MARRIAGE, WORK, AND ECONOMICS

1
MARRIAGE, WORK, AND ECONOMICS

• Chapter 11

2
Chapter Outline

• Workplace and Family Linkages
• Division of Labor in the Family
• Women in the Labor Force
• Dual-Earner and Dual-Career Families
• Atypical Dual-Earners Shift Couples and Peer
  Marriages
• At-Home Fathers and Breadwinning Mothers
• Family Issues in the Workplace
• Living without Work Unemployment and Families
• Reducing Work-Family Conflict

3
Work and Family

• The majority (88) of married fathers and almost
  half (43) of married mothers worked full time
  (at least 35 hrs) from 2003-2008.
• Most of these men and women were also parents.
• However, men and women in the workforce are
  affected differently by the presence and number
  of children.
• Women tend to decrease workforce participation
  with each additional child. Men's participation
  is only slightly affected.

4
Time as a Limited Resource

• The United States has the longest workweek and
  the highest percentage of men and women who work
  over 50 hours per week.
• This directly affects the amount of time one has
  to spend with his/her family.

5
Time as a Limited Resource

• Conversely, not all American workers experience
  being overworked.
• Some workers report being underworked or
  unemployed.
• This results in a bifurcation of working time
  where some workers work longer days and weeks and
  others work fewer hours than they need or want.
• Working few or no hours can also greatly affect
  family life.

6
Time Strains

• Workers are reported to feel time strains wherein
  they do not feel that they have or spend enough
  time in certain roles or relationships.
• These time strains tend to be experienced
  differently by men and women.

7
Work and Family Spillover

• Work Spillover
• Work has an affect on families. It absorbs time
  and energy and impacts psychological states.
• This negative spillover is more often reported by
  employed parents and women in particular.
• Family Spillover
• The emotional climate of our homes can affect
  morale and performance in the workplace (both
  positively and negatively).

8
Role Conflict, Role Strain, and Role Overload

• Role Conflict
• Occurs when the statuses and positions we occupy
  contain competing, contradictory, or simultaneous
  role expectations.
• Role Strain
• Occurs when the demands attached to a particular
  status are contradictory or incompatible.
• Role Overload
• Occurs when the all of the roles we occupy
  require more than we can give and we are drowning
  in what is expected of us.

9
Crossover

• Crossover
• Occurs when the emotional state of a worker
  becomes that of their spouse/partner.
• These can be positive or negative emotions (i.e.
  stress vs. excitement).
• Direct Empathy of one partner by the other
• Indirect Conflict caused by spillover

10
Division of Labor in the Family

• All families, regardless of form, require
  dividing the familys labor among the members.
• Labor is divided in consideration of age and
  gender and can greatly affect family functioning.

11
The Traditional Model

• Spouses perform complimentary roles
• Man as the breadwinner
• Woman as the caregiver in the home
• As of 2008, 19.5 of all married-couple families
  were traditional families.
• The presence of this family form may not be a
  direct reflection of their gender ideologies
  beliefs about what men and women ought to do it
  may simply be the form that works for that
  family.

12
The Traditional Model

• Mens Traditional Work
• Good provider equated to a good husband
• Main source of identity
• Perform household maintenance (repairs, mowing
  the lawn, etc.)
• Any other household labor is considered helping
  their partner
• If both spouses hold the traditional gender
  ideology (traditional beliefs about what men and
  women should do), then this division of work is
  non-problematic and functional.

13
The Traditional Model

• Womens Traditional Work
• Expected to perform all household tasks and
  childcare, even if she is employed outside of the
  home
• Oakleys primary aspects of the homemaker role
• Delegated exclusively to women
• Economically dependent
• Distinct from real (paid) work
• Most important female role

14
Women in the Labor Force

• Women have always worked outside the home
• Early American families were coprovider families
  economic partnerships dependent on both the
  husband and the wife.
• Women may have not had equal economic rights, but
  they were equally valued as productive family
  members.
• As work moved to the factory, men took up paid
  labor and women stayed in the home to care for
  children and maintain family life.

