Sociology of the Family Work and Families

well so welcome to sociology of the family am dr beverly and thompson and i'm kello stone and i'm professor over here in albany new york and i'm an adjunct sociology professor in los angeles california and we both teach sociology of the family so we're both looking over the family textbook and today we're looking at chapter 11 which talks about work and families you know as sociologist i'm really interested in how this remote work is going to to ultimately change you know what work means for the family yeah yeah so our current pandemic situation could relate to this by who gets to work from home who has to go and and be considered essential worker and then you know children are at home doing school work so who has to help the children and kind of get in the way of their own work yeah and they're in there what's really interesting to me is there are many fathers you know if you have two working parents or even just the father like the father working from home and the children being at home and the domestic necessities that need to be tended to at home and how is that now playing out yeah and whose work is more interruptable than yes yeah and think we know the answer to that question it reminds me did you see that viral video of the the child busting in on the on the father who was conducting news the interview chases in the room after him and he's white man in suit you know very formal background yeah and then the the wife is an asian woman and she runs into the room after this toddler who's two years old who dances into the room and then you know it became viral video and everyone assumed that that mother was the maid because she's an asian then he's just reaffirming those gender roles which have persisted you know since the beginning of time at least in my in my mind and continue to persist right in the first part of the chapter the introduction they start to just start defining some of the key terms and so of course the first one is is work what is work and it's really based on the market economy work is exchange of labor for for money for for material research resources and then care work is the work performed face-to-face to care for another human child an adult and then housework which is the cooking and cleaning of the house the yard work and so on and so these are the main themes and categories that we look at in this chapter especially thinking about families and different types of families and how they split this work up and how social forces help make that decision guide that decision shall we say and the other thing too that's interesting is within this system of work there are individuals that make certain decisions that's one point of interest and the also the way in which paid work like market work can offset care work and housework if you have the budget and you're you know you make those decisions to you know pay for someone else to do that but then on the same aspect the person that's doing that paid work is underpaid is usually woman and so that's contributing to the struggles that she has in her family the the graph on on page 402 that shows the actual overlap of these three kinds of work is very illuminating because as you can see you know paid work is just small percentage of the intersection of those of those of that these three types of work and then we see also that of course paid work and since we live in capitalist society where all our values are really tied into the dollar sign paid work is bit more valued obviously it's it's paid over unpaid work and so just always found it interesting that you know you hear in society people saying like raising children is the most important work there is and it's so valuable yeah then when you look at how those those care workers are treated how they're paid how they're viewed in society it tells different story but kind of fundamental to the conversation is number one being able to feed and care for your children being it is it is the most you know the most important work and if you were to pay for someone else to do that you know the market work for that could be extremely high so one of the most important overview topics in this chapter to consider is that male men's position has remained relatively flat over time it's around 85 percent 80 employed and over the last 100 years it's pretty much remained right there and even if you think about things like men's dress and their occupations and so on mean these categories have remained relatively stable but what's really been fundamentally and radically changed on this topic is women women enter into the workforce the pages of course and so and into workforce that was designed around this ideal male worker and so that's where the conflict comes and the conflict might not be as present for men except that they do slightly more want to participate in their in their family life and so on but as we'll see towards the end of the chapter they talked about how lot of men are pretty happy working full-time but it's women who prefer to work part-time so as far as labor force participation there's definitely relationship for women to their degree of education and whether or not they have children and there's marked differences in in that respect and we know if there's no labor force participation as result of raising children and as result of an inability to find work that's going to support the family you know poor women with children are still having the greatest struggle right it's interesting the chapter really focused on you know of course this kind of heterosexual family model we can really feel that kind of presence throughout like man and woman with children but they they didn't so much it seems talk about like single women or you know lgbt families or just alternative models of how that could really be lot more enjoyable perhaps as far as the work life balance you know when you think about people without children yeah it is too and the other thing too is think we tend to when we talk about lgbt families we have to also keep in mind that men and women regardless of their sexual orientation are all socialized into gender roles and number one and number two let's say you had family where there were two women who both worked and then you had family where