Unit 3

Page 1

Gender and the World of Work

even if women have high representation, they earn less

Policy Recommendations for reducing gender wage gap, occupational segregation?

-incentivize companies to narrow hiring gaps

-mandate child care provision-HeadStart

-merit based/blind promotion policies

-annual reviews of pay for comparable position

-encourage women to take leadership

New Study by Shapiro et. al

-racial wealth gap 152,000

Biggest Drivers of Racial Wealth Gap

1. year of home ownership

2. household income (blacks dominate in fields least likely to have employer benefits/ every dollar increase in income for whites $5.19 increase in wealth, .69dollar for blacks)

3. unemployment

4. college education

5. existing wealth-White 5X likely for inheritance

Home Ownership

- residential segregation artificially lowers demand, a forced ceiling on home equity on homes owned in non-white neighborhoods

- due to family help, white families start acquiring equity 8 years earlier

-family help leads to lower mortgage interest rates

-homeownershup 28% higher

What policies can reduce the racial wealth gap? more integration in neighborhoods

- inheritance tax

-anti-discrimination in real estate

Nuclear Family

extended family

family of orientation-one you grow up in

family of procreation-family formed when couple have first child

Theoretical Perspective on Family

Functionalist

1. Economic production 2. socialization of children 3. care of sick and aged 4. recreation 5. sexual control 6. reproduction

- family in some form is universal bc all of these needs must be met

Conflict

Gender Analysis w/the Family

-who has power in the family? How is this power maintained and who benefits?

-"The first class opposition that appears in history coincides w/the development..."Engels

Symbolic Interactionist

-family micro-cultures

-storytelling is a common occurrence in family communication

Rational Choice

- Gary Becker, " A Treatise on Family(1981)

- marriage markets, demand for children, household production and division of labor

- parents invest in children as a retirement strategy by instilling guilt and a sense of obligation

Domestic Revolutions- A Social History of the American Family

The Family in History

ideal family?

Lessons from history

1. Families have always been fragile, vulnerable to economic stress, and needful of practical and emotional support beyond the nuclear family

2. Families reorganize themselves in response to social changes

3. the changes are not linear

- social change has changed families and we need to construct new family values and social support systems

-rather than trying to recreate some (largely mythical) "tradition

Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg, Domestic Revolution: A Social History of American Family Life

I. The Godly Family in New England

- btwn 1629 and 1640, 20,000 Puritans came to New England to establish religious community

- family life was not a private space, cut off from public realm

- economic production, religion, education, politics, welfare

Family Interconnections

- live-in servants

-high rate of marriage and remarriage

-intermarriage as a business strategy

-marriage was economic, not romantic institution

Family

- unquestioned patriarchy: father held power and representation to wider community

-wives expected to be submissive

-patriarchy rested upon control of property

-children economically dependent

Changes: 1640-1776

1. Diminished parental control over children's marriage

2. Diff. conception of childhood-freedom

3. redefinition of family functions

Africans in the New World

1. Came from Kinship-based societies

2. Affected by involuntary relocation to America(lost culture)

3. Gender imbalance on plantations, slaves were single

4. slave families constantly broken up by routine sales

5. slaves families not nuclear

6. slave families not organized around long-term monogamous married couples

These families adapted African cultural traditions to their new realities

used child-centered rather than marriage centered family systems

adoptive and fictive kin ties

ritual con-parenting

III. The Democratic Family

-marriage relationship emphasize companionship and mutual affection

-a more intense concern for proper upbringing of children

-a new division of sex roles, husband to be family breadwinner and wife to specialize in child rearing

Privatization of the Family

-families now more disconnected from public realm

-families went from being a microcosm of society to a counterweight against larger society

-it was a reaction to US rapid material and geographic expansion

-major role to rear children and provide emotional support to members

Transformation of Women's Roles

- profusion of women's magazines, glorified women as a purer than mean and more prone to sacrifice=cult of true womanhood

-growing contrast between increasing freedom of young single girls and constraint on married women

-new expectation conceding emotional fulfillment of family and married life.

