Focusing on the idea of work and how people’s jobs affect the family life, Chapter 13 begins by discussing the significance of work. Work is defined as the physical or mental activity that accomplishes or produces something, either goods or services. It is generally thought of that employment leads to better health and a sense of accomplishment and usefulness and is a major source of social identity. This chapter uses this idea and continues by discussing work in the contemporary United States. Within this section of the chapter it goes into depth about the deindustrialization, globalization and offshoring, and social class, wealth, and income. Here, deindustrialization is defined as the process of social and economic change resulting from the reduction of industrial activity, especially manufacturing. An interesting statistic that was brought along with this topic was that between 2000 and 2006, 20 percent of U.S. manufacturing jobs disappeared. Connecting to the idea of deindustrialization is the concept of globalization, which is the growth and spread of investment, trade, production, communication, and new technology around the world. There is a direct correlation between deindustrialization and globalization because the acceleration of deindustrialization was a result of globalization. This is also similar to offshoring, which is the sending of work or jobs to another country to cut a company’s costs at home. This is also sometimes referred to as international outsourcing and has been occurring since at least the 1970s. As for the topic of who gets the largest returns from their labor, it strongly falls onto one’s social class, which is a group of people who have a similar standing or rank based on wealth, education, power, prestige, and other valued resources. Here, wealth refers to the money and economic assets that a person or family owns and income is the amount of money a person receives, usually through wages or salaries, but can also include rents, interest on savings accounts, dividends on stocks, or the proceeds from a business. This section of the chapter discusses how the rich are getting richer. The richest 1 percent of the U.S. households hold double their share of the country’s total income. This also leads to the middle class struggling. The majority of Americans identify themselves as middleclass and when there is a severe economic downturn, middle class people may need to withdraw funds from their retirement accounts and other similar accounts to pay for everyday expenses, making them struggle. Similarly, the working class is barely surviving. Staying afloat financially is almost not an option for these people.
The topics of the different classes in the U.S. and their incomes nicely led to the next section in this chapter, how the economy affects families. Within this part of Chapter 13, low-wage jobs and nonstandard hours, along with part-time work, unemployment and homelessness was discussed. Low-wage jobs are jobs that are based on minimum wage. Discussed in this section were the differences between minimum wage and how it has changed over the years and also the working poor. The working poor are people who spend at least 27 weeks a year in the labor force but whose family or personal incomes fall below the official poverty level. This accounts for almost 26 percent of all workers. This section also discusses the nonstandard work hours. Here, these accounts for how many countries have workers that work almost around the clock whereas in the United States two in five people work weekends, evenings, or nights. The part-time work discussion focused on how the percentage of these types of workers was likely to increase because employers can then save on health care costs or other benefits. Following this section, the unemployment discussion discussed how the unemployment rate went from less than 5 percent in 2007 to more than 10 percent in mid-2009. Also within the discussion of unemployment were the discouraged workers. Discouraged workers are those some call the “hidden unemployed” who are people who want a job and has looked for work in the preceding year but has not searched in the past four weeks because he/she believes that job hunting is futile. These people are ignored in the unemployment rates along with the underemployed workers. Underemployed workers are people who have part-time jobs but want full-time work or whose jobs are below their experience, skill, and education levels. Also included in this section of the unemployed is a discussion of the effects of unemployment. On the other hand, poverty was discussed mentioning the difference of absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute poverty is not having enough money to afford the most basic necessities of life such as food, clothing, and shelter, whereas relative poverty is not having enough money to maintain an average standard of living. This brings us to the poverty line, which is the minimum level of income that the government considers necessary for basic subsistence. Anyone whose income is below this line is considered officially poor and is eligible for government assistance such as food stamps and health care. This section also covers topics such as children and older adults, who are experiencing poverty, women who experience poverty, and racial-ethnic minorities that experience poverty. About 69 percent of Americans say that money and wealth in this country should be more evenly distributed but that an equal percentage also believes that it’s possible to start out poor and get rich through hard work. The last topic of this section is homelessness. Within this section the characteristics of the homeless is discussed, including statistics on what types of families are homeless and what ethnicities are homeless. This also discusses some reasons families are homeless including poverty, lack of education or marketable skills, low-paying jobs, domestic violence, substance abuse, the inability of relatives and friends to help during crises, and a decline in public assistance.
Chapter 13’s next section focuses on women’s participation in the labor force. This section includes a discussion on the changes in women’s employment, why more women work, and if there are more women leaving the workplace. One of the key topics that this section mentions is the glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is a collection of attitudinal and organizational biases in the workplace that prevent women from advancing to leadership positions. Here, the book offers a solution to this; one should open up her own business.
