Overall the literature reviewed that mothers have primary responsibility in child care, but there are many factors that affect child care. Accessibility, cost, and affordability are also very important. Another important idea is “Analyzing women's domestic labor, including the work of child care, provides opportunities to link gender and race/ethnicity and to understand the ways in which both are integral to the structures of economic and social life” 1994 Tuiminen, 242). This idea shows the overall importance of all of our lives. When we look at labor and the division we can start to make adjustments necessary to shoot for more social equality.
The problem is accentuated by the widening of the gap between rich and poor, that can be translated in this matter as an increase of difficulty for low-income families to have access to the much more expensive high quality day care options. There are several aspects that built such a controversial situation and the most important are certainly the cultural and economical ones. The huge growth in women’s independence and professional ambition, in addition to importance, of the last decades, caused the fall of the cultural basis that have always taken for granted the responsibility of the mother as the full-time caregiver (Chisholm 38). Now women are more willing to gain a successful and respectable place in society, and this can be achieved almost exclusively through hard work and full immersion in their jobs. Simultaneously, the economical situation of our society caused many families to depend on two incomes to satisfy the basic needs. In fact, the increase in the cost of living not sufficiently balanced by a relatively smaller rise in wages, and a greater attitude toward materialism and conspicuous consumption, have given women the same financial responsibility as men (Chilman 451). This aspect can be fully applied only on families with an average income or better, because professional daycare programs are pretty expensive and in some cases can reach prices higher than the minimum wage. Those factors
Over the past five to six decades women have been entering the workforce in ever increasing numbers. Some enter because of financial need and others for professional and career goals. Whatever the reason, the result for the children is the same; they are in daycare. Many
Over the years, the role of mother in the life of their children has been crucial and prominent. The child’s first education starts at home with their mother. The mother teaches the child how to walk, how to talk, and how to become a strong man or woman in the society. Some mothers will even stop going to work in order to take care of their kids so that they can be a better person and a good citizen.
The primary responsibility for child welfare services rests with the States. Each State has its own legal and administrative structures and programs that address the needs of children and families. However, States must comply with specific Federal requirements and guidelines in order to be eligible for Federal funding under certain programs. Even though federal laws have had a major influence on foster care and child welfare policy for more than 40 years, additional reforms are needed to ensure safe and stable families for children in care. A number of federal policies addressing issues such as housing, health care, welfare, social security benefits, taxes, and foster care reimbursement to the states, form the federal foster care policy framework.
The labor force of the United States has changed drastically over the last forty years. According to the Department of Labor, in 2012, 64% of woman with children under the age of six are in the labor force. While only 34% of mothers were working in 1970 (Gullekson, Griffeth, Vancouver, Kovner, & Cohen, 2014). Furthermore, in 1974, 80% of kids under the age 17 were cared for by a parent (Morrissey & Warne, 2011). Given this dramatic increase of mothers in the workforce, there is a considerable amount of time missed by the working parent. On average, American working parents miss nine days of work per year and that number increases to thirteen as the child moves through daycare and into elementary school. Breakdowns in childcare cost businesses three billion dollars annually (Shellenback, 2004). Given these staggering numbers the demand for reliable and affordable childcare has never been bigger.
A child or young person who is being looked after by their local authority can find themselves put into several different types of care possibilities, either temporarily or permanently. These type of care can include foster care, respite care, residential care and adoption..
As some women in first world countries go out of the home to work, women from lower classes immigrant women from the third world perform the functions of childcare, ‘homemaking’, domestic tasks etc. these women who constitute the transnational labor of care have bad working conditions, few rights and opportunities or work satisfaction. As some upper class women break the glass ceiling, other women enter the market to perform the transnational labor of care, at low wages and bad conditions, without these women to perform the domestic tasks, to perform this transnational labor of care( example of Filipino migrant maids), other privileged women would not be able to leave the home to work and take up white collar occupations. Thus some women
In today’s society the majority of households have a family dynamic where both parents need to work. It is nearly impossible for most families in America to survive financially without two incomes. This puts many parents in a situation where they have to find extra help to watch their children while they are away at work. “These days couples face complex negotiations over work, family, child care, and housekeeping. It becomes evident that where traditional marriage through the centuries has been a partnership based on mutual dependency, modern marriage demands greater self-sufficiency” (Hekker). Day care becomes a necessity for many families, and the main concern for most parents is if the day care will be a positive experience for their
This article focuses on the point that women’s pay gap results in the assumption that women are typically seen as the ones who take care of the household chores or duties. The article expresses that women are placed with this role to take charge of the household and family caregiving tasks, to a greater degree than men. They prove that women had higher reservation wages and lower offered wages than men, which helps to explain a reason for their lower participation in the labor market. This fits with my paper as it explain how and why the gender wage gap
women would take on infant care, but that the men would also be involved in their care (Fox, 2014, p.237). During the eighteenth century child care was taken up by both parents it was not exclusively given to one gender. When nineteenth century came a child’s responsibility was to be done by the mother (Margolis, 2014, p.99). Chris Jackson (1996) used Statistics Canada data and found that in 1992 women spent 78 percent more time on unpaid work than men did. Domestic labour has been assumed to be only women’s work therefore, men resist on doing it (Luxton & Corman, as cited in Mandell & Duffy, 2011, p.221). This creates women’s inequality within the home because they are the ones taking on household tasks including child care. As Luxton (2009)
According to the Center of American Progress, In 2013, in households with children younger than 6 years old, employed women spent 38.4 more minutes per day caring for children than employed men; they also spent 41.4 more minutes doing household activities, such as cleaning and cooking. Women are also more likely to leave the labor force to take care of children or other relatives, which affects their workforce experience; differences in experience explain 10.5 percent of the wage gap. While this is often a choice, it is influenced by family needs and by societal understandings of women’s responsibilities when it comes to housework and child care
In conclusion, paid parental leave is a system that gives benefits to moms who give birth to accomplish particular social and monetary results. There are three proposed targets for a paid parental leave, for example, the prosperity change of families, particularly child and mother's wellbeing, connected with leave from work around the infant birth and secured money related throughout that period; motivation of women to come back to the workforce by the social welfare and tax system; and by the norms of community, having family time is the fundamental human rights for some individuals including fathers and the significance of valuing and caring for children.
With the context of a well-documented and increasing need for both parents to work, it appears these working mothers reframe mothering and paid work to indicate how they are still “in charge” of their children’s care even if not home full-time (Christopher, 2012). Mothers who are career professionals, with higher education levels and incomes, are able to outsource aspects of “intensive” mothering in a way provides their children more opportunities to compete in the global marketplace and become “successful” adults (Christopher, 2012; Cooper, 2014).
Historically, the concept of working mothers has been negated by social welfare policies (Abramovitz, 1992). The implementation of such programs could signify a turn from the imposition of the patriarchy regarding familial structure and provide a more solution focused approach to low-income families.
when i shared your article with my friends who have babies, they all disagreed with the article so that I want to share their thoughts why they can’t take their kids off the TV and not go out to play.