Labor Force Transitions after Childbirth Among Five Birth Cohorts in Sweden

This article describes part-time work in Sweden and performs a multivariate analysis of the choice between part-time work, full-time work, and other activities in connection with childbirth among five birth cohorts of women. Results show that the combination of market work and family is common, but heterogeneity exists among women in the sample analyzed. Previous labor force participation proves important when it comes to returning to the labor market. The extent of previous labor force participation is also important, regardless of sector of, when it comes to the return to part-time or full-time work. Career orientation and social background also prove significant, some indicators probably working indirectly through higher education and different preferences.     

Institutional and Demographic Explanations of Women's Employment in 18 OECD Countries, 1975–1999

This study combined demographic and institutional explanations of women's employment, describing and explaining the degree to which mothers in industrialized societies are less likely to be employed than women without children. A large number of cross‐sectional surveys were pooled, covering 18 Organisation for Economic Co‐Operation and Development countries, 192,484 observations, and 305 country‐years between 1975 and 1999. These data were merged with measures of institutional context and analyzed with multilevel logistic regression. The results indicate that, over time, women were increasingly likely to combine motherhood and employment in many, but not all, countries. Both mothers and women without children were more likely to be employed in societies with a large service sector and low unemployment. The employment of women without children was generally unaffected by family policies. Mothers were more likely to be employed in societies with extensive reconciliation policies and limited family allowances.     

Social Stratification and the Division of Household Labor in Japan: The Effect of Wives' Work on the Division of Labor among Dual-earner Families

Abstract:  This article explores the relationship between social stratification and the division of household labor by examining how the contribution to housework by husbands in dual-earner families varies across the Japanese social stratification structure. First, I review previous studies concerning the determinants of husbands' participation in housework and construct four hypotheses regarding the relative resources explanation, the time constraints explanation, the ideology/sex role explanation, and the alternative manpower explanation. Second, I examine the empirical support for these hypotheses in dual-earner couples and the effect of social stratification on husband's participation in housework, which has not been studied thus far. Third, I investigate the effect of social stratification in more detail. According to the results of TOBIT regressions and other supplementary analyses, the principal findings are as follows:

• 1) 

  the relative resources explanation is not supported;

       
  
  

Individual and Familial Determinants of Married Arab Israeli Women's Labor Force Participation: Trends of Change and Stability

Although the Arab population in Israel has undergone important economic and social changes in the past decades, the labor force participation of Arab women, particularly married women, has remained limited. This study uses census data to learn about the individual and familial factors associated with the entry into paid work of married Arab women and examines the extent to which these factors have changed over time. A major advantage is that the study distinguishes between the Muslim, Christian, and Druze populations, who markedly differ in their demographic, social, and cultural characteristics. Results from logistic regression models and standardization analyses reveal that the growth in employment experienced by Arab women was associated with the increasing education of both wives and husbands. However, the returns to education significantly decreased over time, particularly among Druze women, suggesting it has become more difficult for highly educated women to find employment. Results further show that the growth in employment experienced by Muslim and Christian women was related both to a decline in fertility and to a decrease in the negative returns to having children. Overall, findings underscore the structural barriers that limit Arab Israeli women's employment opportunities and raise concerns about their future occupational prospects.     

Women's Housework: New Tests of Time and Money

The author uses variation by the day of week—comparing weekdays to weekends—to reconsider three main explanations for variation in women's housework time. The author predicts that though evidence of gender deviance neutralization (GDN) should be evident across the days of the week, evidence of time constraints and absolute earnings should be most apparent on weekdays. The author tests these hypotheses with the largest sample to date (American Time Use Survey 2003–2012) and careful consideration of the functional form between resources/constraints and housework time. The author finds that all three measures of resources/constraints—relative earnings, absolute earnings, and employment hours—perform as poor predictors of women's housework on weekends. Weekends are when women, regardless of employment status, do gender, but not in the way hypothesized by GDN. On weekdays, women's own employment hours and earnings have negative, but diminishing, effects on their housework time. GDN is not supported.     

Motherhood and Employment Among Whites,Hispanics, and Blacks: A Life Course Approach

Research has shown that having children reduces women's employment; yet how this effect differs for racial minorities has received less attention. Using random effects models and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 4,526), this study investigates the association between motherhood and employment among Whites, Hispanics, and Blacks over women's entire reproductive span. Results indicate that having children reduces labor force participation primarily by deterring full‐time employment. This effect is stronger and lasts longer among Whites, smaller and shorter among Hispanics, and brief among Blacks. Motherhood reduces part‐time employment for young mothers, but temporarily increases it for older mothers. Early childbearing partly explains Black and Hispanic women's low employment rates at young ages; interestingly, the evidence indicates that their employment prospects would benefit the most from delaying childbearing. This study highlights the relevance of intersectionality and the life course perspective for investigating inequality in the labor market.     

