Housework, market work, and “doing gender” when marital satisfaction declines

When faced with a decline in marital satisfaction, are wives constrained from increasing their labor market work time in part because they “do gender?” One of the predictions of the human capital accumulation hypothesis, which assumes no constraints, is that housewives with little work experience will respond to a decline in marital satisfaction by increasing labor market work time (only). In contrast, the gender display hypothesis predicts that, in settings where the evaluations of marriage and wives’ work performance are closely intertwined, a decline in marital satisfaction among this group of housewives will increase both labor market work and housework—and the increase in housework serves as a constraint on the increase in labor market work. To evaluate these contrasting hypotheses, we analyze a panel survey of women in contemporary Japan. Results from multinomial logit regression models are more consistent with the gender display hypothesis than the human capital accumulation hypothesis. Housewives with relatively little work experience are 11 times more likely to increase the time spent on both labor market work and housework when the satisfaction of their marriage declines than when it does not. No evidence is found that, when marital satisfaction declines, these housewives are statistically significantly more likely to increase labor market work only.     

Insecure times? Workers' perceived job and labor market security in 23 OECD countries

By examining the association between employees' perceptions of job security and central labor market policies and characteristics, this paper seeks to understand the mechanisms through which institutions generate confidence and positive expectations among individuals regarding their economic future. The analyses distinguish between different facets of perceived job security and different institutional mechanisms. My multilevel analyses of a data set that contains information on 12,431 individuals and 23 countries show that some labor market policies and characteristics are more likely than others to provide workers with subjective security. Unemployment assistance in particular is an effective means of reducing workers' worries about job loss. Dismissal protection, by contrast, only unleashes its psychologically protective effects under certain conditions. The paper's main conclusion is that the effectiveness of policies varies and that different types of labor market institutions serve as complements rather than as substitutes.     

Competing for jobs: Labor queues and gender sorting in the hiring process

While much research has documented the pattern and extent of sex segregation of workers once they are employed, few studies have addressed the pre-hire mechanisms that are posited to produce sex segregation in employment. While the notion of a labor queue—the rank order of the set of people that employers choose among—plays a prominent role in pre-hire accounts of job sex sorting mechanisms, few studies have examined the ways in which job candidates are sorted into labor queues. In this paper, we explore the mechanisms by which labor queues contribute to the gendering of jobs by studying the hiring process for all jobs at a call center. Being placed in a queue has a clear gendering effect on the hiring process: the sex distribution of applicants who are matched to queues and those who are rejected at this phase diverge, and among those assigned to queues, women are prevalent in queues for low pay, low status jobs. The screening process also contributes to the gendering of the population of hires at this firm. Females are more prevalent among hires than they are among candidates at initial queue assignment. Among high status jobs, however, males are more prevalent than females. Moreover, there are important wage implications associated with matching to queues. While there are large between-queue sex differences in the paid wages associated with allocation to queues, once allocated to queues the wage differences between male and female candidates are nil. Consequently, the roots of gender wage inequality in this setting lie in the initial sorting of candidates to labor queues.     

Are there sex differences in the utilization of educational capital among college-educated workers?

This paper introduces the concept of educational utilization as an overlooked part of the education-to-work transition and a potential mechanism by which occupational sex segregation is generated among the college-educated labor force. The paper begins with a critical discussion of the operationalization approaches that have been used in prior research that implicitly measures educational utilization. Multiple empirical measure of the concept are then developed using data from the O*NET and the National Surveys of College Graduates. The explanatory power of each measure is assessed using conditional logit models of occupational attainment. A combined measure is then used to assess sex differences in educational utilization using data from the 1993 and 2003 National Surveys of College Graduates for 2 cohorts of college graduates—those who earned their baccalaureate or post-baccalaureate degrees and entered the labor market in the years 1985–1993 and 1995–2003. The analysis identifies sex differences in educational utilization that vary across field, degree level and cohort and concludes with an examination of the implications of sex differences in educational utilization for occupational segregation.     

Inequality in the family: The institutional aspects of women’s earning contribution

This paper examines the effect of employment-supportive policies and arrangements on women’s economic contribution to their family. Using samples of working-age couples in 21 countries we employ multilevel modeling to separate the effects of household and country-level variables on earnings. We distinguish two types of relevant contextual factors: those that support women’s employment while preserving their domestic roles and those that potentially reduce intra-family economic inequalities by allowing women to allocate more of their time to paid employment. The findings suggest that all employment-supportive policies and arrangements increase women’s relative contribution to the household income through their effect on female labor force participation. Among dual-earner families, however, higher rates of childcare facilities increase women’s contribution, while long maternity leave and part-time employment decrease it. These tendencies are more pronounced among mothers.     

