Work in Institutional Arenas
Three different words refer to several types of work. The first category is care work, which entails work done in person to improve another person’s abilities. Maintenance work is required to keep a household running smoothly. Market work, or work done by employees for payment, is the third type. The phrase “system of care” explains how a society completes the necessary care labor and housework to structure our ideas about how these types of work are related.
The expansion of market work in the care system has been the major development in the area of work and family during the past 50 years or so. Most women were required to work outside the home for the first time in history. The three decades after 1960 saw the most rapid transformation as the percentage of women in the labor force rose from roughly one-third to three-quarters.
Housework and Child Care
Feminist social scientists have maintained for many years that one of the main causes of gender inequality is the division of unpaid work among households. Not only did the balance between men and women change, but married couples spent less time overall on housekeeping, reducing the gender gap. When a couple is married, less housekeeping is done, and the husbands do more. We observe a comparable shrinking of the gender difference among married couples with children when we concentrate on child care.
Researchers looking at why there is such a persistent gender gap have discovered consistent trends in the division of unpaid work within households. The fact that women execute so much more of this work than males seems to be explained by three key characteristics within couples: time, resources, and gender. The division of labor is therefore justified by many spouses as a means of preventing conflict, despite inequality being a major cause of conflict in many households.
Conflicts and Solutions
The increase in women’s employment over the past fifty years has exacerbated conflicts between responsibilities to one’s family and one’s career. The structure that allowed men to support families with their wages and women’s unpaid labor was shattered. Researchers discovered the issue of work-family conflict as they came to explore this tension methodically. Even though married couples often seem to receive the most attention, the growing number of single mothers faces the greatest work-family conflict. The “motherhood penalty,” or the loss of earnings women incur after having children, is another cost of work-family conflict.
Something needs to change, given the prevalence of work-family conflict, the time and financial demands of intensive parenting, and the conflicts over the gender distribution of unpaid labor at home. Specifically, either families or how people balance work and family in their lives must change. Finding new sources of harmony between work and family is difficult, but obstacles still stand in the way of each endeavor. Several observers think substantial government intervention is required, given the apparent deadlock. The key policies are offered: family leaves, working hours, and early childhood care.