Karen A. Miller

Women and Work: The Psychological Effects of Occupational Conditions'

For employed women, job conditions that encourage self-direction are related to effective intellectual functioning and an open, flexible orientation to others, while those tha constrain opportunities for self direction are related to ineffective intellectual functioning and a rigid social orientation. Moreover, several types of job pressures and uncertainties are related to less effective intellectual functioning, unfavorable evaluations of self, or a rigid social orientation. These relationships do not result from social selection, pay, status, or social circumstances and personal preferences, and they are of magnitudes similar to those for men. Causal analysis demonstrates that job conditions not only correlate with but actually affect psychological functioning. For women, as for men, occupational conditions have a decided psychological impact.

Work for the Household: Its Nature and Consequences for Husbands and Wives'

This paper examines the conditions under which work for the household is performed, comparing these conditions and their effects with those of paid employment. Although there are some significant differences, the working conditions of housework do not differ greatly from those of paid employment. There are, however, as expected, marked sex differences in spheres of responsibility and activity. Wives are responsible for and actually do a vastly wider range of household tasks than husbands. In terms of its effects, housework has decided psychological consequences for women whether or not they are employed outside the home. Men are less affected by housework than women and in different ways. Employed women react similarly to similar housework and paidwork conditions; this is not the case for men. The pattern of findings is congruent with the hypothesis that responses to household labor, as to paid employment, are conditional on the imperativeness of work conditions. The fact that wives have greater housework responsibilities than husbands makes work in the home particularly salient for womens psychological functioning.

Are minority women sociologists in double jeopardy

We examine whether minority women in academic sociology face disadvantages that exceed those that would be expected by simply compounding the disadvantage of being a woman with that of being nonwhite or Hispanic. In a national survey of sociology departments, evidence of such “double jeopardy” appears in minority women’s severe underrepresentation among full professors, in both very small and very large departments, in undergraduate programs, in the Northeast, and in public institutions. Minority women are somewhat better represented among graduate students, but disadvantaged relative to minority men in their share of financial support. A pool of doctoral students now exists from which minority women faculty may be recruited, but these women appear to be leaving faculties faster than they are being replaced.

The Effects of Industrialization on Men's Attitudes Toward the Extended Family and Women's Rights: A Cross-National Study.

This paper assesses the impact of industrialization on men s attitudes toward extendedfamily authority and toward womens rights. Interview data were obtained in a larger study from male factory workers in India, Bangladesh, Israel, Nigeria, Argentina, and Chile. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identify two empirically distinct ideologiesbelief in independence from the extended family, and belief in womens rights outside but not necessarily inside the home. Multiple regression analysis shows that different aspects of industrialization have direct impacts on each of the two ideologies, but when total effects are considered, education and living standard are the primary determinants of both across several cultures.

Minorities and women in the pacific sociological association region: A Five-Year Progress Report

Based on a five-year follow-up survey of sociology departments in the Pacific Sociological Association region, we report trends in the representation of women and minorities among faculty members and graduate students. Although men continue to predominate at all but the lecturer/instructor level, women are increasingly represented on faculties overall, in tenured positions, and among the higher academic ranks. Proportionally fewer men and women are now in entry level positions than in 1979. Except for Asians, minority faculty continue to be poorly represented. Women now make up the majority of graduate students at both the masters and doctoral levels, but both the proportion and number of minority students have declined in five years. Still, despite sharply contracting enrollment, both women and minority graduate students receive a larger share of financial assistance awards than they did five years ago.