Measuring short-term labor force mobility with the Labor Utilization Framework

Continuing employment growth and declining unemployment rates in the U.S. labor force since 1982 have raised new questions about employment quality and shifts between adequate and marginal employment. In this paper, we use an individual-matched file from the 1986 and 1987 March annual demographic supplements of the Current Population Survey to examine 1-year transitions between labor force states measured with the Labor Utilization Framework (LUF). Short-term shifts between nonparticipation, unemployment, underemployment, and adequate employment—as conceived in the LUF—are characterized here for the first time. Our results suggest that the majority of recent job takers found adequate employment, but that new labor force entrants and the previously unemployed nevertheless experienced rates of involuntary part-time and low-wage employment exceeding rates for the labor force as a whole. Association models reveal wideranging differences in patterns of mobility and immobility across labor force positions. We find that upward transitions are largely counterbalanced by downward transitions, essentially yielding a one-to-one exchange of workers between specific pairs of labor force states. The analysis also indicates similarity across sex and race groups in patterns of mobility and only small differences in immobility. Mobility and immobility largely serve to reproduce from year-to-year existing sex and race inequalities in the labor force.     

Economic deprivation and racial segregation: Comparing Superfund sites in Portland, Oregon and Detroit, Michigan

The research presented here weighs the ability of two major explanations of social inequality—Massey and Denton’s racial segregation explanation and Wilson’s emphasis on economic deprivation (concentrated poverty)—to predict environmental inequality. Two sets of logistic regression analyses are used to predict the location of Superfund sites in Portland, Oregon and Detroit, Michigan providing a conditional understanding of environmental inequality within a larger sociological context. The analysis includes a general examination of the two theories in all census tracts in both cities and a set of analyses focusing upon Black neighborhoods in Detroit. The findings indicate that there is support for explanations of environmental inequality that include both racial segregation and economic deprivation, but that the more powerful of the two is economic deprivation. The results suggest that even though African-American neighborhoods disproportionately house Superfund sites, these facilities are more likely to be located in Black neighborhoods that are economically deprived.     

Competitive threat and temporal change in anti-immigrant sentiment: Insights from a hierarchical age-period-cohort model

The study focuses on over-time change in anti-immigrant attitudes across European societies and on the role played by cohorts in producing the change in attitudes. We assembled data from four waves of the European Social Surveys for 14 countries between 2002 and 2014. The data analysis is conducted within the framework of a hierarchical age-period-cohort model (HAPC) to estimate the dynamic relations between anti-immigrant sentiment and country's social and economic conditions, while taking into consideration variations across individuals and birth-cohorts. The analysis lends support to expectations derived from the ‘competitive threat’ theoretical model. The findings show that a higher share of non-European ethnic minorities in the country's population is associated with a higher level of ant-immigrant attitudes. Anti-immigrant sentiment was found to be more pronounced in the ‘old immigration countries’ than in the ‘new immigration countries.’ The impact of economic conditions on anti-immigrant sentiment becomes evident through the effect of cohort in the ‘new immigration countries’: cohorts that entered the labor market when the unemployment rate was high are likely to hold more negative attitudes toward immigrants.     

Labor Market and Socioeconomic Effects on Marital Stability

This paper reports an investigation of the effects of socioeconomic and labor market factors on the dissolution of marriages since the mid 1960s. We examine the effects of possible sources of marital disruption, including poor labor market opportunities for young adults; the economic independence and improved labor market opportunities of women; and changes in the labor market roles and expectations of women within marriage. Using the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Men, Young Women, and Youth, we estimate the effects on marital stability of husbands′ and wives′ levels, differences and changes in educational attainment, income, and annual weeks worked. Our results suggest that average levels of couples′ educational attainment and recent work experiences positively affect marital stability. The degree to which husbands and wives differ on educational attainment and income does not affect marital stability, but the more that wives work relative to their husbands, the greater the chances of disruption. Positive changes in wives′ socioeconomic and labor force characteristics over the course of their marriages increase the odds of marital disruption.     

Some considerations concerning the functional form of earnings

The problem of choosing the correct functional form of earnings has plagued studies of social inequality and labor market segmentation. Although this choice has often been made on superficial grounds, the results presented in the current paper demonstrate that this choice has very significant implications for the empirical findings that emerge from the study of earnings determination. Four functional forms of earnings are compared: dollar earnings, earnings rank based on social perceptions as calibrated by P. Coleman and L. Rainwater (1978, Social Standing in America, Basic Books, New York) the natural logarithm of earnings, and the best-fitting power function transformation of earnings as estimated by the Box-Cox technique. Evaluation of a generalized earnings determination model on a sample of private sector employees produces very similar results across these four functional forms of earnings. More divergent results are obtained when the models are compared across subsamples based on class, economic sector, and gender. Significant contrasts between earnings coefficients across groups are much more likely when utilizing log earnings or the Box-Cox power transformation than when using either dollar earnings or perceived earnings. In addition, the contrasts observed for log earnings and Box-Cox earnings are frequently in the opposite direction of those observed for dollar earnings or perceived earnings. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for theoretical developments in the study of social inequality and labor market segmentation.     