The next section in this chapter revolves around the economic roles within marriage. Beginning with the two-person single career, this section discusses how one spouse, typically the wife, participates in the partner’s career behind the scenes, without pay or direct recognition. This section of the chapter also discusses the stay-at-home dads. Some of the reasons that dads become stay-at-home include them taking it by default. If this is the case, it means that they are unemployed or are not working because of poor health or disability. Some others are stay-at-home because they are retired, have remarried much younger women who are employed, or want a second chance to watch a child grow up. This section also discusses some of the benefits and costs to being a full-time dad. One of the costs mentioned was that they fear losing their business skills and their professional place in line, and they feel unappreciated by their working wives who may complain that the house is a mess. The next section is similar to the two person single career as it discusses two-income families. Within this part of the chapter, dual-earner versus dual-career families are discussed along with their differences and the gender roles and parenting that ends up being affected, along with trailing spouses, who are partners who give up their work and search for another position in the location where the spouse has taken a job. Two more sections of this part of the chapter are commuter marriages and when wives earn more. Commuter marriages are married partners that live and work in different geographic areas and get together at various intervals such as over the weekend. In 2006, 3.6 million married couples were living apart for reasons other than marital discord, representing almost 3 percent of all U.S. marriages. This
Chapter 13 continues with discussing inequality in the workplace. Some topics covered within this part of the chapter include women and minorities in the workplace along with the gender pay gap. The gender pay gap is also sometimes called the wage gap, pay gap, or the gender wage gap. This specific part of the chapter discusses some of the consequences society experiences along with the reasons behind the gender pay gap. Some of the reasons include women choosing fields with lower earnings, women don’t take promotions that require greater job responsibility, and that those women, especially those in professional, managerial, and executive positions, are being pushed out of the workplace or are getting stuck under glass ceilings. This section also mentioned comparable worth which means men and women should receive equal pay for doing work that involves similar skills effort, responsibility, and work conditions. Sexual harassment is also brought up in this section. Three types that the book includes are verbal behavior, which includes pressures for dates or demands for sexual favors in return for hiring, promotion, or tenure, as well as the threat of rape, nonverbal behavior, which are things such as indecent gestures and displaying posters, photos, or drawings of sexual nature, and physical contact, which includes things such as pinching, touching, and rape. These acts are usually perpetrated by a boss and directed at a subordinate of the same or opposite sex, and cuts across many types of jobs. It is found especially common in male-dominated occupations in which female newcomers are unwelcome.
The last major section of this chapter discusses families and work policies. This starts off with the topic of bringing babies to work, flextime, and telecommuting. Flextime is a practice that allows workers to change their daily arrival and departure times. Some employers endorse this because it decreases tardiness resulting from remaining home to see children off to school or leaving early to be there when the kids come home. Telecommuting is primarily working from home through electronic linkups to the central office. This is one of the more recent flexible work styles that allow parents to combine work and child rearing. This can sometimes be seen as aiding in the enhancement of productivity by reducing the number of trips to work, and slow offshoring jobs to other countries because more people work evenings, nights, and on weekends. Another major topic discussed in this section was the family and medical leave policies. This was taken into action in 1993 and allowed eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid annual leave with continuation of health benefits after the birth or adoption of a child, to care for a seriously sick family member, or to recover from their own illnesses. There was also a discussion on the care for dependents. Under this topic was child care and elder care and how the FMLA does not include elder care.
What was interesting/what did I learn:
Looking at the percentage of couples who are participating in commuter marriages I found myself to be shocked. Although 3 percent seems like a low number, that is still more than I would have imagined. To me, a commuter marriage seems like it would have a zero success rate and I personally would not be able to handle it. I understand the reasons they do it but was even more shocked when the book listed a benefit to a commuter marriage as being that couples believe they can devote more attention to their work during the week. Depending on where I am in a marriage, I could see being apart while holding a job could create more of a distraction and be more of a negative. It also was confusing to me because although the pay checks might be more rewarding to both parties involved in the commuter marriage, that it might not be that much of a difference when you factor in all of the traveling time that the couple would be doing to see each other. I was also a little interested as to why the book did not mention those couples who have a spouse in the armed forces. To me, these would be a prime example to a commuter marriage and could perhaps help readers not view it in such a negative light.
Question:
I found it interesting that the book suggested that in order for a woman to avoid the glass ceiling affect that a solution was to own one’s business. Although that sounds idealistic, realistically, that sounds almost impossible. What other ways could a woman avoid the glass ceiling?
Certain employers and certain fields are much more well known for being better or worse for this idea. In a field like law, it might be best to start one's own firm rather than attempt to obtain the position of partner (I had commented about this in more detail on Jade's blog). However, many employers do not exhibit this effect, which would allow women to advance in their careers without issue, and therefore relieve the need to own their own business in that field.
ReplyDeleteKarl Wahlen