More Work for Mother: How Spouses, Cohabiting Partners and Relatives Affect the Hours Mothers Work

This paper investigates the determinants of work hours for mothers ofsmall children living in households with one other adult. We hypothesize that the presence and characteristics of the other adult affect a mother's work-related decision-making, and that the nature of the effect varies by the relationship to the otheradult—whether a spouse, an unmarried partner, or a relative. The results indicate that relationship type shapes how mothers' weekly hours of work respond to financial need, childcare pressures, and their own human capital. Married mothers appear to be more able to call on the earnings of their partners to reduce their work hours than mothers in other household situations. There was little evidence that female relatives freed mothers to work.     

National Context,Family Satisfaction,and Fairness in the Division of Household Labor

This study uses data from married women in 30 nations to examine justice processes involving perceptions of fairness of the division of household labor and satisfaction with family life. Relative deprivation theory suggests that national context—operationalized here as nation‐level gender equity—might serve as a comparative referent used by married women when making determinations of the fairness of the division of household labor. Multilevel analyses confirm that the effect of inequalities in the division of household labor on perceptions of fairness is moderated by national context, as is the effect of perceptions of fairness on satisfaction with family life. The effects are strongest in nations with high levels of gender equity, confirming two hypotheses suggested by relative deprivation theory.     

Divison of Labor,Perceived Fairness,and Marital Quality: The Effect of Gender Ideology

This study assesses the relations between division of household labor, perceived fairness, and marital quality by comparing three ethnic‐religious groups in Israel that reflect traditional, transitional, and egalitarian ideologies. The findings, based on structural equation modeling (SEM) methodology, show that sense of fairness mediates the relation between division of labor and marital quality and gender ideology moderates these relations for women but not for men. Perceived fairness is related to the division of labor for women in egalitarian and transitional families but not in traditional ones. For egalitarian women, a more segregated division of labor is linked directly with lower marital quality whereas for women in transitional families it is mediated by sense of fairness. The findings are discussed on two overlapping levels—conceptual‐theoretical and sociocultural—with implications for understanding families in cultural transition.     

The Alliance for Jobs in Germany: The Promise and Failure of Gender Mainstreaming

SUMMARY

The German Alliance for Jobs, Education and Competitiveness, a new policy instrument for reducing unemployment, was introduced by the red-green coalition government in 1998. In 2000, this policy instrument was abandoned, largely because business, labor, and government could not find sufficient common ground to continue working together. I argue that this policy instrument had the potential to affect the female workforce positively but that leaders from all sectors failed to incorporate gender considerations. In my view, the German economy will continue to lag behind its competitors unless it adopts gender mainstreaming, increases opportunities for women, and transforms its economy into a more service-oriented economy.     

Exercise Time: Gender Differences in the Effects of Marriage,Parenthood, and Employment

Using data from a supplement to the 1995 National Health Interview Survey, this article examines the relationship among three major work and family roles—marriage, parenthood, and employment—and time spent on exercise among American men and women ages 18 to 64 (N = 13,496). As the time availability perspective suggests, work and family roles curtail time for exercise. Married adults spend less time on exercising than unmarried adults. Although the number of children is not related to time spent on exercising, having children under age 5 is negatively associated with exercising. Long hours of employment are also related to less time spent on exercising, although the effect is small. Across the board, women spend less time on exercising than men, but the negative association of work and family roles, especially the role of spouse, with time for exercise is greater for men than for women.     

Husbands and Wives in Dual-Earner Marriages: Decision-Making,Gender Role Attitudes,Division of Household Labor,and Equity

Abstract

The clearly defined work and family roles of the traditional American family model-husbands as breadwinners and wives as homemakers-have been replaced by a model where both husbands and wives are employed, creating the need to re-negotiate family roles. The current study examined: (1) differences in perceived decision-making, gender-role attitudes, division of household labor and perceived marital equity in dual-earner husbands and wives (n = 233); and (2) the impact of perceived decision-making, gender-role attitudes, and division of household labor on perceived marital equity. Findings indicated that decision-making, low-control household labor, and high-control household labor differed significantly between husbands and wives. Wives spent more time in household labor and were much more likely to be involved in low-control household tasks. Perceptions of marital equity were influenced by decision-making and time spent in low-control household tasks for both husbands and wives.     

