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Nov2GenderandWork2andunpaidwork.pdf
Prepared by Karen D. Hughes, William Silver, and Harvey J. Krahn, University of Alberta
Chapter 7 Household, Family, and Caring Work
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1) Trends: Housework, Childcare, Eldercare
2) Balancing Work and Family
3) Marketization and Outsourcing of Care
Outline
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Introduction
• Stay at home mom – Meg Luxton (1980) More than a labour of love
• A stay at home father Andrea Doucet (2006) Do Men Mother? Fathering, Care and Domestic Responsibility
• Maeve Turner, a stay at home mom and lawyer Pamela Stone (2007) Opting Out? Why women really quit careers and head home.
• Jessica Stilwell, social worker and mom who went on “household strike” Oct 2012
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Introduction • ”invisible” nature of household, family and caring
work
• What gives rise to assumption that it is the mom’s responsibility for the household and caring work.
• How does the responsibility for household and caring work underlie or contribute to the broader gender inequalities we observe in the labour market and paid work
• How are employers and governments supporting women’s and men’s changing roles as earners and caregivers and balancing work and family life?
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2) Trends: Housework, Childcare, Eldercare
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Conceptualizing household and family work • Early studies in the sociology of work didn’t look at
unpaid domestic work or caregiving • Why??? • Location in the private realm • Not part of the formal economy • Household work is unpaid – lacks values • Women’s historical and ongoing responsibility for
household work contributes to its devaluation • Important to consider to build a more complete
picture of work • Key to understanding women’s responsibility for the
household is the key to gender inequality • More likely to limit women’s labour force participation
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Conceptualizing household and family work • Gender inequality occurs because of patriarchy and
capitalism • Patriarchy • male domination over women • Describes forms of family organization in which
fathers and husbands hold the power • Capitalism • Incorporated earlier patriarchal social
arrangements • Reinforces stereotypes of women • Cheap, expendable labour • Reserve army of labour (main job = caregiver)
• Double day of paid and unpaid work 7
5.
Conceptualizing Household and Family Work • Domestic work, unpaid work or social reproduction
1. Housework 2. Caring and emotional work 3. Kin and community work
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Changing Family Forms
Pre-Industrial • Before rise of capitalism - household primary site of
economic production
Early Industrialization • Factory production and wage labour • men (primarily) breadwinners • Women responsible for domestic work
• Fluid Boundaries between private and public realms • Working class – early industrialization women took in
laundry and boarders, sewed piecework “putting out” system
• Wealthy class – hired domestic servants 9
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Changing family forms • Traditional gender ideologies • Early 20th century • “separate spheres” ensured that household work -
women’s work • Married women – typically did not work for $
• WWII • Women worked in the war effort and formal
economy • 1950s after WWII • Women work briefly before having children • Worked when children had grown up • Most employers assumed women didn’t want to
work • But…forced out by marriage or pregnancy bars
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Changing family forms • Since the 1970s • Moms continue working while raising their children • Growing diversity in families • Few single-earner families • 2011 nearly 2/3 of all families dual-earner • 2011 lone-parent families
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Trends in housework and caring work • How has the work of households changed??? • Second shift • job outside the home was a double burden for
working women • Reduction of leisure time (13.5 hours/week)
• Housework • Core/regular housework • Non-core/infrequent housework
• Convergence in time men and women spent on housework • Was this because men did ½ housework???
•
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Trends in household and caring work • Was this because men did ½ housework??? • NO!!! • 1986 • women spent 3.3 hours/day housework • Men spent 1.1 hours/day housework
• 2005 • Women spent 2.8 hours/day housework • Men spent 1.5 hours/day housework
• ***averages • Families with young children – women spend significant more
time than men on housework • What about families with older children? Younger & educated?
Same-sex households? 13
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Trends in household and caring work • Childcare – important and time-consuming activities • instrumental care or caring for (feeding, dressing
bathing) • Expressive care or caring about (love support
encouragement) • Fathers taking on a more active role but contemporary
norms • Today – women who work for pay still largely
responsible for children
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Trends in household and caring work • Intensive mothering – women expected to devote
ever more to their children creates contradictions for working women
• Devotion to family versus Devotion to work
impossible!
• How do we define childcare • Narrowing gap between men
and women • Women still spend 2x hours on
childcare then men 16
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Trends in Eldercare § Population aging, and growing need for
caregivers for elderly § “Caregiving crunch”
§ Balancing eldercare, childcare, household work, and paid work § The “sandwich generation”
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Trends in Elder care
• 2005 • 1/5 people >45 • 3 – 4 hours/week • Women slightly more likely
• Compassionate Care benefit • Jan 2004 – provides 8 weeks of paid leave gravely sick
family member • Need sufficient hours of work and relationship
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Kin and Volunteer/Community Work
§ Kin work involves building and maintaining family ties. § Communication, ritual celebrations, exchange of
resources
§ Includes § Phone calls, cards, visits, e-mails, texts
§ Planning special celebrations
§ Sharing children’s clothing, tools, recipes, photos, family history
§ Not just doing but mental work of conceiving, initiating, and organizing such work
§ Pleasant tasks and difficult work
§ Highly gendered 19
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Volunteer Work
§ 47 percent of Canadians participated in 2010 § 2010 Volunteered 2.1 billion hours
§ Rises with education, income, and children in household
§ Clubs, associations, and religious and political organizations
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Volunteer work
§ Large number work in publicly funded service industries § Health, social, recreational, educational and environmental services
§ Government has cut costs – volunteers replaced paid employees in schools, libraries
§ Includes women “opting out”
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3) Balancing Work and Family
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Balancing Work and Family
Work has changed. Women have changed.... But most workplaces have remained inflexible in the face of the family demands of their workers and at home, most men have yet to really adapt to the changes in women. This strain between the change in women and the absence of change in much else lead me to speak of a ”stalled revolution.” Arlie Hochschild, The Second Shift
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Balancing work and family • Consequences of the stalled revolution • Work-family conflict • Incompatible demands arising from work and family
domains • Role overload • Having more role demands than one can possibly
fulfill • Leads to conflict when there are no mechanism
(time flexibility or resources) to help people meet their responsibilities
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Balancing Work and Family
§ Types of work–family conflict § Direction
§ Work-to-family conflict § Family-to-work conflict
§ Nature § Time-based conflict
§ Strain-based conflict
§ Behaviour-based conflict § Video Work-Life Balance
§ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vgpibecbPo 25
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Work–Family Conflict § Duxbury and Higgins (2001) found high work–
family conflict linked to changing job demands § Downsizing and increased workloads
§ Long hours of work
§ Blurring of home and work emails, cellphones & mobile technologies
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Consequences of Work-Family Conflict • Duxbury and Higgins (2001) • Lower job satisfaction § Higher job stress
§ Lower levels of organizational commitment
§ Higher rates of absenteeism
§ Allen et al. (2000) reviewed 67 studies, finding high work–family conflict linked to: § Reduced job and life satisfaction
§ Increased job stress
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Policies Supporting Work–Family Reconciliation § Flexible work hours and schedules
§ Personal and family-related leave
§ Ability to refuse overtime § Supportive managers
§ BUT barriers to reconciliation include § Societal value placed on paid work and careers
§ “Flexibility stigma”
§ Legal decisions on “family accommodation” § e.g., Johnstone v. Canadian Border Services Agency
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