work that is performed face-to-face with the purpose of enhancing the capabilities of another person. The most common form of care work is child care.

61. 3. What does the term second shift refer to?
Review Question 3
3. What does the term second shift refer to?
the extra paid work men have taken on because of the economic recession
the care and housework women tend to do in addition to paid labor force work
the other shift women work to be employed full-time since most jobs are part-time
when women come home after work
Answer: B
Discussion: The second shift refers to the extra work, household work, and child care that the majority of women do in addition to their first shift of paid work in the labor market.

62. Review Question 4
4. The overall allocation of work between men and women in society is referred to as
the second shift.
the gender division of labor.
occupational gender segregation.
the system of care.
Answer: B
Discussion: The gender division of labor refers to the overall allocation of work between men and women in society, which includes occupational gender segregation as well as the way men and women divide up housework and care work.

63. Review Question 5
5. In regard to time spent on housework, time use surveys have shown that since the 1960s, married women are doing ______ housework, while married men have ______ theirs.
almost twice as much; doubled
about half as much; decreased by half
almost twice as much; decreased by half
about half as much; doubled
Answer: D
Discussion: Time use surveys have shown that since the 1960s, married women have cut their housework time almost in half, while married men have doubled theirs. Overall though, the total amount of housework done by married couples has declined.

64. This concludes the Lecture Slide Set for Chapter 11by
Philip Cohen
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