15
Women in the Labor Force

• Single women and mothers in low- and
  working-class families have always been employed.
• In July of 2009, 61 of American women were
  employed compared to 72 if men.
• The major shift in womens employment came after
  1960 resulting in a family model where both men
  and women are working full-time.

16
Reasons for Womens Increased Employment

• More single mothers resulting from increased
  divorces and births to unmarried women
• Increases in womens educational attainment
• Equal opportunity emphasis on womens employment
• Better job opportunities for women
• Decline in mens wages and the ability to provide
  with one income

17
Individual Motivations

• Economic Need
• Single mothers must provide for their families.
• Two incomes are required to maintain a desirable
  standard of living.
• Increased self-esteem and self-control
• Women may find social support, recognition, and
  appreciation at work that they do not find at
  home.
• When asked, more women would prefer to work
  outside the home than within it but not by much
  (50 v. 45).

18
Womens Employment Patterns

• Womens employment has generally followed
  marriage and childbearing patterns (i.e. cut back
  on work to have children).
• Women no longer automatically leave work when
  they become mothers.
• However, when family demands increase, women are
  more likely than men to cut back on hours to meet
  those demands.

19
Dual-Earner and Dual-Career Families

• Dual-earner families are a result of changes in
  the economy which requires two incomes in order
  to maintain a decent standard of living.
• Dual-career families are distinguished by both
  partners desiring high-achievement, gender
  equality, and performing up to their abilities,
  rather then just providing two incomes.
• It is often difficult for both partners to
  achieve their goals and one usually has to be
  sacrificed for the other.

20
Dual-Career Families

• Housework
• Women tend to do more housework than men (2.5 hrs
  for married women vs. 1.5 hrs for married men)
  regardless if they are employed in the labor
  force.
• Cohabiting couples tend to have a more equal
  division of labor than married couples.
• It appears that marriage, rather than living with
  a man, turns a woman into a homemaker.

21
Dual-Career Families

• Men and Housework
• Men do more housework and childcare than in the
  past, but their rates are still lower than that
  of women.
• They tend to do more work if their wives earn
  more money and have a higher education.

22
Emotion Work in Families

• Emotion work includes tasks that generate and
  maintain successful relationships and families.
• These include
• Discussing intimate feelings
• Bringing partner our of bad mood
• Praising partner
• Suggesting solutions to relationship problems
• Discussing relationship problems
• Initiate talking things over
• Monitor partner to address disturbances

23
Child Care

• Women are responsible for the majority of
  childcare.
• Engagement
• Time spent in direct interaction with children
• Accessibility
• Parent is available (same location) to the child
  but not in direct interaction
• Fathers engagement and accessibility has
  increased but is still less that that of
  mothers.

24
Child Care

• Active Child Care
• Mothers tend to be more active parents than
  fathers.
• Fathers tend to be more involved with sons rather
  than daughters, younger rather than older
  children, and first-borns rather than
  later-borns.
• Mental Child Care
• Mental labor the process of worrying, seeking
  and processing information, and managing the
  division of care in the household.

25
How Division of Labor Affects Adults

• Marital Power (decision-making power)
• Employed wives exert more power than non-employed
  wives.
• Satisfaction, Sex, and Stability
• Women tend to be more satisfied with their
  marriages and desire sex more often if their
  husbands do more household labor.
• The risk of divorce is also lower for these
  couples.

26
How dual-earner couples divided housework and
child care is associated with their levels of
marital conflict, marital satisfaction, and
physical intimacy and their risk of divorce.
27
Atypical Dual-Earner Families Shift Couples

• In 2004, 18 of all workers worked a shift other
  than the normal 8-hour day shift.
• 3 Macro-level Changes
• Changes in the economy
• Increase in service sector jobs
• Changes in demographics
• Increased age at first marriage increase of
  dual-earner couples who demand entertainment on
  nights and weekends aging population which
  requires medical care 24 hours a day
• Changes in technology
• Round-the-clock offices are becoming the norm

28
Shift Couples

• Shift couples are couples who structure their
  lives and work into a turn-taking, alternating
  system of paid work and family work.
• Shift couples have reported lower marital
  satisfaction, more distress, and increased rate
  of divorce.
• Conversely, they save money on childcare, a
  parent is always with the children, and there is
  increased opportunity for higher wages.