Labor Market Information and Selection in a Local Restaurant Industry: The Tenuous Balance Between Rewards,Commitments, and Costs

The restaurant industry is characterized as having high turnover, skill homogeneity, and distrust of standard sources of labor market information. We examine how in this context employers seek and evaluate information on potential job candidates (extensive search) and the hiring criteria they use to select new employees (intensive search). We find that employers in the restaurant sector are often passive or reactive about recruitment, distrust standard sources of information, and reject the use of educational credentials and work experience as hiring criteria. They do, however, find ways to signal workplace information to potential job candidates, develop schemes to gather reliable information, and closely evaluate job history data when hiring. Some develop signaling strategies to alert potential employees that their stores are sufficiently different from apparently similar stores to make them unusually attractive places to work. To help secure a sufficiently motivated work force, managers eschew standard measures of potential productive capacity or skills and adopt instead indicators of a modicum of employee motivation. Even under conditions of high turnover, skill homogeneity, and distrusted information, employers find ways to secure effort and commitment from potentially recalcitrant employees.     

Emotions and Emotional Labor at Worker‐Owned Businesses: Deep Acting,Surface Acting,and Genuine Emotions

Members of worker cooperatives—organizations collectively owned and democratically run by their workers—report substantial differences in how they can or must perform various emotions, compared with previous work at conventional, hierarchical organizations. First, some emotions not allowed in conventional workplaces are fully permitted at worker cooperatives, including negative emotions, like anger, but also positive emotions, like enthusiasm. In contrast, other emotions must be displayed, even if insincere. Sometimes, these displays are accomplished through surface acting, like pretending to happily accept the slow pace of committee‐led change. Other times, through deep acting, members internalized new emotional reactions, such as pride, instead of resentment, when helping coworkers even after their own shifts had ended.     

Child Care Arrangements,Division of Household Labor and Other Employment Based Familial Predictors of Marital Adjustment Among Husbands of Employed Females in Pakistan

The primary purpose of the current study was to investigate the influence of division of household labor, child care arrangements, wife’s financial contribution, work-schedule of wife, perception of wife employment and wife’s work preference were contributing to marital adjustment of husbands of working married women. Additionally, it explored the role of wife’s financial contribution, perception of wife’s employment and wife’s work preference in formation of marital adjustment among husbands of working women. The data were collected through a self-structured questionnaire from 283 husbands of employed married women with one year of marital duration and at least one child. The data were collected from the city of Gujrat, province of Punjab, Pakistan. Factor analysis was run for reliability and validity analysis was executed to examine the validity of the existing scales used in the current study. Multiple linear regression analysis was used for model fit. Division of household labor, child care arrangements, wife’s financial contributions, wife’s work-schedule, the perception of wife’s employment, and wife’s work preferences contributed to the marital adjustment of husbands of working married women. Our results seemed to reflect fluctuating dimensions of gender role ideologies among families. Incorporating new predictors of marital adjustment into literature of marriage and family has been a sociological significance of the current study.     

Economic Dependence,Gender, and the Division of Labor in the Home: A Replication and Extension

The fundamental question in the study of the gendered division of household labor has come to be why, in the face of dramatic changes in women's employment and earnings, housework remains “women's work.” As a possible answer to this question, Brines (1994) presented a provocative conceptual model of the relationship between economic dependence and the performance of housework by wives and husbands. She concluded that the link between economic dependence and housework follows rules of economic exchange for wives, but among husbands, a gender display model is operative. This paper replicates and extends Brines' model by (a) replicating her work using a different data set; (b) adding additional controls to the model, including a measure of gender ideology; and (c) modeling a distributional (as opposed to absolute) measure of housework. For a measure of hours spent doing housework, the results of my analyses are consistent with Brines' suggestion of separate gender‐specific processes linking economic dependence and amount of housework performed. For a distributional measure of housework, on the other hand, my analyses contradict Brines' findings and suggest that both husbands and wives are acting to neutralize a nonnormative provider role when they do housework. Further analyses suggest that the phenomenon is more likely one of deviance neutralization than of gender display.     

Variations on two themes in Durkheim'sDivision du travail: Power,solidarity, and meaning in Division of Labor

This paper explores two themes that had a significant place in Durkheim's Division of Labor:the idea that people's needs and wants vary across epoches and cultures, and the conception of societies as systems. The first leads to a rejection of efficiency as the primary driving force behind advances in the division of labor. Considering power in addition to efficiency, but also the complex conditions of trust and meaning, leads into questions of interdependence and systems analysis.