Marriage, Work, and Economics

1
Chapter 12

• Marriage, Work,and Economics

2
Chapter Outline

• Workplace/family Linkages
• The Familial Division of Labor Women in the
  Labor Force
• Dual-earner Marriages
• Atypical Dual-earners Shift Couples and Peer
  Marriages

3
Chapter Outline

• Employment and the Family Life Cycle
• Family Issues in the Workplace
• Living Without Work Unemployment and Families
• Poverty
• Workplace and Family Policy

4
Families and Work

• Families may be examined as economic units bound
  by emotional ties.
• Families are involved in two types of work
• paid work at the workplace
• family work- unpaid work in the household

5
Employment and Family Life

• Work spillover is the effect employment has on
  the time, energy, and psychological functioning
  of workers and their families at home.
• Role strain refers to difficulties individuals
  have in carrying out multiple responsibilities
  attached to a role.
• Role overload occurs when the activities for one
  or more roles are greater than an individual can
  handle.

6
Sociologist Ann Oakley The Homemaker Role

• Four primary aspects
• Exclusive allocation to women, rather than to
  adults of both sexes.
• Association with economic dependence.
• Status as nonwork, which is distinct from real,
  economically productive paid employment.
• Primacy to womenthat is, having priority over
  other womens roles.

7
Characteristics Of Housework

• It isolates the person at home.
• It is unstructured, monotonous, and repetitive.
• It is often a restricted, full-time role.
• It is autonomous.
• It is never done.
• It may involve child rearing.
• It often involves role strain.
• It is unpaid.

8
Womens Decision to Enter the Labor Force

• Financial factors To what extent is income
  significant?
• For unmarried women and single mothers,
  employment may be their only source of income.
• Social norms
• How accepting is the social environment for
  married women and mothers?

9
Womens Decision to Enter the Labor Force

• Self-fulfillment
• Does a job meet needs for autonomy, personal
  growth, and recognition?
• Attitudes about employment and family
• Does the woman believe she can meet the demands
  of her family responsibilities and her job?

10
Findings From a Study of Two Parent Families

• Mothers spend from 3 to 5 hours of active
  involvement for every hour fathers spend.
• Mothers involvement is oriented toward practical
  daily activities, such as feeding, bathing, and
  dressing.
• Fathers time is generally spent in play.

11
Findings From a Study of Two Parent Families

• Mothers are almost entirely responsible for child
  care planning, organizing, scheduling,
  supervising, and delegating.
• Women are the primary caretakers men are the
  secondary.

12
Contemporary Arrangements

1. Shift households - where spouses work opposite
   shifts and alternate domestic and caregiver
   responsibilities.
2. Households in which men stay home with children
   while women support the family financially.

13
Three Basic Work/family Life Cycle Models

1. Traditional- simultaneous work/family life cycle
2. Sequential work/family role staging
3. Symmetrical work/family role allocation

14
Traditional-simultaneous Work/family Life Cycle
Model

• Stages
• Establishment/novitiate
• New parents/early career
• School-age family/middle career
• Post parental family/ late career
• Aging family/post exit

15
Economic Distress

• Aspects of a familys economic life that may
  cause stress unemployment, poverty, and economic
  strain.
• Unemployment causes family roles to change.
• Unemployment most often affects female-headed
  single-parent families, African-American and
  Latino families, and young families.

16
Children Under 18, Below Poverty Level, 1994
17
Coping Resources Families in Economic Distress

• Individual family members positive psychological
  characteristics
• Adaptive family system
• Flexible family roles

18
Recipients of AFDCand TANF 19752002
Total recipients (thousands) of U.S. pop. Families receiving assistance
1975 11,165 5.2 3,498
1980 10,597 4.7 3,642
1985 10,812 4.5 3,692
1990 11,460 4.6 3,974
19
Recipients of AFDCand TANF 19752002
Total recipients (thousands) of U.S. pop. Families receiving assistance
1995 13,652 5.2 4,876
2000 (TANF) 5,778 2.5 2,215
2002 5,066 NA 2,047
20
Poverty

• Almost 14 of the population of the United States
  lives in poverty.
• Poverty generally occurs due to
• Divorce
• Birth of a child to an unmarried mother
• Unemployment
• Illness, disability, or death of the head of the
  household