there were two men who both worked which is quite possible men's earnings would obviously the two the two male headed households would be earning far more than the two female-headed households the what would find interesting in that scenario as result as it relates to gender socialization is how housework is split up in same-sex couples and the chapter does allude to that the guess that it's lot more equitable in those types of relationships absolutely absolutely think that is something that really does need to look at be looked at little bit more closely because when you have heterosexual couple there's still tendency of for you know maintaining the gender segregated work in the home it reminded me of this article used to assign called plan where you have young couples who idealize their relationship being equal in the future when you ask them how they would split up work and and raise their children so you have young people with new more equitable ideals but when reality happens and you have the the baby then they just kind of revert back to these notions that you know are are similar to their parents or just similar to the the larger cultural context of promoting male workers and female caretakers but there was discussion of stay-at-home dads and what that means you know what what is what does it mean in terms of defining manhood even if man wants to stay at home and take care of the children there's conflict there there's stigma of the stay-at-home dad other men will see him as deficient he will be emasculated and he'll be seen as lazy and unmotivated you're just staying at home taking care of kids which ultimately devalues the unpaid work that women do if when if men start to do that so it does illuminate that problem doesn't it right and that gets to the section on occupational segregation which just means that you know there there it remains persistency with men and women having different types of jobs and then within similar jobs they might play different roles you know have different pieces of those jobs and this comes to the key term that they list called the gender division of labor it's just how we allocate work to different to men and women within our society so we see here on page 406 in this chart at the top of the page where they list different kinds of professions related to care work and how much what percentage is female and how much these professions get paid and so we can see that they're they're paid very little they're paid very little and it's just mind-boggling to see you know the percentage of child care workers and again you know 94 and how many men even though they may want to you know go into child development and work in that arena you know mean like that's such critical period in child's life but they will not do that because number one they won't get paid enough to live on and number two men are very selective in the occupations they choose and if there's female dominated occupation again there is threat to what they define their manhood to be which is to be in an arena where there are more men than women yeah that points to this concept think it's called the glass escalator where when men enter female dominated professions they shoot right to the top so it's yes become the manager of the child care center or you know head nurse or something like that yeah the other thing too that that kind of was repeated theme found interesting in this chapter is all these you know sociological aspects of looking at work comes down to the concern of profit loss for private businesses and the relationship of government intervention and private companies so that the government doesn't want to put too much pressure on private companies to be able to equalize playing field to be able to you know offer compensation for time off things like that that you know people need to work they need to make money but if you have to decide if you're paying 90 percent of your meager salary on child care because that is condition necessary for you to be able to work that is so comp that is so problematic right and it still remains that way because we know that we are unwilling at least would admit at very early age in seeing people with kids realized was unwilling to was unwilling to do you know to have children not just because of the cost right the cost is factor but the the immense responsibility of raising the children in this social context in the way that would want to raise them didn't feel that it was possible and so my thing is if you can't do something to this degree that you you know where you know you you can't do it then you probably have to make different decision those are important points and it brings us to you know the the next section which talks about housework and child care and just this balance then with the market labor and then and how how do you even measure housework and child care and so sociologists use the time use study which is basically people keeping journal of how much time they spend with each activity you know what there's always problems in you know what would you call it self-reporting yeah you know because for one thing that adds just an extra burden to be able to do that calculation and do it accurately and then there's could be an inherent desire to maybe change the numbers little bit so you know like people kind of the idea of you know if was walking through the house and dusted the shelf and it was like five minutes would even count that you know into this time use because it's not like we're doing something for like an hour and then something for an hour and sometimes you're doing something you know at the same time you could be cooking talking on the phone taking care of your children and you know all at the same time and so when we talk about time use you know it's just an estimate this was an interesting figure the figure 11.5 because they compared two different families and talk about how one family has the breadwinner homemaker model and the other family has very egalitarian relationship where they both work in the market and they both work in the house and then ultimately the the traditional family ended up with seven extra hours of house work completed and so it kind of implies that they're ahead of the game well this is the other thing about this the