Paula England

When Does Gender Trump Money? Bargaining and Time in Household Work

Using data from Australia and the United States, the authors explore the effect of spouses’ contribution to family income on how housework is divided. Consistent with exchange‐bargaining theory, women decrease their housework as their earnings increase, up to the point where both spouses contribute equally to income. In other respects, gender trumps money. The base level of housework for women is much higher. Among the small percentage of couples who are in the range where women provide 51%–100% of household income, the change in housework is opposite what exchange theory predicts: couples that deviate from the normative income standard (men make more money than women) seem to compensate with a more traditional division of household work.

The Gender Revolution Uneven and Stalled

In this article, the author describes sweeping changes in the gender system and offers explanations for why change has been uneven. Because the devaluation of activities done by women has changed little, women have had strong incentive to enter male jobs, but men have had little incentive to take on female activities or jobs. The gender egalitarianism that gained traction was the notion that women should have access to upward mobility and to all areas of schooling and jobs. But persistent gender essentialism means that most people follow gender-typical paths except when upward mobility is impossible otherwise. Middle-class women entered managerial and professional jobs more than working-class women integrated blue-collar jobs because the latter were able to move up while choosing a “female” occupation; many mothers of middle-class women were already in the highest-status female occupations. The author also notes a number of gender-egalitarian trends that have stalled.

Union Formation in Fragile Families

In this article, we use data from a new longitudinal survey—the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study—to examine union formation among unmarried parents who have just had a child together. We used multinomial logistic regression to estimate the effects of economic, cultural/interpersonal, and other factors on whether (relative to having no romantic relationship) parents are romantically involved and living apart, cohabiting, or married to each other about one year after the child’s birth. Net of other factors (including baseline relationship status), women’s education and men’s earnings encourage marriage. Cultural and interpersonal factors also have strong effects: women’s trust of men, both parents’ positive attitudes toward marriage, and both parents’ assessment of the supportiveness in their relationship encourage marriage. Supportiveness also encourages cohabitation, while fathers having a problem with alcohol or drugs and reporting higher conflict in the relationship discourage cohabitation. Fathers’ physical violence deters couples’ remaining in romantic nonresident relationships.

The Failure of Human Capital Theory to Explain Occupational Sex Segregation.

Predictions from Polacheks theory explaining occupational sex segregation are tested and found to be false. The NLS data do not show that women are penalized less for time spent out of the labor force if they choose predominantly female occupations than if they choose occupations more typical for males. Thus, there is no evidence that plans for intermittent employment make womens choice of traditionally female occupations economically rational. It is not surprising, then, that NLS women with more continuous employment histories are no more apt to be in predominantly male occupations than women who have been employed less continuously. I conclude that human capital theory has not generated an explanation of occupational sex segregation that fits the evidence.

The Cost of Caring

Caring work involves providing a face-to-face service to recipients in jobs such as child care, teaching, therapy, and nursing. Such jobs offer low pay relative to their requirements for education and skill. What explains the penalty for doing caring work? Because caring labor is associated with women, cultural sexism militates against recognizing the value of the work. Also, the intrinsic reward people receive from helping others may allow employers to fill the jobs for lower pay. Caring labor creates public goods--widespread benefits that accrue even to those who pay nothing. For example, if children learn skills and discipline from teachers, the childrens future employers benefit, with no market mechanism to make the pay given to care workers reflect these benefits. Even when the public or not-for-profit sectors do step in to hire people to provide such services for those too poor to pay, the pay is limited by how much decision makers really care about the poor. Finally, the fact that people feel queasy about putting a price on something as sacred as care limits the pay offered--as paradoxical as it is to pay less for something when it is seen as infinitely valuable!

CLEANING UP THEIR ACT: THE EFFECTS OF MARRIAGE AND COHABITATION ON LICIT AND ILLICIT DRUG USE*

We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to estimate changes in binge drinking, marijuana use, and cigarette smoking surrounding young adults’ first experiences of cohabitation and marriage. Both marriage and cohabitation are accompanied by decreases in some risk behaviors, but reductions surrounding marriage are larger and most consistent, particularly for men. Binge drinking and marijuana use respond to these events, especially marriage, but smoking does not.

Theory on Gender/Feminism on Theory.

How do various social theories explain gender inequality? In this collection of original essays, prominent sociologists discuss the strengths and the limitations of the theoretical traditions within which they have worked: Marxism, world system theory, macrostructural theories, rational choice theory, neofunctionalism, psychoanalysis, ethnomethodology, expectation states theory, poststructuralist symbolic interactionism, and network theory.

Accounting for Women’s Orgasm and Sexual Enjoyment in College Hookups and Relationships

This article investigates the determinants of orgasm and sexual enjoyment in hookup and relationship sex among heterosexual college women and seeks to explain why relationship sex is better for women in terms of orgasm and sexual enjoyment. We use data from women respondents to a large online survey of undergraduates at 21 U.S. colleges and universities and from 85 in-depth interviews at two universities. We identify four general views of the sources of orgasm and sexual enjoyment—technically competent genital stimulation, partner-specific learning, commitment, and gender equality. We find that women have orgasms more often in relationships than in hookups. Regression analyses reveal that specific sexual practices, experience with a particular partner, and commitment all predict women’s orgasm and sexual enjoyment. The presence of more sexual practices conducive to women’s orgasm in relationship sex explains some of why orgasm is more common in relationships. Qualitative analysis suggests a double standard also contributes to why relationship sex is better for women: both men and women question women’s (but not men’s) entitlement to pleasure in hookups but believe strongly in women’s (as well as men’s) entitlement to pleasure in relationships. More attention is thus given to producing female orgasm in relationships.

Desegregation Stalled The Changing Gender Composition of College Majors, 1971-2002

Gender segregation in baccalaureate degree fields declined rapidly in the first half of the period from 1971 to 2002; at the same time, womens representation among baccalaureate degree recipients increased most rapidly relative to mens. The desegregation of the early period resulted mainly from womens increased entry into business-related fields and declining proportions of women majoring in traditional fields such as education and English. Men did not contribute to integration by moving toward fields numerically dominated by women. Fixed-effects regression models suggest that feminization of fields discourages later cohorts of men from entering them, as predicted by the devaluation perspective. The stalling of desegregation came from a combination of mens disinclination to enter fields that are “too” filled with women, and the slowdown in women making less traditional choices.

IS THERE A SUPPLY SIDE TO OCCUPATIONAL SEX SEGREGATION

We examine evidence for supply-side explanations of occupational sex segregation, using the 1979–93 NLSY. Supply-side explanations, such as those derived from neoclassical economic theory and gender socialization, look to individual characteristics of workers, such as values, aspirations, and roles, to explain occupational outcomes. Contrary to human capital theory, we find no tendency for individuals with early plans for employment intermittency or more actual breaks in employment to work in predominantly female occupations. This suggests that women who anticipate breaks in employment do not choose female occupations because of lower wage penalties for time out of the labor force. A second neoclassical view, from the theory of compensating differentials, posits that women sacrifice some pay for “mother-friendly” features of jobs. Consistent with this, white and Latina mothers are in more female jobs than are nonmothers, but the opposite is true for African-American women. The gender socialization perspective posits a long-term effect of gendered attitudes and aspirations formed in youth. Consistent with this, we find that those aspiring to or expecting to work in predominantly female jobs are in more heavily female jobs fourteen years later. Also, for women (but not men), more liberal gender role attitudes predicts working in a more sex-typical occupation. For men (but not women), having had either a father or mother who worked in a female occupation predicts working in a more heavily female occupation.