IV. Industrialization and working class family

- Immigration to the US 1830s-1914

Effects on Family Life

- immigration strengthened family ties upon arrival

-living costs often exceeded wages of head of household

-took in boarders, women did housework, children worked

V. Companiante Family 1900-1930

- Signs of Crisis

1. discovery of high divorce rates

2. birhtrate dropping

3. "restlessness" of women- beginning to work but had to be submissive, shotgun marriage

=once reaction: increased regulation and a return to Victorian Family

A New Family Ideal

- new conception of 'companionate' family promoted by influential educators

1. spouses as friends

2. children as pals

- this is foundation for today's expectations

3 Forces Driving Change:

1. Economic: Changes in availability of resources and form of production

-> moved out from family, more psychological

2. Demographic, age distribution

3. Cultural: transformation of ideas about women's roles in society

The American Family since 1950

+Marriage, cohabitation, fertility and deviance

5 BIG Trends:

1. Delay in Marriage

2. Increase in Cohabitation

3. Increase in Divorce(today 50% marriage end in divorce)

4. Increase in Working Mothers

5. Increase in non marital fertility (blacks 70, white 30%)

white women 60% married

black women 39% married, marriageable pool is less

Promises I can Keep: Why Poor Women put Motherhood before Marriage

The Spread of Single Parenthood

Current Theories

-male earnings, low quality of men for marital pool

-female earnings, economic independence

-welfare, state has taken place of husband

Social role of Marriage and Children in Low Income Communities

-low-income Phila-area mothers who were single by virtue of non marriage or divorce($16,000)

Supplementary Data

Fragile Families Survey

Courtship

conceive in less than a year

her kids, his kids, their kids

"I want to have a baby by you" a high form of social praise

fathers want a blood tie w/the mother

contract initially, then stop when the relationship reaches "another level"

confidence from raising siblings and cousins

broken windows theory

The Pregnancy:

-65% neither planned nor avoided

-her "responsible" response? Deal with it.

-His response?

- denial of paternity

- pressure to terminate

-abandonment

-violence

-cheating

-ripping and running/partying

-cohabitation or breakup

THE MAGIC MOMENT:

-many survive or reunite at birth

-most see at least a good chance of marriage

-but see marriage as 4,5 years off

-strong rejection of shotgun marriage, but a shared child a powerful reason to stay together....Year 3, about 15% had married, 50% had broken up

Why so Few Marriages

childbearing and marriage are not decisions that "go together"

this doesn't indicate a disinterest in marriage, but rather, its a high symbolic value

high bar for marriage - economic and relational

Economic Bar:

Marriage= making it(symbol of success)

The "white picket fence" lifestyle- house, furniture, care, savings, debt payoff, decent wedding- middle class view

economic ability to set up household together is NOT enough(most already cohabiting)

not respectable to marry without meeting bar

New TWIST on Economic Bar:

mothers feel it necessary that both they and their partners are economically "set" prior to marriage. There is a STRONG aversion to economic dependence on a man

defense against patriarchal sex role expectations, defense against bad behavior, insurance against marital failure

Relationship Bar:

He, and she must be ready. Takes YEARS to attain

- mistrust high

- want partnership of equals/best friend

- normative demands of marriage higher than cohabitation

women worry man will feel more right to control them if married (more than if cohabit)

divorce is a "sacrilege"

Fragile Families Survey: Factors Encouraging Marriage by 1 year after birth

her education and wage rate

dad's employment and annual earnings

quality of couple relationship

pro-marriage attitude

man's general mistrust of men hurts

his kids by another mother hurt

All above are a net relationship status at birth(break up, visiting, cohabitation)

What Accounts for Break-Up?

financial instability/irresponsibility (25%)

criminal involvement(30%)

incarceration(20%)

substance abuse

infidelity(40%)

domestic abuse

W

What about the Kids?

Marriage is a lifelong quest, kids come along the way

will the baby's father rise to occasion? Hope so, but don't count on it.

What would your life be like without children

What Children do for Mothers?