chart here is in the traditional household or the egalitarian household are they in that example to go deeper are they are they paying because they have income are they paying someone because there is seven hour difference in the number of unpaid work that's happening in the home and just don't think that it means that if two people work then there's those responsibilities at home are just you know not taken care of think there would be percentage of their income that would pay someone probably underpay them of course and of course it's important to point out between these two families that in the egalitarian family they both made 15 an hour whereas in the in the traditional family model that that male salary jumped up to 30 an hour so they're implying different socioeconomic status of family as well if may move into the section on toward gender balance what you know really struck me is that and if we looked at that example that we just talked about where where the man made thirty dollars and the woman did the unpaid work there's power differential that happens when one partner makes significantly more than the other that plays out probably is like make more money than you you should be doing you know this housework right and not being paid for it think this is an important point and discuss this with my students because it just it kind of makes sense the man is making more money so why don't you let him be the one to keep working and she stays at home but as this the section points out also that's just circular argument that reinforces itself because had the woman been out in the marketplace and continued to grow her career then she could be far far further along with her career but because she had to cut back and stay in the home she disadvantaged herself professionally absolutely the section also implies that if the two should break up that the man is going to have much easier opportunity to replace the domestic work that his ex-wife conducted whereas she has to go out and find herself new breadwinning husband or get job which she doesn't have the the training to do because she was she was previously homemaker and you know what always you know what talk about with my students is asking them at what point in the coupling process we'll call it dating at what point in the dating because obviously it seems like dating bit in in love marriages right meaning leads to marriage so not necessarily but no one just meets someone for the first time in love marriage and marries them so during this process let's get to know one another our core values you know there's times when you know having children may come up but what's never really discussed are things like unpaid work in the home and you know are there people and let's be honest there knows know some students there are people who still believe that the gender segregated work is because of natural competency and the natural order of the universe you know that women will be the primary caretaker of the children and the women will do the household because they do it better you know the idea that one gender does some let's say drudgery better than another you know that's like you know always say this is what men usually have to commit to do is take out the trash and mow the lawn they may even farm out the mowing of the lawn but everything else in the home and if you're you know single person like me it's lot of work so they have section that talks about the division of labor within married couples and they start their chart in 1965 and all the way up till 2015 and we can just see big shift in who does what within the house and in different section they mentioned you know that women were doing seven or eight times as much housework as the man but now it's just two to one which sounds like huge improvement but it's still an inequality happening there but women have done overall the the hours in the house have gone down for everyone women do lot less when men do lot more and so things have shifted towards equality but we're not there yet well here's the thing that find interesting about this infographic is it talks about the number of weekly hours right but also look at the dates and the times and technological advancements like things like dishwashers let's say roombas there's certain things that make it easier but it is so that it takes less time but it still has to be done right someone still it might take less time to fill the dishwasher and have the dishwasher do the dishes but it still has to be emptied and things still have to be put away and while the number of hours may be smaller the level of responsibility is still going to be predominantly in the hands of the woman in household was surprised by the chart on page 414 with the husband earns 50 000 or more than the wife which is 23.7 percent of the couples which is implying this kind of breadwinner homemaker model perhaps the wife is is not working at all or she's working full-time and working very little and so was surprised to see that huge chunk but then the largest section does state husband and wife make within 000 of each other and that's the largest so we see this kind of duality happening in this chart one of the mothers in the chapter mentioned that she wants to get out of the house just to go to her part-time pharmacy job just to to get get break from this child-rearing responsibility and have some time to to focus on herself but in the workplace and then she talked about the esteem that comes with working in the workplace absolutely boosted her self-esteem it's like i'm here i'm professional and you know people rely on something that i'm offering them and that does give people sense of purpose and you have to listen let's be honest you know people say when think of work especially you know being raised in blue collar home like to me work was essential to your identity that was number one and everything else was secondary but you had to have an occupation you had to make earn living and that was like for me that was your intended purpose in life and then if you retire and you happen to live few years after retirement well there you've earned it but that's and i'm like wow that's what life really is life is work and then you die yeah so they do talk about single parents on page 417 and they