Gender and Families

Question 1

According to social science research, who is more likely to believe in finding a “soul mate”?

Answer 1

men

Question 2

Who is more likely to file for divorce?

Answer 2

women

Question 3

Who is happier when they are married, on average?

Answer 3

men

Question 4

Why are women less satisfied with marriage than men?

Answer 4

• The gendered nature of housework and childcare.
• The incongruence between what people say they want in a relationship and how they actually split housework and childcare and paid work in reality.

Question 5

What is the number that most closely reflects how many breadwinner-father/stay-at-home mother families that we actually have in the United States?

Answer 5

about 12%

Question 6

Are the majority of mothers with preschool children are in the paid labor force today?

Answer 6

Most women (80%) are in the paid labor force, including mothers of preschoolers (65%).

Question 7

Which term, first introduced by Arlie Hochschild, is used to describe all of the shopping, cooking, cleaning, homework, bill-paying, and laundry that has to be done after working all day?

Answer 7

Second shift

Question 8

Which of the following is viewed by the dominant American culture as “feminized labor?”

Answer 8

Caring about cleanliness was feminized.
Doing masculinity meant not caring, or at least pretending not to care, if the house was clean
had to come up with some motivation
When asked by those who cared more about cleanliness to participate more, gender policing; “I’m not his wife.”

Question 9

In Kathy Gerson’s study of 18-34 year olds, in what way did the majority of men and women say that they wanted to structure their marriage relationships?

Answer 9

Only a minority wanted to do this by gender; most said they wanted a relationship with “flexible gender boundaries” (80% women and 70% men), where there is sharing rather than specialization.

Question 10

Compared to 1965, men are doing: more or less housework or childcare?

Answer 10

men do 2x as much housework and 3x as much child care.

Question 11

compared to 1965 are women working outside the home more?

Answer 11

Women are working outside the home 3x as many hours Women do 50% of the housework that they used to do in 1965.

Question 12

When combining the number of hours of paid and unpaid labor, are men or women or neither doing significantly more work?

Answer 12

both women and men spend about the same amount of time on paid and unpaid work combined. Mothers: 53 hours a week; Fathers: 54 hours a week.

Question 13

Who is doing more of the paid labor? Men or women

Answer 13

men 37 hours a week in paid labor compared to women 21

Question 14

1. Who is doing more of the unpaid labor? Men or women

Answer 14

women 2/3 of the unpaid 32 hours a week on housework and child care compared to men 17

Question 15

Who is more likely to say that this proportion of sharing work is unfair? Men or women?

Answer 15

women (11% of women say it is fair, compared to 45% of men.)

Question 16

Why do couples develop asymmetry and specialization in their work when they had intended to share the load equally?

Answer 16

Institutional and ideological pressures force couples into this asymmetry.

Question 17

Who is more likely to have a “neo-traditional” family model as a back-up plan, if the original plan for sharing doesn’t work out? Men or women?

Answer 17

neo-traditionalist men 70%

women 25%

Question 18

what are traditionalists?

Answer 18

those who believe that the husband should be the breadwinner and the wife the homemaker. The husband should be the “head of the house” and the wife should be “taken care of.”

Question 19

what are neo traditionalists ?

Answer 19

Women can work outside the home if they want to, but it is still their job to take care of the house and kids

Question 20

what do most people fit the category of?

Answer 20

egalitarians

Question 21

what are egalitarians?

Answer 21

want relationships in which each partner does their fair share of paid and unpaid work.

Question 22

What are the tenets regarding “Intensive Motherhood?”

Answer 22

Mothers should be the -primary caretaker of their children.

• Child-rearing should include copious amounts of time, energy, and material resources.
• Giving children these things takes priority over all other interests, desires, and demands.

Question 23

17. The ideology of intensive mothering is not only the dominant model of parenting in the U.S. today, but it has also been the dominant model of parenting throughout history and all over the world. True or false?

Answer 23

false

individual mothers care for children in only 20% of cultures

Question 24

What are the economic penalties that cost families money if both parents decide to work fewer hours and share the domestic work equally?

Answer 24

• health insurance is easiest to come by through full-time employment.
• Commutes between work, home, school, and child care tend to be long because of zoning laws.
• And there are tax advantages to having the income come from one spouse working, compared to two spouses working.

Question 25

“Greedy institutions”:

Answer 25

“Greedy institutions”: ones that take up incredible amounts of time and energy. Work and family qualify as “greedy institutions.” This makes it impossible for people to feel good about either role

Question 26

Do these penalties pressure couples into deciding to specialize their work (paid vs. unpaid) for the family?

Answer 26

After struggling with this, many couples find that it is easier to specialize: one person spend more time at work and the other specialize in the unpaid labor of the family.
In part, they reach this decision because they find that if both of them work part-time, the economic penalty is too high. Part-time work tends to be low-wage work

Question 27

What are the 7 types of labor in families

Answer 27

• Supermom and neo-traditional Dad
• Modern -Breadwinner/Housewife
• Outsourcers
• Turning Away from Work -Together
• Divorced Parents
• Going It Alone
• Childlessness