Summary:
Chapter 13 is about balancing work and family life. It begins with a discussion of how each social class is faring in the economy. Basically, the rich are getting richer and everyone else is still struggling. There are many reasons for the struggling, like the fact that though minimum wage was raised in 2009, it’s comparatively lower than the minimum a few decades ago. Also, work hours are unconventional and there are more unemployed, underemployed, and unhappy workers. The book then goes into poverty and homelessness and talks about a lot of statistics about these two groups of people and what contributes to being so poor. Next are marriages and the differences in spousal economic roles in society. Attitudes are changing about where and who family income should come from, but there is still a lot of inequality in pay. Lastly, the chapter talks about policies that companies and jobs have to accommodate workers with families. Some policies let the parent bring a newborn to work for a period of time. Some let people adjust their schedules or work from home. There are many others also.
New Material:
Something new and interesting I learned was the fact that (by mid-2009) 126 U.S. companies let a new parent bring their child to work, usually up until it learned to crawl. I would think companies would frown upon this because I would assume a new baby could be distracting to employees for a lot of reasons.
Question:
My question is from page 367 where it says that 42% of men and 39% of women think that “it’s better for all involved if the man earns the money and the woman takes care of the home.” The percentages are lower than previous years, but why are they still that high?
In order to answer this question I feel that you have to look at the current comfort zones of the traditional family. For the majority of time, men have been the breadwinners of the family. It is not until recently that we find a serious shift in this thinking process. While I find no problem in a woman earns the money in a relationship, history still identifies the man as the spouse who should be earning the money.
ReplyDeleteI think the percentages are still very high because these are the traditional gender roles that society may believe in.
ReplyDeleteBrian Bitner
I believe the rates are still this high just because of the general culture that we live in and the "societal" and "gender" norms and stereotypes that have been embedded in our Country (for a long time too).
ReplyDelete