A new look at married women’s labor force transitions in Japan

In this paper, we examine educational differences in married women’s labor force attachment in Japan using 10 waves of data from a nationally representative survey. Results of discrete-time multi-state hazard models of labor force exit and entry indicate that university graduates are both more likely to remain in and less likely to reenter the labor force relative to women with a high school education or less. Their relatively low likelihood of labor force exit reflects educational differences in occupational characteristics, especially employment in full-time, standard jobs. However, junior college and university graduates remain substantially less likely to reenter the labor force net of family circumstances, characteristics of previous employment, and efforts to control for unobserved characteristics. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that tension between emerging incentives to remain in the labor force and lingering incentives to remain out of the labor force are both relatively strong among highly educated women. We conclude with speculation about the implications of these educational differences in married women’s employment for stratification.     

Business structure,ethnic shifts in labor markets,and violence: The link between company size,local labor markets,and non-Latino homicide

Combining several schools of thought, including the civic engagement thesis, we extend current research by linking three things at the county level; firm size, the ethnic composition of labor markets, and violent crime. Our results suggest that larger businesses (based on the average number of persons employed) are more likely to have an external orientation and long recruitment reach, and this is linked to ethnic shifts in labor markets toward Latino workers. Such shifts are in turn associated with high rates of homicide among non-Latinos. Through indirect effects modeling, we find that increases in Black homicide are linked to rises in concentrated poverty, while increases in White homicide are linked to changes in unemployment. We discuss the implications of our findings.     

Strength matters: Tie strength as a causal driver of networks’ information benefits

Studies of social networks have often taken the existence of a social tie as a proxy for the transmission of information. However, other studies of social networks in the labor market propose that the likelihood of information transmission might depend on strength of the tie; and that tie strength is a potentially important source of the tie's value. After all, even if job seekers have social ties to those who have valuable job information, the seekers will gain little information benefit when the ties do not actually transmit the information. This paper clarifies the conditions under which social ties might provide information benefits. We use a survey vignette experiment and ask MBA students about their likelihood of relaying job information via strong ties (to friends) or weak ties (to acquaintances), holding constant the structural locations spanned by the tie and job seekers' fit with the job. The results support the claim that strength of tie has a causal effect on the chances of information transmission: potential referrers are more likely to relay job information to their friends than to acquaintances. The larger implication of these findings is that whatever benefits there might be to using weak ties to reach distant non-redundant information during job search, these benefits need to be considered against the likely fact that people connected via weak ties are less likely to actually share information about job opportunities than are people to whom the job seeker is strongly tied.     

Wealth Accumulation across the Adult Life Course: Stability and Change in Sociodemographic Covariate Structures of Net Worth Data in the Survey of Income and Program Participation, 1984–1991

This paper reports microlevel Tobit regression analyses of sociodemographic covariates of the life course accumulation of total household net worth data in eight waves of five distinct panels—spanning over 6 years from late 1984 through early 1991—of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). It is found that the quadratic age–wealth relationship predicted by Modigliani's Life Cycle Hypothesis is evident in aggregate age–median wealth profiles as well as in the micro data for households with positive net worth. However, when adult status attainment variables are entered into the regression models either by themselves or in combination with marital/family status variables, the age of household head at which net worth begins to decline is far beyond the typical retirement age. In addition, the traditional criterion variables of sociological status attainment theory—educational attainment, occupational status, and earnings—are found to be positively associated with household net worth, although the net effect of occupational status generally is not statistically significant and the earnings effect is nonlinear. Further, consistent with status attainment theory, householder minority status (black, Hispanic) is negatively associated with the accumulation of net worth. It is found that both single male and single female householder status are negatively associated with the accumulation of household net worth (relative to married couple households) as is the size of the household (measured by the number of children under age 18 present). Separate logistic regression analyses show that households with zero and negative net worth are more likely than households with positive net worth to be black and have low earnings. Higher levels of educational and occupational status attainment reduce the probability of zero net worth but not the probability of negative net worth. Male- and female-headed households and households headed by Hispanics also are more likely to have zero net worth, but not negative net worth. The estimated sociodemographic covariate structures of household net worth are found to exhibit substantial stability across both waves and panels in the SIPP—although effects of the 1990–1991 recession are detectable in estimates for the 1990 panel. Possible applications of the estimated models in demographic projections of household net worth are suggested.     

