Jerry A. Jacobs

Overworked Individuals or Overworked Families? Explaining Trends in Work, Leisure, and Family Time

Although debates over the growth of work-family conflict tend to center on the experiences of employed parents and dual-earner couples, analyses of trends in working time typically focus on individual workers. We reexamine the debates regarding the growth of working versus leisure time and then analyze trends in working time by focusing on the combined paid work of family members. We use the 1970 and 1997 Current Population Surveys to investigate the distribution of working hours across dual-earner couples and single parents. Our findings demonstrate that the shift from male-breadwinner to dual-earner couples and single-parent households, rather than changes in the length of the workweek per se, have created growing concern for balancing work and family. This analysis suggests that debates over conflicts between work and family need to focus more on the combined work schedules of family members than on changes in individual work patterns.

Who are the Overworked Americans

This paper analyzes three trends in working time in the United States over the last thirty years. First, we document an increasing bifurcation of working time, with growth evident among those working both long and short hours. An international comparison also shows that the United States stands out as having among the highest percentage of workers putting in 50 hours per week or more. Second, we argue that there is a mismatch between working time and the preferences of American workers. On average, those working very long hours express a desire to work less, while those working short hours prefer to work more. Third, we maintain that the sense of being overworked stems primarily from demographic shifts in the labor force rather than from changes in average working time per se. Even in the absence of a dramatic rise in time spent on the job, the growth in the proportion of American households consisting of dual-earner couples and single parents has created a growing percentage of workers who face heightened time pressures and increased conflicts between work and their private lives.

Overworked Faculty: Job Stresses and Family Demands

Do professors put in very long workweeks solely out of a love of their work, or do expectations for teaching and publishing essentially require a sixty-hour workweek for the successful completion of the job? How do faculty members reconcile the demands of an academic career with the realities of family life? Drawing on a large national survey of postsecondary faculty conducted in 1998, the authors examine the length of the workweek by analyzing its relationship to faculty dissatisfaction with their workload. The authors find evidence that many professors are dissatisfied with their workload. Moreover, dissatisfaction increases among those working the longest hours. The data also indicate that very long hours on the job greatly contribute to research productivity. The very long hours demanded by faculty jobs thus pose a dilemma for parents who want to spend time with their children and their families. The authors conclude by suggesting that the challenge is to create a set of expectations for academic employment that are compatible with responsible parenting in dual-career couples.

Long-Term Trends in Occupational Segregation by Sex'

This paper reexamines long-term trends in occupational segregation by sex, using the double-coded 1900 and 1910 Public Use Samples. The analysis addresses the ambiguity in the measurement of longterm trends that arises from using inconsistent or highly aggregated occupational classifications. The revised measures indicate that occupational segregation by sex remained quite constant from 1900 through 1970, although segregation in nonfarm occupations declined slowly. Occupational sex segregation declined between 1970 and 1980 and continued to decline through 1986. An accurate assessment of historical trends is a necessary starting point for theoretical explanations of occupational sex segregation.

Gender, the Welfare State, and Public Employment: A Comparative Study of Seven Industrialized Countries

This paper explores the influence of government employment on the gender gap in earnings in seven countries, using data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). The size of the public sector and womens concentration in government employment varies widely across industrialized countries. We develop and test predictions about how the public/private earnings differential varies across countries. The results indicate marked variation across liberal, conservative, and social democratic welfare states, but reveal a number of uniformities as well. We find that public-sector workers earn more, on average, than those working in the private sector in most countries in our sample. The smallest public-sector earnings premia are found in the social democratic countries and the largest are evident in the liberal welfare states. Thus, public employment provides relatively few but comparatively high-paying jobs for women in liberal welfare state, while the social democracies government positions are more numerous but comparatively low-paying. We discuss the implications of these results for theory and research on gender and the welfare state.

Gender Differentials in Intermarriage Among Sixteen Race and Ethnic Groups

This paper examines gender differences in out-marriage rates in the United States among 16 race and ethnic groups. Among most groups of Asian Americans, females are more likely to marry whites than are their male counterparts, the reverse of the pattern among African Americans discussed by Merton (1941). We find some Hispanic-American groups in both camps. We explore whether the greater contact between white U.S. military personnel in Asian countries explains the pattern of Asian white marriages. We also introduce a new statistical approach that facilitates comparisons across multiple race and ethnic groups. Data from the 1% sample of the 1990 Census are analyzed in this study.

The academic life course, time pressures and gender inequality

In this paper we examine time pressures facing faculty members in the USA, especially assistant professors. We consider whether the strategy of sequencing life events, specifically ‘tenure first, kids later’, is a viable strategy for faculty today. We draw from the 1998 National Survey of Post‐Secondary Faculty, which includes data on over 10,000 full‐time professors in US universities. We examine the amount of time faculty work on a weekly basis. We then consider the ages of assistant professors. We also document the prevalence of dual‐career marriages in academia. Next we document the patterns of parental responsibilities among assistant professors, and examine the impact of marital and parental status on time devoted to professional responsibilities. We also discuss the impact of time pressures on job satisfaction. This analysis is designed to highlight the challenges of designing more family‐friendly professional positions without recreating or reinforcing gender disparities in earnings and professional status.

Trends in Occupational and Industrial Sex Segregation in 56 Countries, 1960-1980

This article examines trends in sex segregation by occupation and industry in 56 countries. International Labor Organization (ILO) data from roughly 1960 to 1980 for both developed and developing countries are included in the analysis. Evidence presented suggests that these data are reliable measures of the direction and rate of change in segregation. It was found that a majority of countries experienced declines in sex segregation between 1960 and 1980 and nearly all countries experienced declines in a size-standardized measure of segregation. A striking asymmetry in the experience of these changes for men and women was also found. In the great majority of countries, men experienced an increased chance of sharing an occupation (and industry) with women during this period, whereas women often (but not always) experienced a decline in the chances of being in the same occupational (and industrial) group as men. Finally, the article examines the effects on segregation of per capita GNP, womens labor force participation, the total fertility rate, womens educational levels, and urbanization, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. The regression results are generally inconsistent with the predictions of the modernization perspective.

Childhood Religious Conservatism and Adult Attainment among Black and White Women

The resurgence of conservative religious groups over the past several decades raises interesting questions about its effects on womens life chances. Conservative religious institutions promote a traditional understanding of gender within families. Womens beliefs about appropriate family roles, in turn, influence their preparation for market work and the timing and extent of their labor force participation. Using retrospective data from the National Survey of Households and Families, this paper examines the effect of childhood religious affiliation on American womens acquisition and use of marketable skills, focusing on womens educational investments, family formation behavior, labor force participation and wage attainment. Results show that childhood religious conservatism is associated with diminished human capital acquisition and earlier family formation for White women with more muted results for Black women.

The Faculty Time Divide

This uniquely interdisciplinary study offers a provocative, contemporary look at the ‘Woman Question’ in relation to higher education at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Leading feminist scholars from a wide variety of perspectives and disciplines — including history, philosophy, education, psychology, sociology, and economics — evaluate the role of biology, discrimination, and choice in rationalizing women’s exclusion from fully participating in the process of knowledge production, as well as examining institutional impediments. Contextualizing arguments against women’s inclusion and including contemporary perspectives on gender, this book offers a rich, multi-layered examination and critical insights into understanding the near universal difficulties that women encounter as they seek to participate fully in the process of knowledge production.