Julia A. Heath

To market, to market: imperial capitalism’s destruction of social capital and the family☆

The market, far from being the sine qua non for modem society in general, and the family in particular, has eroded the social fiber that gives shape and resilience to the experiences of individuals, families, and ultimately, the market itself. Reviewing both historical and feminist analysis of the family in a capitalist market society, it is clear that the modem market is imperial. Not only does it transform every human interaction into a transient market exchange, it undermines the basis for social reproduction through the family. Using the concept of social capital as a primary analytical tool, this paper argues that the distinction between home and market labor has been unnecessarily polarized, limiting policy options. Thus, societys ability to produce and maintain long-standing social networks is put at risk, paradoxically reducing the markets ability to perform efficiently.

Family Work Trends and Practices:1971 to 1991

Families are allocating their time in an increasingly market-oriented fashion, with a decreasing proportion of labor hours being devoted to unpaid work. This article analyzes two aspects of the changing allocation of time. First, using longitudinal data from 1971 to 1991, the nature of the changes in how the families have changed their allocation of time between market and non-market alternatives is examined. Next, how family types have changed their allocations over the same period are examined. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics is used for this analysis.Results of this research indicate that the proportion of time spent on household labor among men has increased over individual mens life cycles and between cross-sectional cohorts. However, women continue to devote more hours to household labor than men. The number of hours women spend in the labor force are increasing, but the number of hours women spend in the labor force is still less than the number of hours men spend in the labor force. While the families in the longitudinal analysis have been able to maintain fairly stable work and income patterns, the cross-sectional data indicate that families need to devote an increasing number of hours to the labor market to maintain economic stability.

Income elasticities of educational expenditure by income class: The case of Japanese households

Abstract Using data from Japanese households, this paper calculates the income elasticities of educational expenditure, allowing the elasticities to vary non-monotonically with household income. The paper explores whether income elasticities for education peak in the middle-income categories (have a value of greater than one), and diminish for the lower and upper ends of the income distribution. The results indicate that income elasticities for education follow this basic pattern, but do not fall below one for lower income categories, and become negative for the highest income categories.

Patriarchy, Family Structure and the Exploitation of Women's Labor

The authors present a case for including the patriarchal model into the analysis of female labor force participation in the United States. They argue that only if it is assumed that the division of labor and distribution of goods and services are structured to benefit the male head of the family can various trends be explained, including the low relative income of women compared to men, the increase in female labor force participation without a corresponding increase in household work by men, and the increasing number of divorces initiated by women despite the fact that divorce increases female poverty.

The Work of Families: The Provision of Market and Household labor and the Role of Public Policy

This paper examines the ability of the family to perform both its economic and institutional functions in todays economy. We argue that individual and family choice with respect to paid and unpaid labor is severely limited. This lack of alternatives in work is generated by three social forces that shape the economic landscape: (1) a tradition rooted in patriarchy; (2) the market system; and (3) the social policies of the state. We create a framework within which the work of families can be analyzed over the past two decades. The analysis is based on data from three waves of the PSID: 1972, 1983, and 1992. Three family types—dual-earner, male-earner, and female-earner family structures—are examined for the nature and intensity of the work effort, the change in labor commitment over time, changes in real income and hourly earnings, and the effect of the increasing encroachment of the market on the familys distribution of labor between the two spheres. Finally, the work of families is examined within the context of the social policies of government, including a review of the institutional difficulties of providing family friendly policies in the current social environment.

Escaping the Fate of Sisyphus: Bargaining, Divorce, and Employment in the Patriarchal Family

A radical bargaining approach, the Sisyphus Syndrome paradigm, is offered as an alternative to the neoclassical treatment of womens labor force participation and divorce incidence. In this paradigm, women who do not participate in the wage system remain in marriages because of the dearth of viable alternatives. The results from a simultaneous equation model, using data from first and second marriages, support the Sisyphus Syndrome paradigm, and offer a more realistic alternative to the traditional treatments of family behavior.

The Effects of Tuition Level and Financial Aid on the Demand for Undergraduate and Advanced Terminal Degrees.

Abstract This paper examines what is known about the effects of tuition level and financial aid on graduate enrollments and the stock of scholars with advanced terminal degrees. The demand for education is not defined in the traditional way as first year enrollments. Rather, a simultaneous equation model is developed which explicitly formulates the interrelated nature of the several demand functions representing progression through higher education. Within this framework, the findings from several statistical and methodological approaches to the demand for education can be analyzed, with a view to reaching a consensus as to the effects of tuition and financial aid at each stage of the choice process.