-We expected mothers to mourn lost opportunities for schooling, career, and marriage

-instead they credited their children with virtually everything that was positive about their lives

-life before children marred by school failure depression, drugs, volatile personal relationships. Often described as "spinning out of control"

Opportunity cost isn't high- they have many disadvantages before

-Their children provide key social resources of -validation, purpose, love, order

Not

Not Just Pull, but Push Factors

- the stress of an impoverished adolescence breed a deep need for something positive to look to

-the loneliness, lack of direction, sense that life has spun dangerously out of control, create a profound drive to make life more meaningful

The Spread of Single Parenthood Revisited

The Poor are responding to a REDEFINITION OF MARRIAGE

Large Change in Family Values

Opposition to premarital sex fell from 2/3 to 1/3

opposition to cohabitation fell from 2/3 to 40%

opposition to nonmarital childbearing feel dramatically as well

opp. to divorce among couples w/children who just can't get along fell from half to 1/5

Marriage No Longer a Cultural Imperative

- sexual revolution, pill, acceptability of cohabitation, growing rejection of shotgun marriage and of notion that parents should stay together for the sake of child all weakened the cultural imperative to marry

-as marriage lost much of its practice significance, it could become more more symbolic and special in meaning

How the Rich and Poor have adapted to New Marriage Norms?

the middle class are delaying marriage more, participating in serial cohabitation/trial marriages more and divorcing mrs when marriage is unsatisfactory

the poor are delaying marriage and cohabitating and divorcing more too, but they are also marrying less

Why? Though the poor and middle class have same standard for marriage, poor are less likely to meet it

Meanwhile...A high rate of non marital childbearing

- children not marriage, education or career are center of meaning making activity

-this does not necessarily mean poor love children more,. Children rise to the top of the list of potential meaning making activities from mere lack of competition

legal system enforced child support law, but no law about rights for father to see the child if woman declines

Th

The Moral Hierarchy of the Poor

-for the poor, it is better to have children outside of marriage than to marry foolishly and risk divorce

Do the Poor have Deviant Values?

-most think marriage should come first, but these abstract ideas have little day to day relevance

-must balance these views against strong moral beliefs about marriage, must calculate risks&rewards of partners available to them

- a wait and see approach

Policy Message- as long as young women have few avenues for forging meaning and identity elsewhere, they will continue to have children sooner than most middle class observers think they shall, and in circumstances that are less than idea.

How do Inner City Men accomplish fatherhood?

- they accomplish it through serial fatherhood and selective fathering

Multiple Partner Fertility

-when they fail in their role performance with one child, they have another child with a new partner

-allows them to feel successful as father even as they leave some of their children behind

Pre-pregnancy period-pregnancy is the impetus to the relationship, not the outgrowth

similar to women

What does a good father do for his child?

-fatherhood ideals

- provide financially

- serve as disciplinarian

- moral guide

Fathering from a Deficit

- have a hard time enacting these ideals

- realized they have not earned respect of children, especially if they don't live in the same home

Low income father- relational role, getting women's role

for the poor the functions that a family is supposed to perform (economic and relational support) are now being reached before marriage through cohabitation. A family is a group of kin(genetic ties or initiated by marriage) having responsibility for the upbringing of children. Family started with wife and husband then kid, now the kid and mother make up the family first and the father slowly accepts his bond with them although he does not even live with them...

Now family is mainly centered around companionship- hence, the "companionate family." So mothers and fathers both want a meaningful relationship with their kids but not necessarily each other

Redefining Fatherhood- shift focus from traditional ideals

-embrace what they can do

1. Moral guidance

2. be more expressive, be a friend

3. spend quality time with kids

- redefining fatherhood from financial to emotional

Consequences of this redefinition:

not held fully accountable

not forced to change

lowers the cognitive dissonance over fatherhood failure

Positive Consequences of this redefinition:

allows for a more doable version of father hood, so it is not all or nothing

How is this redefinition received?

- rejected by mother

-rejected by state legal system

Why do People Move?

Old Answers:Push/Pull

Push: poverty, unemployment, famine, war

pull: high wages, better living conditions

Economic Model

-people move to maximize utility. They cease to move/return home if the cost/benefit relation changes.

