Gender

1
Gender Family
2
Some Biological Differences Similarities

• Both are social
• Boys in larger groups
• Girls
• Greater verbal ability
• Boys
• Greater visual-spatial ability
• More aggressive

3
Sex Gender

• Sex biological fact
• Gender cultural social-psychological fact
• Culture Society assign gender-specific
  psychological personality traits
• We learn to be male female in distinctive ways
  (socialization)

4
Stereotyping

• Men active, intelligent, rational
• Women passive, nurturing, emotional
• Culture Lag
• William Ogburn

5
Consequences

• Legal Assumptions of Male Support
• Feminization of Poverty
• Pct. of Children below poverty line
• 14.2 white
• 33.3 African-American
• 28.6 Hispanic
• 53.3 of all households below poverty line are
  female-headed
• 34 absent fathers pay no child support

6
Consequences

• Gender and Work (Pink Collar Ghetto)
• 74 of K-12 teachers
• 96 of clerical workers
• 84 of personal service providers
• 77 cents to the dollar, F/M pay ratio

7
Consequences

• Under-represented in higher paying jobs
• 11 of engineers
• 31 of physicians
• 34 of lawyers/judges

8
Why Work, Then?

• Need for two paychecks
• Lower fertility rates
• Greater opportunities
• Changing Cultural Norms

9
Gender Roles in Transition

• The New Woman
• Aspirations
• Career Motherhood
• Superwomen
• Role strain
• Poor Fit Between Family Professional Lives
• Loss of seniority

10
Gender Roles in Transition

• No flex time
• Maternity and paternity leave
• Private, for-profit day care
• Cost
• Quality

11
Gender Roles in Transition

• Men
• Breadwinner trap
• Over-identification with economic position
• Emotional under-development

12
Two Views on Gender Family

• Conflict Theory
• Division of Sexual Labor
• Sexual exploitation
• Family superstructure
• Reproduce
• Legitimate
• Half-selves
• Men control emotions (work)

13
Two Views on Gender Family

• Women Career aspirations interfere with
  primary purpose
• Functionalists
• Gender roles are efficient
• Make the most of economic opportunities
• As the economy has changed, gender roles have
  adapted

14
Impact of Modernity on Family

• That institution in society that arranges for
• Regulation of sexual relations
• Who may have sex with whom?
• Child-Rearing
• Who takes care of the children?
• Household Composition
• Who lives with whom?

15
Family (contd)

• Regulation of sexual relations
• Incest
• Unites previously non-united families
• Network of social ties
• Child-Rearing
• Legitimacy
• Lineality
• the path along which a persons blood property
  lines are traced

16
Family (contd)

• Establishes clarifies a persons social
  identity
• Grounded in and linked to the social world

17
Family (contd)

• Household Composition (Forms of Family)
• Shaped by norms guiding mate selection
• Monogamy
• Polygamy (more than one wife)
• Polyandry (more than one husband)

18
Family (contd)

• Exogamy
• Rules for marrying outside a certain group
• Endogamy
• Rules for marrying inside a certain group
• Homogamy
• Tendency for people from similar backgrounds to
  mate
• Love
• But in cultural, societal, historical context

19
Family (contd)

• Changes in household composition
• Smaller
• Single parent households
• Declining fertility
• Female Labor Force Participation
• 60-70 of moms with school-aged kids
• Necessity
• Opportunity (smaller families)
• Happier marriages, if wife wants to work

20
Family (contd)

• Changes in household composition
• Child care
• Cost
• Quality
• Socialization
• 60-65 of pre-schoolers in school
• Start earlier, stay longer
• TV pre-schoolers, 33 hrs. per week

21
Family (contd)

• New Status of the Child
• Fewer kids
• Expensive
• Smaller families, working parents
• More attention resources

22
Family Divorce

• Divorce
• Rate No. of divorces/100 married persons

23
Crude Divorce Rate Crude Divorce Rate
1920 13.4
1930 17
1940 16.9
1950 23.1
1960 25.8
1970 32.8
1980 49.7
1990 51.4
24
Family Divorce Rate

• The Good News
• How the 50 rate is calculated
• Annual marriage rate per 1,000/Annual divorce
  rate per 1,000
• 2003
• 7.5 marriages per 1,000
• 3.8 divorces per 1,000 (NCHS, 2005)