The Impact on Labor Markets of the Relative Growth of New Female Doctorates

The National Research Council [6] reports that in the last decade the total number of doctorates granted remained virtually unchanged while the percentage of women receiving these degrees increased. The increased representation of women among new doctorates is a relatively new phenomenon that has had several implications for the structure and operation of labor markets. In this article we explore a number of these implications for the labor markets of doctorates with degrees in twelve select fields. Our article begins with a description of the Survey of Doctorate Recipients, the data source upon which the subsequent analysis is based. It then examines the relative growth in the number of new women doctorates by field. The effects of this growth on the gender mix of the part-time labor force are considered, along with the question of whether the relative growth in the number of women part-timers was voluntary or involuntary. We then consider the impact of this relative growth on the unemployment rates of new doctorates and the impacts this may have had on the loss to society in the use of new doctorates. Our analysis concludes with a discussion of the question of whether the trends reported in this article are likely to persist in the next decade.

The Campus Parking Game: A Demonstration of Price Discrimination and Efficiency

This article presents a classroom game that allows students to directly experience the welfare improvements that can result from price discrimination. The demonstration uses a very familiar decision-making scenario, campus parking, to introduce the concept of price discrimination as well as reinforce the concepts of opportunity cost, consumer surplus, and search costs. This game can be used in a variety of classes, including principles, intermediate theory, industrial organization, or environmental economics, and can be conducted in a 50-minute class period with follow-up discussion in the next class.

Determinants of Spells of Poverty Following Divorce

Introduction Between 1967 and 1984, the proportion of single-parent families increased from 10 to 21 percent of all families (Congressional Budget Office, 1985). The poverty rate of all female-headed families in 1983 was 28 percent, compared to 8 percent for two-parent families. Female-headed households exhibit higher poverty rates than the elderly and disabled persons as well. Over one-half of black female-headed households fell below the poverty line in the same year (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1983). Although being a member of a female-headed household is not synonymous with being in poverty, the likelihood of a single-mother family being poor is much greater than for other demographic groups. In addition, the gap in the poverty rates between single-mother households and other groups has been widening over time (McLanahan, 1985; McLanahan, et al., 1987). This feminization of poverty has been the result of two factors: the improving economic health of other poor groups over time and the increasing proportion of people living in single-mother families (McLanahan and Garfinkel, 1989; Fuchs, 1986). While the feminization of poverty is a useful conceptual tool, the issue remains as to its root causes. Changes of family structure are by far the major cause of initial spells of poverty among female-headed households. Kniesner, et al. (1988) found that changes in family structure precede poverty spells in over 99 percent of the white single-mother families they studied, and in almost 97 percent of black families. Bane (1985) and Bane and Ellwood (1986), looking specifically at divorce, have estimated that 20 to 25 percent of the poor in the 1970s became poor as a result of changes in their family structure resulting from divorce. In a study of the economic health of women following divorce, Peterson (1985) found that failure to accumulate human capital was a significant factor in determining poverty status. He also found that, in general, nonwhites were more likely to be poor than whites and that human capital investments had less of an impact on the economic health of black female heads of household than their white counterparts. In addition, the holding of nontraditional attitudes about sex roles was correlated, ceteris paribus, with economic health following divorce. In this paper, we examine length of poverty spells following marital disruption for the resulting single-mother household. While never-married heads of household are also at economic risk, changes in family structure, particularly divorce, as discussed above, are significant determinants of poverty. For this reason, our analysis will focus on divorced women. Particular emphasis is placed on racial and cohort differences and the effect of womens accumulation of human capital on poverty status. Data and Model This analysis of the issues related to poverty following divorce uses data from the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS). The National Longitudinal Surveys consist of five age-sex subsets of the United States population represented by the samples mature men/women, young men/women, and youth. Each of the five groups is represented by a national probability sample of approximately 5,000 individuals (1,500 nonwhites and 3,500 whites). The Center for Human Resource Research at the Ohio State University generates the data by conducting interviews at least once every two years. The first sample comes from the NLS for Young Women and consists of women who were aged 14 to 28 in 1968. The sample contains women who were married as of 1968 and divorced before 1982, or single (or divorced) in 1968 but (re)married and divorced (again) before 1982. For individuals who were divorced more than once, the latest divorce is used in the analysis. The sample size consists of 192 whites and 99 nonwhites. The second sample is taken from the NLS for Mature Women, women who were 30 to 44 in 1967. The same criteria for inclusion in the sample (vis-a-vis changes in marital status) as outlined above were used. …