Households, Employment, and Gender: A Social, Economic, and Demographic View.

Abstract

Events of the past 30 years have profoundly transformed arragements governing love work and the their routinization in households and employment; yet some patterns endure relatively unchanged. This book draws from both economics and sociology and from the work of demographer in both disciplines. Chapter 1 summarizes the changes that have occurred in the postwar period chapter 2 presents a conceptual framework for understanding these relationships ant their evolution and the remainder of the book expands on this framework and applies it to explaining the relationships of household employment and gender in the postwar era. In addition 3 levels of integration are offered: 1) the integration of households and employment showing similarities and causal links between household and employment arrangements; 2) a conceptual framework that includes both individuals choices and constraints that limit and price available options and 3) an integration of economic and sociological views of employment demographic behavior and other household behavior. Results show that the assignment of child rearing and housework to women the sex segregation of jobs and the sex gap in pay have been much more resistant to change than fertility the double standard of sexual morality female employment or the volume of housework that is performed. Also dramatic increases in female employment rates along with modest changes in female occupational segregation and only very recent change in the sex gap in earnings are noted.