Observed Patterns:

Predictions don't match reality

- wage differentials don't explain pattern of international migration

-emigration from poor countries increases as economic development takes place in the source country

Emigration as Part of the Development Process

-extreme poverty makes it impossible to move

- changes associated with development create uncertainty and pressures for household that result in migration

-early migration creates opportunities and lowers the cost for later migration

An Integrated Theory of International Migration- Douglass MASSEY

-not just push/pull factors

-why migration rates sustain themselves

*motivations, goals, and aspirations of Actors who migrate

- globalization has introduced network factors-easy to communicate

**culumative causation theory= self-sustaining networks, people independent of economic change

Forces in Developing Societies that Promote Emigration

penetration of capitalist market

displacement of people(unemployment)-changing patterns of agriculture and land ownership, rise of cash economy

risk rises with no institutional mechanism to deal with it

rural to urban migration rises

wage differentials increase

Structural Forces in Developed Societies that Attracted Immigrants:

post industrial transformations lead to segmented labor markets- primary labor market = steady work and high pay VS. secondary labor market=low pay, little stabilities and few opportunities for advancement

Global Cities: high wealth inequality, high demand for services

recruitment by employers

Motivations, goals, and aspirations of actors who Migrate-

§Households try to Manage Risk

§Accumulate cash for large purchases,

retirement, investment

§Cope with market failures by moving

overseas temporarily to send money home.

Social

and Economic Structures that Arise to Connect in/out Migration

§Recruitment

§Transport/Communication/Politics/Culture

§Foreign Policy/Military

§Migrant Networks

Theory

of Cumulative Causation

§Changes in Home Country

-Make it harder for an individual or

family to live without migration

§Changes in Receiving Country

-Lower the costs (economic and

psychological) of migration for each individual

Initial

Phase

§Capital penetration

§Market failure

§Social

Capital formation

§Cumulative causation

Next

Phase

§Level of migration reaches high levels

§Costs and risks of international

migration drop

§Movement is determined by wage

differentials and labor demand

Economic

Growth in Sending Regions

§International Wage Gaps Diminish

§Well Functioning Markets Develop for

capital, credit, insurance

§If trends continue, country becomes

developed, and shifts from exporter to importer of labor

§Historically 80-90 years. Now much

faster.

Douglas

Massey’s prediction :

§Economic and political trends suggest a

more restrictive immigration policy regime

§Global economy unleashes powerful forces

that produce larger and more diverse flows.

What

the Theory Does not Cover

-

§Skilled Professional Migration

§Refugees

§Role of State

Debate

about the Role of the State

§How much can the state control migration?

-Debate between Massey(state can't control immigration, even if they try, there are unintended consequences)(in egalitarian society constraints on the state, in states that don't stress human rights, has more control on immigration) and Zolberg(state has control, sometimes they don't have firm position)

§Was it the Immigration Restriction Laws

that stopped immigration or the depression and the world wars?

§The neglect of emigration policies.

§Communist Countries restricted emigration

§Cuba, North Korea strictly control

emigration

Immigration

Flows Result from More than Just Immigration Policy

§Trade Policy

§Foreign Policy

§Human Rights Policy

§Conflict Prevention

§Wars and Population Flows

§Regional Integration—NAFTA, European

Union

History

of Immigration

§Economic Considerations

§Need for labor above all else

§Race and Ethnicity—cultural issues

§Nationalism, Political Loyalty Threats

-Foreign

Policy Considerations

U.S.

Undocumented Immigrants

§Before 1965 it was not really an issue.

§1974 “Discovery” of 4-12 million.

§Apprehensions as

main source of data.

§1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act

(IRCA)

§1.75 million people working since 1982

§special agricultural workers 1.27 million

§IRCA

legalized 3 million

people

§Illegal

immigration current estimate 12 million people.

§Annual

inflow 500,000 per year.

§60%

cross the border

§40%

overstay their visa

§After

entering country, 1-2% chance of being caught.

The

6 states home to 60% of unauthorized immigrants in 2012

Why

Do Americans Care About Undocumented Immigrants?

Prop

187 in California 1994 :

§Passed by a 3-2 margin.

§Denies Public K-12 and college education

to undocumented immigrant school children.

§Cuts off publicly funded non emergency

medical care, welfare benefits and social services to illegals.

-§Struck down by courts. Education restrictions not implemented.

Arizona

SB 1070

§The Support Our Law Enforcement and

Safe Neighborhoods Act

§Seen as one of the toughest anti-illegal

immigration laws in the history of the U.S.