Ethnoracial patterns of schooling and work among adolescents: Implications for Mexican immigrant incorporation

This paper investigates Mexican immigrant incorporation by examining labor force participation and schooling among Mexican-origin adolescents in the United States. Theoretical perspectives on immigrant incorporation, labor migration-related cultural repertoires and adolescent development considered together imply that studying ethnoracial differences in schooling among adolescents without taking work into account can yield mis-leading pictures of Mexican-origin non-high school completion patterns, thus hampering the assessment of incorporation theories. To avoid this, we analyze Mexican-origin generational differences in the relationship between schooling and workforce participation among adolescents compared to non-Hispanic whites and blacks. Using micro-data from the 2000 US Census, we find that Mexican immigrant boys who are not enrolled in school are more likely to be in the workforce, and conversely that those who are enrolled in school are much less likely to be in the workforce, compared to whites and blacks. Such relative differences in school/work specialization, as predicted, diminish across Mexican-origin generations. Moreover, based on supplementary analyses, we find similar patterns for a cohort of young adults who failed to complete high school during the 1990s. Overall, the results are consistent with the idea that cultural orientations growing out of the nature and experience of Mexican labor migration are important for assessing school enrollment patterns among Mexican-origin youth and for gauging their implications for educational policy and immigrant-group incorporation.     

社会排斥视角下新失业群体的就业再就业保障研究

＂新失业群体＂是指没有国有或集体企业工作经历,年龄在16—30岁之间,拥有城镇户籍且接受过中等甚至高等教育的青年劳动者。其所处的劳动力市场环境与20世纪90年代以国有企业下岗和失业职工为主的＂老失业群体＂相比已有显著不同,加之当前我国不仅面临着劳动力供大于求的总量失业问题,并且存在着严重的结构性失业问题。作为社会的弱势群体,因欠缺技能,缺少社会阅历和工作经验,更容易在进入劳动力市场前后陷入社会排斥的困境。笔者尝试通过对＂新失业群体＂的社会排斥现状、影响因素进行探析,以期为解决这一群体的再就业问题提供具有参考性的建议。     

丹麦劳动力市场模式分析

丹麦劳动力市场模式是近年来国际劳动力市场模式中非常成功的一种模式,日益受到国际社会的关注。“丹麦模式”的基本特征是将灵活化的劳动力市场、慷慨的福利制度与积极的劳动力市场政策有机结合在一起构成了一个“金三角”,成功地平衡了劳动力市场的灵活性与安全性。丹麦劳动力市场模式以其传统的价值理念、良好的社会合作机制和混合经济体制为基础。随着全球化时代社会经济条件的变化,丹麦劳动力市场模式也面临着严峻的挑战。     

An assessment of the construct validity of Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Well-Being: Method, mode, and measurement effects

This study assesses the measurement properties of Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Well-Being (RPWB)—a widely used instrument designed to measure six dimensions of psychological well-being. Analyses of self-administered RPWB data from three major surveys—Midlife in the United States (MIDUS), National Survey of Families and Households II, and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS)—yielded very high overlap among the dimensions. These large correlations persisted even after eliminating several methodological sources of confounding, including question wording, question order, and negative item-wording. However, in MIDUS pretest and WLS telephone administrations, correlations among the dimensions were much lower. Past research demonstrates that self-administered instruments provide more valid psychological measurements than telephone surveys, and we therefore place more weight on the consistent results from the self-administered items. In sum, there is strong evidence that RPWB does not have as many as six distinct dimensions, and researchers should be cautious in interpreting its subscales.     

Organizational ecology of immigrant employment and organizational buffer zones: Who leaves first when the organization gets into trouble?

Using data from the German social insurance system immigrant employment in organizational buffer zones will be investigated from an organizational ecology perspective. Theories in organization and labor market research predict higher exit rates of employees holding jobs in buffer zones. These buffer zones protect organizations from unfavorable environmental turbulences. Consequently, analyzing the impact of buffer zone employment on job stability of immigrants requires a fully dynamic approach, which goes beyond a mere identification of generally increased turnover rates of immigrants.In the first step, determinants of organizational dissolution rates will be estimated. In order to obtain a dynamic measurement of unfavorable environmental conditions, the model includes both organizational and time-varying environmental characteristics of organizational populations. This will be done by using a three-level mixed-effects hazard model controlling for observed and unobserved environmental characteristics. In the second step, dissolution rates predicted in the first step will be used as an explanatory variable. These rates indicate the degree of enactment of the flexible buffer zone. It will be shown that immigrants have indeed higher turnover rates, but they tend to remain longer in their organizations when environmental conditions deteriorate—and they are not those who leave first when the organization gets into trouble.