talked about some of the government programs that assisted especially it was made for widowed women and so considering that women were supported by their husbands if woman lost husband they thought that you know the politicians thought that was tragedy and so the state was stepping into the role of the husband and so it was really oriented around the widow person and therefore these policies did not provide benefits to male single family formations for example what that did was it in fact solidify the idea of if i'm woman and am in i'm dependent on my husband and if you know like the idea it actually supports that idea it's like don't have to really worry because if you know if he dies then i'll be taken care of so will submit to this this structure the other thing too that didn't want didn't want to overlook was the role that gender socialization plays in you know perpetuating the idea that you know women and men have you know significant division of labor well and also it's it's important to make the point that women and men both uphold these gender norms and it's not just you know one or the other and so women contribute to you know perpetuating that men need to be the breadwinners that many pay for the date that the man needs to be in charge you know do do the the yard work and or and all these expectations and so women also have responsibility to shift these dynamics as well there's an interesting thing that happens too when women are you know they socialize into that but they still they get an education they become very successful on the job and they make you know they're making good salary all of that which they've worked hard to earn right but they will only date man who's make money who makes more than they make and then they want him to pay for the date and not yes just because you know woman is highly educated successful in her occupation does not mean that she has you know given up the gender you know the those gender socialization that's changed the perspective it just doesn't just go away and there's studies on that too because for women the more educated and higher up on the ladder they become then they they are gonna pick you know small from smaller pool of men yes and they enter the situation where there's there's not that many men available because they're not considering men who make less than them but on the other hand for men you know who don't expect women to be bringing lot of money to the table perhaps but just providing the the domestic work and the attractiveness that he can be lot younger than him she can make lot less money but she's making up for it in other ways maybe being you know good looking object on his arm that he can show off which also equals to his money and his status because obviously he's pretty impressive man to have such beautiful woman on his arm absolutely he's obviously paying for in one way or another absolutely it was probably that you know we think about that kind of trophy wife because you know position and so that that stereotype that she's you know gold figure whereas we don't expect her to be like lawyer making twice the money that he's making exactly no exactly you know why always always find and i'll only give two examples like you know is bill and hillary clinton and you know barack and michelle obama you both you know both in both partnerships is exemplary accomplishment and even though they operate in this patriarchal system believe that behind closed doors it's real egalitarian well remember seeing about michelle obama in in the documentary believe it was about her life where she talks about you know they they both have these law degrees they both have these they met in the same office and she was already working there she was there before him they got married and then when they had the children who was it that quit their job to stay at home raising children and the chapter mentions that for women who make who are very highly educated who are very elite who have very high professional jobs when they quit their job to take care of the children you know it's huge drop down the socioeconomic status ladder there and it's huge disruption to their career trajectory right and there's also this think there's also this question for let's say for lack of better term progressive minded people to say well why would why would this woman choose then to you know what i'm saying and that's when it comes down to you know we still undervalue though the significance of raising two children in the right way you know you would say why would she choose to raise her own children when she could exploit another poorer woman to raise her children for her exactly and so feel like that there's just that decision like you just said right there if no matter how accomplished you are woman may say refuse to exploit another woman so that can you know pursue my career so it's that's huge decision to make you know this other woman if she wasn't so busy you know working as nanny she could have gone to school got an education and worked her way up the ladder but she was just tracked at this nanny level well on page 418 they have section on the motherhood penalty and so this is interesting because yeah we can understand that having children can take away from one's occupation and so provide penalty but the thing is is that this only affects women because mother there's motherhood penalty but there's actually in what do they call it fatherhood premium they call it in the section so when woman says have children and and this is an illegal question during job interview but sometimes you know women talk about it maybe the employer saw them on facebook with their children so they know that the woman has children and so they're they're thinking the employer is thinking well how do we know this person is going to be very committed to the job you know she might not show up to work and take the kid to the doctor however when man is married and he has children the employer thinks the opposite the employer thinks this is an upstanding man solid family plan he obviously deserves to make even more money because he's taking care of family and he probably has wife that's taking care of the kids so he's really going to be committed to our job so he gets fatherhood premium absolutely think it's yeah