Chapter 13

Summary

Chapter 13 is titled “Balancing Work and Family Life.” Work in the United States is changing in the current economy due to things such as deindustrialization, globalization and offshoring. Deindustrialization has a lot to do with the advancement of technology and the lessening need for physical labor in factories. Globalization is the growing of industries internationally. Offshoring is the act of sending jobs and factory work overseas. In the current economy, the gap between the rich and poor is getting wider, and wider. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And throughout all of this, the middle class is struggling as well. The majority of the United States calls themselves middle class. While the middle class is managing to stay mildly in debt, the working class is seriously struggling. The working class typically has less education and therefore lower income and more likelihood to lose their jobs because they are not as valuable as someone who has an education.

The economy affects families in a few different ways. To keeps families afloat, some parents may be forced to take low-wage jobs with odd hours instead of more conventional hours. Some parents have to take on part time jobs instead of full time jobs and therefore are not paid as much. Or, they could not have a job at all and be forced to collect unemployment. Underemployed workers are defined as those who have experience and education but were laid off from their job and forced to take on a job that is below their standards. Poverty and the poverty line are also discussed in this chapter. Poverty is when a household makes less than $20,000 a year. The poverty line is what the government defines as how much money a family needs to make to have the essentials, in 2008 it was $21,834 for a family of four. Minorities and women have more problems with poverty because of gender and racial discrimination. Homelessness is a problem of poverty and the slow economy. Single men represent 51% of the homeless. Families that are homeless are about 30% and this comes from poverty, lack of education, domestic violence, and unemployment.

Women are participating more and more in the work force.  There are a lot of reasons for this. First, the economy is forcing a lot of women to go to work to support their family.  The family also receives more benefits if the woman works. Also, more women are going to college and therefore believe that getting a job and using their degree is important. But, the women are still having problems breaking through the glass ceiling which is keeping them from the highest paying and highest status jobs which are typically only held by men.

There are societal roles within marriage due to the idea that the man is the breadwinner and women are the homemakers. The two person single career is defined as a home where one spouse has a career and the other, typically the wife, helps out behind the scenes. Stay-at home dads do exist, but only about 4% of fathers are given this title. Typically it is temporarily for reasons such as disability or unemployment.

Two income families are not usually wealthy families; they have two incomes because it is the only way to give their families the necessities. Regardless of both parents working, it is usually found that the women are still responsible for all of the home needs such as cooking and cleaning.  A trailing spouse is a term used in the chapter given to a spouse that follows the other to wherever their job may be. The spouse that is following is usually giving up a job wherever they first were to do the following.  Computer marriages are another term coined in the chapter. These are situations in which one spouse is in a different location than another and they rely on technology to stay close and only see each other in intervals.

Inequality in the work place is a serious problem in today’s society. Women and minorities have a particularly difficult time. White and Asian men typically earn more and have a higher position than women and minorities. Motherhood is also detrimental to women in the work place. Women are afraid that they will lose their position or status in the company if they are pregnant and have to take maternity leave. Sexual harassment is also a problem in the work place. Women are typically the ones being harassed and usually don’t want to report on it because they are afraid of not being believed or if the man is in a higher position than she, that they will not believe her.

Work places have different policies for working mothers. Some places allow for telecommuting in which the mother works from home during the early stages of motherhood and some places allow for women to bring their babies to the work place. There is a law in place that says that women are not allowed to be demoted because of pregnancy but it still happens regardless of the law.

What I learned:

Through this chapter, I realized that I live in a two-person single career household. My father owns his own business and my mom plans the Christmas party for his employees and when he was first starting his business, helped him to network. However, as his business grew, she began helping him and getting paid by selling what’s called “pre-need” to my dad’s customers (my dad owns a funeral home and pre-need is usually bought during pre-arrangements for funerals)

Questions for discussion:

I was wondering how many women in the class value their career over a family? Or do you put them as equal? Can women have both? I have talked about Sex and the City before in my blogs but I feel like it covers so many questions brought up in the book. However, I couldn’t help but think about Miranda’s pregnancy and how she tried to hide it from everyone at her law firm because she wanted to make partner so badly. What do you guys think about the pregnancy penalty that a lot of women suffer?