29
Peer and Postgender Marriages

• An equal marriage does not mean an equitable
  marriage
• Fairness of household chores is negotiated by the
  partners
• Peer Marriages (also referred to as postgender
  marriages)
• Take concerns of fairness into account when they
  structure each aspect of their relationship
• These couples may avoid the trappings of
  traditional marriages.

30
At-Home Fathers and Breadwinning Mothers

• These relationships seem to be a role reversal,
  where men and women simply switch traditional
  gender roles, but this does not seem to be the
  case.
• Men seem to stay home due to disability,
  unemployment, retirement, or school and not due
  to wanting to care for the home (as we might
  expect with traditional gender roles).

31
At-Home Fathers and Breadwinning Mothers

• Economic Impact
• These couples may earn less money, but spend less
  on child care.
• Social Impact
• At-homes fathers may become a curiosity and
  become visible in their domestic role compared to
  invisible traditional housewives.
• Marital Impact
• Men dont take over housework to the extent that
  women do, but they are likely to share or do most
  of the domestic work.
• High levels of empathy, communication, and
  appreciation have been found.

32
At-Home Fathers and Breadwinning Mothers

• Parental Impact
• Fathers develop much closer relationship with
  their children than they most likely otherwise
  would have.
• Personal Impact
• This often results in a shuffling of priorities
  and the construction of a new social identity for
  both men and women.

33
Family Issues in the Workplace

• Economic Discrimination
• Women earn, on average, 80 of what men earn.
• This is largely due to occupational differences
  wherein male-dominated jobs tend to pay more.
• Sexual Harassment
• Abuse of power unwanted sexual advances and any
  verbal or physical sexual conduct as a condition
  of employment
• Hostile environment acting in sexual ways to
  interfere with a persons performance by creating
  a hostile or offensive environment

34
Family Issues in the Workplace

• Childcare
• Finding reliable, safe, and affordable childcare
  can become a huge frustration.
• This can be in-home, in centers, with relatives,
  or in nursery schools.
• Childcare for older children is also necessary.
  This primarily comes in the form of school and
  after-school programs.
• However, these programs are often not consistent
  and many children end up in self-care, where they
  care for themselves without the supervision of an
  adult or older adolescent.

35
Family Issues in the Workplace

• Inflexible Work Environments
• Many US employers still run their businesses as
  if every worker were male with a stay-at-home
  wife or are wealthy enough to afford domestic
  help.
• They seem to ignore the large numbers of women in
  the workforce.
• Companies could provide on-site childcare,
  flexible sick policies, and paid maternal and
  paternal leave to help families cope with
  childcare responsibilities.

36
Living without Work Unemployment and Families

• Unemployment creates a great deal of stress for
  individuals and families. Even employed workers
  may suffer stress due to the threat of job loss.
• This can result in economic distress which
  includes unemployment, poverty, and economic
  strain (i.e. financial insecurity).
• Unemployment can lead to marital dissatisfaction,
  psychological instability, and marital strain as
  the family copes with the stress and adapts their
  roles.

37
Unemployment

• Men are especially affected by unemployment due
  to their identity being so closely tied to that
  of provider.
• When men are unemployed, they are at an increased
  risk of emotional withdrawal, spousal abuse,
  marital distress, and alcohol abuse.

38
Reducing Work-Family Conflict

• Family Policy is a set of objectives concerning
  family well-being and government measures aimed
  at achieving those objectives.
• Policies to make work more flexible
• Options for flextime, or flexible work schedules,
  would allow individuals to adjust their work to
  their life.
• Policies to help provide parents with childcare
• Family leave policies
• Policies to ensure families receive an adequate
  wage and to protect them from discrimination

39
Reducing Work-Family Conflict

• Families are not only emotional relationship,
  they are work relationships.
• Families must negotiate their division of labor
  within the home regarding cooking, cleaning,
  childcare, planning a budget, and mowing the
  lawn. These tasks are fundamental to maintaining
  good family functioning.
• Families must also determine how they will earn
  an income. We spend 20 80 hours a week at our
  jobs, and negotiating time successfully will
  reduce works conflict with home.