it's that's well stated it it's premium you know he becomes elevated in his attractiveness as an employee but also elevated in his moral compass kind of such in way if you were if you were king but there was no one in your kingdom you know you would be seen differently than king who has kingdom i'm not sure how that plays out in terms of the number of children you know if man is father to one children versus five if he has five children might that be even might he even be more elevated on that premium whereas woman has five children you know it would be the every child she has the less attractive she becomes the employer and the greater responsibility she has for performing unpaid care work you know the chapter has section on family leave and always think that this is huge eye opener for students to you know think about how the us compares to other countries because it's quite dismal when you add up how the united states offered only unpaid leave had no idea like when saw this chart the first time just and then i'm like wow this is interesting south korea and japan because that's that was an interesting you know cultural piece of information so the burden is really shared across society and and it you know in the united states the congress passed the family and medical elite act in 1993 and was struck by how relatively recent that is to us perhaps not to our students but that's pretty fairly recent consider that there wasn't perhaps something that good beforehand and that also all the build does and it only applies to half of all workers because it has some restrictions to it and it's for 12 weeks of unpaid leave yeah unpaid which means simply that your boss can't fire you for having baby like that what successes in america and obviously here we go with the idea of you know private industry not wanting to cut into their profits because while that time is unpaid number one they still have to cover the health care premiums as as it relates to that act but also looked up in aside from the state of montana every state has at will employment and so you could return to your job and you know you could be at will that obviously they don't want to do it while you're you know under this regulated act but when you return you found replacement that's better than you or something could happen it's like almost like when you return to work there's this level of uncertainty about your job that happens and it was even depicted on the series like working moms you know that was like the predominant theme in the show it's comedic show in canada but there is the women you know that it really unveiled the idea of like when woman comes back to work or takes part-time work you know her her role in the firm or the organization or the company is significantly diminished which you're implying by stating that they could kind of retaliate after after the woman returns to work by then firing her because they might anticipate that motherhood penalty situation of perhaps now she's going to be taking the baby to the doctor all the time and also think the other thing kind of in you know at the micro level of how these you know how these larger institutional problems manifest themselves is let's say woman does return to work after maternity leave and she is given unfulfilling work work that is below her abilities and if you've ever had job that you work that is excruciatingly painful to do and you know you there's companies that can really put you in position where you want to quit as opposed to being fired so that's best one of the best ways to get rid of person is to make the work life miserable we mentioned some issues that could help balance this family life situation and so one of them talks about how lot of younger folks are delaying marriages and so this reduces their housework burden lot of couples are delaying their having children until later on and when their career when they're bit more settled well you know but those are all into individual decisions that people make and you know most people don't know if it's most but would would assume that most people have great pressure from family or society to reach these certain milestones yeah you know in my in my class ask students the question of what do they believe is the best time for people to get married yeah and you know in my anticipation is you could never establish the best time because it's different for each person and and it could be never right but that was never mentioned it was always in the mid-20s when you know and from my standpoint it's like wow that is really early to be married you know because once usually marriage happens i'm not sure what the numbers are but you know from my experiences within year or two that's when the children start to come if they decided to have children and so marriage is not just marriage just kind of kicks off you know the rest of your life and to do that in at such what would say young age it's almost like being pressured to do something before you're cognitively able to really figure out what you're actually doing and then it just happens to you they quote this page well like you like we discussed on whether people discuss you know if they want children when they want children do they discuss with their partner about their future expectations of who's going to do this child rearing and so on they had they quoted pew research center survey where they they talked about how women would prefer not to have to work full full-time and would actually prefer to be able to work part-time probably assuming that they could meet you know their obligations right and and assuming this this is based on another gender normative kind of perspective that women are valuing perhaps more of their time spent with their children and their family but it was interesting to note in the same survey that three-quarters of father think full-time job is ideal for them so men's expectations of wanting to work for the partnership have not changed you know speaking speaking from the point of view of cisgendered man that has always been the top of like an identity of what manhood is you know one could say manhood is protection and things like that but to me number it's like making you know it is it is provide being provider even if it's providing for yourself mean