Research Methods Essay

So how do all these changes in society and family affect the division of household labor?

The marriage pay gap varies by education, profession and class. People were least likely to marry those with similar educational backgrounds around the 1950s, according to Mr. Mare’s research,when people married very young. Using census data from 1970 to 2000, they analyzed the choices people made in so ¬called marriage markets, based on age, education, race and where they lived. When such marriages do form, the women become more likely to seek jobs beneath their potential or to stop working entirely, and the marriages are more likely to end in divorce. Paradoxically, wives who earn more also do significantly more housework and child care than their husbands do, to make their husbands feel less threatened, the economists

The Arguments For and Against the Idea that There Is a Move Toward a More Equal Division of Labour Within the Home

Meanwhile, Arlie Hochschild explained why the male-breadwinning family is less feasible for most families due to the economic and social policy changes in the society. First, as the US economy changed, males’ earnings dropped remarkably by the mid 1970s. By the 1980s, unemployment rates increased notably due to the closing of the public works and factories. By the 1990s, the value of houses is increased. By the 2000s, federal and state aid on higher education decreased. As a result, male-breadwinning is not feasible because two employed adults are necessary in order to maintain or improve upon the standard of living. Eventually, women’s earnings have contributed to economic stability in many cases as women have started to work in the labor

Marital status has a consistent impact on women’s wage, however the extent differs from country to country. In the UK, single women on average earn 90% of what men earn, as for married women the ratio drops to a 60% to 70% (Harkmess and Waldfogel, 2003). Some of the penalties may be due to differences in the occupations of women with children and women without children and to the facility of finding a work place child friendly and closer home, which are factor which have to be taken into consideration when applying to a position.

Socialization is a significant factor that has influenced the unequal distribution of unpaid work in a household. Throughout the chapters of Stanford’s book, it is mentioned numerous times that the majority of unpaid work, including household chores, caring for young children or elderly family members (Stanford, 2015, p.119), is completed by women. Statistics Canada has provided statistics on unpaid work, “men

Historically, literature finds that married men generally earn more than their single counterparts with Antonovics and Town (2004) providing evidence that the marital wage premium is 19%. Using a similar

The job market began to shift as the service economy began to grow; this expansion, in turn pulled labor from the family into the market. This shift left two options: (1) the domestic work has to be completed by various market settings (e.g., maid services and babysitters) or (2) the domestic work will need to be compensated by the families with a dual-couple working household. Hochschild notes that of all the women in the labor force 46 percent of them earn less than $10,000 a year. This completely eliminates option one for those in single-income households and even still, this luxury will depend on how much both partner makes. On the other hand, this leaves option two which adds on even more work to do once a person is home from work. Hence, option two is the source of conflict between work and family.

Over time the economic opportunities for women have increased. Many service jobs opened up and women were able to find and fill these jobs quickly because their employers offer lesser pay than their male colleague. Women’s heightened expectations combined with their growing economic independence caused divorce rates to accelerate (Coontz, 252).

By understanding how this change has come about, predictions can be made to determine how this will impact the future, to see if this will change situations outside of the home that are gender sensitive, and to see if this will give a people a broader perspective to work with.

Division of labor: Historically it is considered that the duties of housework and the rise of children belong to the women. Therefore, the management of money and work outside home are tasks of the male. In theory, this model allows discrimination and maintains

Fathers and mothers in households today continue to partake in a gendered, asymmetrical division of labour. Mothers still contribute more to household labour even though today’s father contribute more than fathers of the past. The discrepancy is because gendered norms to do with paid and unpaid work continue to prevail in both policy and social attitudes. The patriarchal power structure of households is linked back to the nuclear family being idyllic with mothers completing all unpaid labour and fathers providing in the financial sense. Since the 1970s, Western society has moved away from the nuclear family structure with rigidly gendered roles toward an egalitarian household set up. Part of this shift was women moving into paid work and another part was men slightly increasing their contribution to unpaid labour in the household. Despite the increase labour women contribute to provide financially for the household, splitting that burden with their husbands, men have not increased their contributions to household duties to the same extent. Newer representations of father’s contributions to childcare and housework are idealisations not actual representations of experience. These representations, again, positively impact men while co-currently women are vilified for not finding the right work-life balance.

One example of these changes is the raised material aspirations of families, which Hart suggests has put pressure on both spouses to become wage earners. Women as a result have been forced to become both homemakers and economic providers. According to Hart, the contradiction of these two roles has lead to conflict and this is the main cause of marital breakdown. It would appear that Hart 's explanation cannot account for all cases of divorce - for example, marital breakdown is liable to occur in families where only the husband is working. Nevertheless, her approach, which is to relate changes in family relations to broader social forces, would seem to be more probing than one that looks only at legislative change.

With two incomes needed this often times leads to the husband and wife sharing the power. This sharing of power results from the husband and wife working different hours to provide care for the children at all times. Another reason this sharing of power occurs is that the females in today’s society want to feel equal in their relationships.

Nevertheless, this quotient is slowly changing in the cities as more and more women join the working force. They have even started to earn more than the man in the house. This has led to an understanding between the genders. The modern husband and wife have begun to work a strategy to manage housework and office work in a peaceful manner that would not stress either. In fact, there are thousands Hindu men who working chores that were previously dominated by women such as cooking to maintain a healthy work-life