Joya Misra

Reconciliation Policies and the Effects of Motherhood on Employment, Earnings, and Poverty

Abstract We examine the consequences of welfare state strategies on womens economic outcomes in ten countries. These strategies are 1) the primary caregiver strategy, focused on valuing womens care work; 2) the primary earner strategy, focused on encouraging womens employment; 3) the choice strategy, which provides support for womens employment or caregiving for young children; and 4) the earner-carer strategy, focused on helping men and women balance both care and employment. We analyze the effects of motherhood and marital status on employment rates, annual earnings, and poverty rates. Our study suggests that the strategy taken by the earner-carer strategy may be most effective at increasing equality for both married and single mothers.

Work—Family Policies and Poverty for Partnered and Single Women in Europe and North America

Work—family policy strategies reflect gendered assumptions about the roles of men and women within families and therefore may lead to significantly different outcomes, particularly for families headed by single mothers. The authors argue that welfare states have adopted strategies based on different assumptions about womens and mens roles in society, which then affect womens chances of living in poverty cross-nationally. The authors examine how various strategies are associated with poverty rates across groups of women and also examine more directly the effects of specific work—family policies on poverty rates. They find that while family benefits and child care for young children unequivocally lower poverty rates, particularly for families headed by a single mother, long parental leaves have more ambivalent effects. The findings suggest that it is critical to examine the gendered assumptions underlying work—family policies rather than viewing all work—family policies as the same.

Work-family policies and the effects of children on women's employment hours and wages

Welfare state generosity around work-family policies appears to have somewhat contradictory effects, at least for some measures of gender equality. Work-family policies, in encouraging higher levels of womens labor market participation, may have also contributed to lower wage-levels for women relative to men, for instance. We consider the relationship between particular work-family policies and mothers’ employment outcomes. Analyses use data on employed women aged 25–45 from the Luxembourg Income Study for 21 countries across Eastern and Western Europe, North America, Israel, and Australia. We estimate within each country differences in employment hours and wages for women based on their number of children. Then, we examine the association of estimated per child penalties in wage and employment hours with country-level data on leaves and childcare. Work-family policies are generally associated with positive employment outcomes for mothers, relative to childless women. Work-facilitating policies such as childcare for young children have decisively positive effects on mothers’ employment hours and wages. Work-reducing policies, such as parental leave, however, can have positive effects if the leaves are moderate in length, but tradeoffs if the leaves are long.

The globalization of care work: Neoliberal economic restructuring and migration policy

Abstract Significant scholarly research has focused on the ‘globalization of care work’, or how care has been distributed and redistributed in an international system where immigrant workers provide care in wealthier countries. We argue that nation-states, through a range of contradictory policies and bilateral agreements, explicitly create and reinforce the redistribution and internationalization of care work. We show how economic restructuring has helped create both demand for and a supply of immigrant care workers, while migration policies have played a key role in shaping migration flows. We examine two dyads of sending and receiving flows: Morocco/France and Poland/Germany. These cases share both similarities and differences, which allows us to consider how the global political and economic processes shaping the international division of care work play out in different contexts.

Employment Chances in the Academic Job Market in Sociology: Do Race and Gender Matter?

Do employment chances for academics differ based on the gender or race/ethnicity of the job seeker? We use data from a sample of positions in sociology filled during the 1991–92 school year to determine whether European-American women, minority women, and minority men are advantaged, disadvantaged, or similarly placed in relation to European-American men. We find no evidence suggesting that European-American men are significantly disadvantaged, or disadvantaged in systematic or serious ways, vis-à-vis these groups. Among our most interesting findings is the discovery that minority men and women tend to be hired in positions newly created by the university while European-American women are significantly more likely to be hired in positions created when someone has been denied tenure. We conclude that disadvantages are beginning to level off, but they still exist for European-American women, minority men, and most especially minority women.

