Reading Guide Chapters 6 7 8 9 Chapter 6 Trends in women s employment and labor force participation and reasons Trends women make up 47 of the workforce Women s participation steady Men s declining women of childbearing age have high rates of labor force participation African American women have the highest rates in the workforce Reasons changes in the US economy the demand for workers in service producing industries such as government education real estate health care and clerical work has been met by women families have become dependent on women s income economic needs of families themselves have pushed many women into paid work women finding fulfillment in working many women want to do paid work They want to be rewarded for their work Work outside the home gives them pride worth and identity and it allows for some economic independence from men some women decide to work in sometimes difficult circumstances because it protects their earnings potential and promotes their long term economic security Trends in the employment and labor force participation of men and reasons Trends the revolution in paid employment for women coincides with declining employment for men declines were steeper with African American men than for white men Among white men the declines were importantly due to lower age of retirement whereas among minorities the discouraged worker effect on prime working age males played a greater role Reasons structural unemployment advances in technology and the shift from manufacturing to services and information have had serious consequences in industrial work men working in heavy industries are finding their skills unneeded redistribution of jobs and low income generating capacity of jobs as manufacturing jobs become scarce young men have increasingly turned to lower paying but rapidly expanding service sector men s employment in other service occupations security guards orderlies waiters day care workers and janitors has increased these service sector jobs available to men without college degrees generally pay low wages offer few benefits and produce limited opportunities for career advancements macro level economic conditions have eroded men s ability to be the sole bread winner in the family Trends in teen employment teen labor force participation has declined since the late 1970 s Work activity is much harder to measure accurately in freelance jobs than in formal employment because child labor laws restrict the age hours work activities and working conditions for children the employment of youth in illegal employment situations is underreported teens enrolled in school are less likely to be employed than those who are not in school As rates of high school graduation and college attendance rise teen employment can be expected to fall conventional ideas about the benefits of employment suggests that jobs provide opportunities to learn life skills and enhance autonomy On the other hand employment may interfere with schoolwork and undermine parental authority as working teens become more economically self sufficient Work family interference The term work family interference refers to the ways in which the connections between jobs and family life may be a source of tension for workers and family members Spillover positive and negative one of the ways that the work family relationship is expressed is through spillover the transfer of moods feelings and behaviors between work and family settings spillover can be positive or negative researchers are finding that work to family spillover is more negative and more common than family to work spillover spillover appears to be a gendered phenomenon with men s work stress more likely to affect their family life and women s family stress more likely to affect their work life Work family role system Joseph Pleck has termed women s and men s uneven relationship to work and family the Work family role system this system represents a partial revision of the separate spheres model for gender roles discussed in chapter 3 but still reinforces the traditional division of labor in both work and family this system also ensures that wives employment does not affect their core responsibilities for housework and child care Employed wives usually have two jobs while employed husbands only have one the work family role system perpetuates women s inequality in the workforce Work hours total demand vs 40 hour week for individuals A standard 40 hour work week is not generally thought to be an excessive work requirement but a dual earner couple with two 40 hour a week jobs and two children may experience the total demand on the family to be overwhelming over the past 30 years the most significant change in the relationship between work and family in the US society is not increased hours on a particular job but married women s increased employment Research on parental time with their children 1975 2000 Overall parents have shifted the allocation of their non working hours in ways that maximize time with their children Parents are spending more time playing with and reading or talking to their children than was the case 25 years earlier parents increasingly include children in their leisure tim activities This suggests either that leisure time is becoming more family oriented or that parents are more likely to include their children in their own leisure activities parents have managed to carve out more time for their children despite women s increased labor force participation by spending more hours in multitasking that is engaging in multiple activities simultaneously Hochchild s research Second shift and hours second shift women s disproportional time in housework child care and home management has produced what Arlie Hochschild calls the second shift for employed wives she discovered that most women work one shift in their workplace and a second shift at home Houchschild found that wives devoted more time to housework than did husbands and more time to all forms of family work than did husbands that performing the second shift left wives much more deeply torn than were their husbands about the burdens of paid work and family work Interaction work emotion work consumption work kin work Interaction work A wide variety of activities that go into creating and sustaining family life have previously gone unrecognized not only as work but as effort of any sort Women do interaction work to sustain communication with their mates emotional work women