§What does the law do? racial profiling, externality->immigrants in Arizona moved to other states

peopl

people feel composition of US is changing

President

Obama’s Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals Plan

Language

Assimilation

§Is English in danger?

-Are immigrants and their children

learning English?

§How does language change occur?

§Is bilingualism good or bad?

§Three

generation model. First generation

learns some English. Second generation

is bilingual but prefers English. Third

generation is monolingual in English.

§Historical

exceptions--Germans, French Canadians, Cajuns.

§Coercion:

schools, Americanization campaigns

§Individual

Choice: role of employment, residential integration.

Huntington:

§The persistent inflow of Hispanic

immigrants threatens to divide the US into two peoples, two cultures and two

languages. Unlike past immigrant groups,

Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream US culture,

forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves—from LA to

Miami—and rejecting the Anglo Protestant values that built the American

dream. The US ignores this challenge at

its peril.

§The debate about language does not pay

attention to the empirical evidence.

§Language assimilation is massive, but

hidden due to ongoing immigration.

§Coercive policies could backfire, among

later generations English is triumphant with no policy or effort.

Language Switching:

§Generation patterns

-First generation

-Dominant tongue used instrumentally, esp for

work

-Dominant tongue is language of work

-Immigrants dependent on dominant language

speakers

-Mother tongue used in other domains

-First generation monolinguals or limited

bilinguals

§Second generation

-Mother tongue heard/used at home

-Conversation with parents and other 1st generation relatives

-Early childhood: hearing and speaking

-Later childhood/adolescence: hearing

-Speaking in dominant tongue

-Dominant tongue used in all other domains

-Children are “passive bilinguals”

§Third generation

-Dominant tongue used at home and outside

home

-Minor mother tongue persistence

-Terms of affection, slang

Switching produces shifting

§Language shifting a social process

§Consequences of variations in ethnic

density/ethnic social structure->Greater social isolation, greater

linguistic isolation

->Greater exposure to mother tongue, slower

linguistic shift

->Greater exposure to dominants, more rapid

linguistic shift

-Language

and the contexts of reception

- Bilingualism

and assimilation §Segmented

assimilation hypothesis (Portes, Rumbaut,

Zhou):

§Blingualism may

encourage retention of ethnic culture and identity

§Bilingualism

reduces conflict within immigrant family

§Empirical

evidence:

-Mixed

-Bilingualism

may only matter when parents cannot communicate in English

Latino Language Assimilation:

§Third generation Cubans: 75% speak only

English at home.

§Third and later generation Mexicans 60%

speak only English at home.

§Third and later generation Dominicans

50%.

The

Second Generation Prefers English

Disjuncture

Between Scholarship and Public Debate

§Scholars find that bilingualism is good

for cognitive development.

§Scholars worry that children lose

parental language too quickly.

§Universal finding of rapid switch to

English.

§Why are Americans worried about English?

Transnational

vs

National Logics

§Rise in emigration in one country means a

rise in immigration in at least one other country.

§Unlike trade policy, immigration policy

is formed in a unilateral way.

What

IRCA did

§required employers

to attest to their employees' immigration status.

§made it illegal to unknowingly hire or

recruit unauthorized immigrants.

§legalized certain seasonal agricultural

illegal immigrants.

§legalized illegal immigrants who entered

the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously

with the penalty of a fine, back taxes due, and admission of guilt.

§Had to prove that they were not guilty of

crimes, were in the country before January 1, 1982, and had to have maximum

knowledge about U.S. history, government, and the English language.

§It was an attempt to solve the

immigration problem during 1986

§About three million undocumented

immigrants were granted legal status.

Conclusions:

Conclusions:

- 1. U.S. Immigration Policies have had unintended consequences across country- militarization of the U.S. Mexican border, Mexicans stay in US

2. need for labor influences US immigration policy

3. Immigrants are assimilating at least linguistically in US

4. Nativist responses to immigrants is not new- it is part of US history

- Whites were hostile to Irish, Wiley Chinese

marriage is just in a different place in the formation of the family

a disjuncture between their goals of less abortion and divorce and reality-so the poor still face high rates of divorce

femanization of poverty

Cont. Inequality

Family

Promises I can Keep

Doing the Best I Can-: Fatherhood in Inner City

International Migration