you know that's you know lot of work as it is to provide for yourself not that dependent on someone and would say from social perspective even more pressure for men because women have that you know the whole child rearing the child birth you know women have have the children always say like if either men or women or just men could have children things would be shifted so differently you know so our society is does is rooted in the biological differentiation and what that means you know in perpetuating society yeah they mentioned on page 425 just that when father does stay at home it's usually because he's lost his job and it wasn't quite choice he didn't choose to give up high paying job to stay home with the child children but he lost his job and therefore now it makes economic sense for the woman to continue working and they have him at home saving them 15 000 year in child care expenses yeah so it makes sense but probably he's concerned about his masculinity and how his his neighbors and friends are judging him about his masculinity but again like we like we talked about earlier the power differential shifts significantly yes you know it's one thing to have an equalitarian relationship which believe is important shift for all of society but then if we shift from men having the power differential because of income and then women having that you know feel like there would be significant response to that if it started to happen there was section in that previous chart 11.7 where they had maybe it's don't know 15 15 total think of women who are earning more than men and they broke it down you know five to ten thousand more 10 to 30 000 more 30 to 50 000 more and wife earns 50 000 more still 5.1 percent and so imagine the different power dynamics within those households than does that does that really shift and how do the gen larger gender expectations maintain those gendered expectations yeah the woman is making so much more than the man feel it feel that would play out in more ways than just economics it would play out the personal dynamics yes play out in sometimes men lash out in those situations absolutely they're feeling you know emasculated and so they start to attack that person or perhaps that's when the man cheats on his wife becomes abusive or becomes angry and strained all that absolutely and i'm glad you mentioned that because celebrities sometimes when the woman you know holly berry becomes very successful yes man kind of exerts you know backlash at the academy awards was on the top of the world career accomplishment had wonderful husband beautiful daughter thought this must be what having it all is and i'm 35 and got it you know and then 10 days after that this article comes out and the article said that eric was having an affair with woman of his past didn't even ask him if it were true said i'm going to sue this magazine have had it yeah i'm gonna spend all my money i'm gonna own star magazine yeah yeah was done was done never even asked him the question if it were true just got into sue mode yeah and about week later he finally saw that was in su mode and he said need to tell you something that article is true that article is true and it's heartbreaking because had perfect marriage mean this is one of the kindest men think i've ever known and saw you all together and was like whatever that is want some of that there's definitely going to be backlashes for women much more than men especially because of the constant disruption that happens when you have children in the home all day it's in in there's you know obviously in order to get certain work done it needs focused time and and it'd be interesting to see if there is you know heterosexual married couples and they did have an extra room they're both working at home and the children are there would probably think that men would probably get the private room before the woman you know in in you know kind of in conclusion of the chapter it is is not just moral dilemma you know that's that's it is it is moral dilemma but that's not it's moral dilemma it's an economic dilemma it's every aspect of modern society is impacted by the relationship between families and work right and you don't see it going away anytime soon unless companies that employ people you know take progressive steps towards solving the problem and allow government you know force government to follow as opposed to the other way around so that's quite real challenge for for our for our society for the companies and and for them it's challenge but you know ultimately it's just like one of those things you know being sociologist and all you see is problems that are just never solved and you know there's thinkers there's thinkers and in in all diff disciplines that can contribute to the solutions right it's kind of like system that just does not want to bend and it continues to replicate itself much like you know the richest people you know in society that replication is happening at the institutional level and it's unabated it's log jam think it's important just for you know our students to really kind of think about these things deeply and and talk to their partners and future yes about the division of labor and just how they can really work towards you know achieving these objectives so that everyone has chance to have fulfilling career have their chosen types of family formation and so on you feel empowered to advocate for these things that you know are moralistically possible that are economically possible and not put yourself in position where you feel powerless especially before it all happens you know think about it like you would not go on vacation without kind of planning where you're going to go where you're going to stay what you're going to bring but we jump into into the families and the work world and then we try to figure out afterwards here you know so this is good time to really think about what that trajectory could pos possibly look like in your home and then if it's your home and their home and their own their home ultimately it becomes it will start to reproduce itself and we will see huge social change know that's very idealistic but am idealist well thank you so much for joining me today in our discussion of chapter 11 work and families working family you