Work–Family Policy Trade-Offs for Mothers? Unpacking the Cross-National Variation in Motherhood Earnings Penalties

Recent scholarship suggests welfare state interventions, as measured by policy indices, create gendered trade-offs wherein reduced work–family conflict corresponds to greater gender wage inequality. The authors reconsider these trade-offs by unpacking these indices and examining specific policy relationships with motherhood-based wage inequality to consider how different policies have different effects. Using original policy data and Luxembourg Income Study microdata, multilevel models across 22 countries examine the relationships among country-level family policies, tax policies, and the motherhood wage penalty. The authors find policies that maintain maternal labor market attachment through moderate-length leaves, publicly funded childcare, lower marginal tax rates on second earners, and paternity leave are correlated with smaller motherhood wage penalties.

Catholicism and Unionization in Affluent Postwar Democracies: Catholicism, Culture, Party, and Unionization

We build on a structural model of union density to construct a model of unionization in industrialized democracies that specifies a causal role for Roman Catholic culture. We consider the population size and political orientation of the Catholic laity, and the influences of political institutions, in particular Christian Democratic parties. We use generalized least squares regression analyses to evaluate pooled time series for 18 affluent democracies from 1961 to 1985. Our analyses show that, on average, Catholic population size tends to repress unionization. However, Christian Democratic party strength appears, on average, to augment unionization. Moreover, consistent with Wuthnow (1989) and others, the extent of Catholic political organization appears to generate prounion political orientations and Catholic influences on the memberships in Catholic unions. As Christian Democratic party strength increases, the effects of Catholic population size on unionization shift from being inhibitive to being supportive.

All Fun and Cool Clothes? Youth Workers’ Consumer Identity in Clothing Retail

Retail offers notoriously bad jobs that exist at the nexus of work and consumption. Previous brand-based retail studies assert that youth workers see the stores’ coolness and the employee discount as compensating for the low pay and variable schedules. The authors use interviews with 55 former and current young clothing retail workers to examine how they experience retail work in relation to their consumer identities. The authors find that while some workers identify with the brand, all workers criticize the poor working conditions. Workers draw on their consumer identities to understand what good service entails and sometimes to resist managers’ orders that they interpret as bad deals for shoppers. This article concludes that youth retail workers’ consumer identities do not compensate for the low pay and poor work conditions but instead help them navigate the interactive aspects of service work and find fulfillment on the job.

Do Family Policies Shape Women’s Employment? A Comparative Historical Analysis of France and the Netherlands

Do family policies influence women’s employment rates? Differences in women’s employment rates, particularly for women of childbearing age, appear to be associated with the complex of work-family supports available to families. In this chapter we explore differences in women’s employment in France and the Netherlands over recent decades, taking a comparative-historical approach to examine the factors that shape women’s employment. We ask whether family policies actually drive women’s employment, or whether they may be better understood as responses to women’s employment patterns. At the same time, we explore alternative explanations for the variation in women’s employment — including the economic conditions that may drive women’s employment and cultural differences regarding gender, care, and work. While quantitative approaches may identify associations across a range of countries, we argue that comparative historical methods are best suited to exploring historically situated relationships among policy, politics, economics, culture, and women’s labor market participation.

Introduction Well, How Did I Get Here?

In this introduction to Gender & Society’s symposium on Patricia Hill Collins’s path-breaking work on intersectionality, I reflect on how the symposium contributors have used intersectional perspectives in their own work, and on how Collins’ conceptualizations have shaped interdisciplinary scholarship more broadly. I also take this opportunity to present my own vision as the new editor of Gender & Society, and to reextend this journal’s longstanding welcome to all who work to expand and deepen our understanding of the workings and effects of gender, in societies around the globe.In this introduction to Gender & Society’s symposium on Patricia Hill Collins’s path-breaking work on intersectionality, I reflect on how the symposium contributors have used intersectional perspectives in their own work, and on how Collins’ conceptualizations have shaped interdisciplinary scholarship more broadly. I also take this opportunity to present my own vision as the new editor of Gender & Society, and to reextend this journal’s longstanding welcome to all who work to expand and deepen our understanding of the workings and effects of gender, in societies around the globe.