25
Family Divorce Rate

• Better method of calculation
• How many people who have ever married
  subsequently divorced?
• Highest rate ca. 41
• The even-better news
• Divorce rates lowest for college graduates
• 1/3 to ¼ the rate of non-graduates

26
Family Factors affecting divorce rates

• Age
• Nearly ½ under age 18
• 40 under age 20
• 24 over age 25
• Religion
• Born-again Christians same as general population
  (ca. 1/3)
• (90 of those after conversion)

27
Family Factors Affecting Divorce Rate

• Catholics lowest divorce rate
• Baptists highest divorce rate
• More likely to divorce than atheists or agnostics
• Cited in a posting from Smart Marriages Listserv
  on Jan. 25, 2002
• Alabama ¼ of population are Southern Baptists,
  majority of pop. are Evangelicals
• 4th highest divorce rate in US (NV, TN, AR)
  (Barna Research Poll, 2001)

28
Family Factors Affecting Divorce Rate

• Region
• Highest rates
• South Midwest
• Red states higher than blue states
• from Smart Marriages Listserv , Jan. 4, 2005
• Cohabitation
• Couples cohabiting before marriage
• 40-85 higher risk of divorce than couples not
  cohabiting before marriage

29
Family Factors Affecting Divorce Rate

• Factors decreasing risk of divorce

30
Factors Risk Decrease
Ann. Income over 50k (v. under 25K) -30
Baby 7 months or more after marriage (v. before) -24
Marrying over 25 years of age (v. under 18) -24
Intact family of origin -14
Some College (v. h.s. dropout) -13
31
Family Divorce Why?

• Why increase in divorce?
• Emotional satisfaction gt economic security
• Reduction in necessity and benefits of marriage
• Increased female opportunities
• women in labor force
• reduction of stigma -- no-fault divorce

32
Family Divorce Why?

• Cultural Change
• Baby Boom
• 1960s 1970s

33
Family Marriage an Assessment

• Remarriage rate has kept up with divorce rate
• rejection of partners, not institution
• married still happier than single
• Women still do the bulk of the work around the
  home
• still face conflicts between individual
  fulfillment and family roles

34
Family Marriage an Assessment

• Alternative Family Forms
• Living together has increased gt six-fold
• Often short term
• Higher divorce rate
• Staying single
• 2000 27.2 million people, 26 of all households
  (in 1950, 9.3)
• Vs. 22 married couples their kids
• 21 married couples living alone

35
Family Marriage an Assessment

• Later marriages

Median Age at First Marriage Median Age at First Marriage Median Age at First Marriage
Male Female
1890 26.1 22
1920 24.6 21.2
1950 22.8 20.8
1980 24.7 22
2003 27.1 25.3
36
Family Marriage an Assessment

• Children in single-parent households by race/
  ethnicity, 2006
• (American Community Survey Annie E. Casey
  Foundation, 2006)

White 23
Black 65
AmerInd 49
Asian 17
Hispanic 36
37
Family Marriage an Assessment

• Single Parent Households
• 2000 ca. 13.5 million single parents had custody
  of 21.7 million children under 21 years of age
• of population made up by married couples with
  children decreased from 40 in 1970 to 24 in
  2000

38
Family Marriage an Assessment

• Single parent households increased from 9 in
  1990 to 16 of all households by 2000.
• Of all custodial parents, 85 were mothers

39
Household Composition Summarized

• Urbanization Industrialization
• Reduced fertility
• Smaller families
• Culture
• Higher Divorce Rates
• More household forms
• Single

40
Household Composition, Lineality Locality

• Single Parent
• Two parents, etc.
• Unusual Society
• Patterns of lineality locality
• Patrilineal
• Trace blood property lines along fathers side
• Matrilineal
• Trace blood property lines along mothers side

41
HHC, Lineality Locality

• Matrilocal
• Children live with mother
• Patrilocal
• Children live with father
• Locality lineality have separated
• Divorce
• goes with dad
• Kids go with mom

42
Family Functional Changes the State

• Matrilocal Patrilineal Society
• ? Bureaucratization of the family
• To meet child rearing function of family
• due to household composition changes
• State has stepped in
• Welfare
• AFDC (until 1997)
• TANF (since July 1, 1997)