Work-Family Arrangements

• Diversity of work, family, and work-family arrangements are nearly endless in society
• Work-family arrangements include diverse situations from high paying jobs with failing marriages to poor jobs with strong family fulfillment
• Individuals in the same work-family configuration may still differ on the fit of the arrangement to ideals and personal goals
• Work-family arrangements depend on the roles, resources, demands and values for each worker

People to Consider

• Charlotte is a work-centric professor

• Bill is a manufacturing worker who is neither work-centric nor family-centric

• Devon is a family-centric childcare employee

• Identifying and understanding variations in work-family arrangements are important for supporting diversity

• Social responses should be informed by diversities of contexts

• Barriers limit the capacity to achieve personally defined goals in both the workplace and home

• Social markers such as age, marital status, race, ethnicity, and orientation affect opportunities and careers

• Social markers intersect in important ways

• Combinations of statuses can affect career prospects and family relations

• Diverse values and preferences are an important aspect of diversity

• Women's career paths are commonly different than men's

• It is problematic to make proclamations that gender values drive gendered career paths

• Values can guide people when faced with strain

• Question if values explain career paths or if values are formed by work and family contexts

Work-Family Gender Ideologies

• Belief that men and women belong in separate spheres is a legacy of the industrial revolution

• Work-family gender ideology is the extent to which someone supports division of paid work and family responsibilities based on separate spheres

• Beliefs that men and women should inhabit separate spheres affects decisions on work and family responsibilities

• Individual work-family gender ideologies are internalized cultural beliefs about a gendered division of work and family

• Encouraging egalitarian work-family gender ideologies can lead to a greater demand for gender equality by women and men

• Values influence assessments of the quality of one's situation

• People may follow certain options not because values direct them to, but because options to follow those values are constrained

• Gender role beliefs are one of the most common explanations for men's and women's differential commitment to work or family

• Traditional gender role attitudes assert that young children are better off if mothers stay at home

• Egalitarian values hold that gender should not determine tasks inside or outside the home

• There has been a shift away from traditional attitudes and toward egalitarian attitudes among both women and men

• Structural barriers prevent achievement of egalitarian goals

• Divergent values and internalized priorities influence personal investments in work and family, known as preference theory

• Estimates of women who are "work centered" meaning that primary sources of identity and value are in the workplace is roughly 20%

• Estimates of women who are “home centered,” meaning that preferences center around children and family throughout the life course is about 20%

• The remaining 60% of women are categorized as “adaptive,” wanting to combine work and family but not totally committed to their careers

• Only 10% of men prefer to be home centered, 30% prefer adaptive lifestyles, and 60% prefer work-centered lifestyles

• The labor market structures of the 21st-century economy enable women to shape personal investments according to their values

• Disparities in women's and men's careers are primarily a consequence of men and women wanting different things, according to some studies

• Criticism against preference theory exists

• Kathleen Gerson found that most women in early adulthood want career, children, and spouse

• Faced with the choice of giving up one of these items, the most common response was to give up the husband

• Evidence highlights the malleability and extent of gender differences

• Pamela Stone revealed that women who “opt out” of high-powered careers still had feelings of ambivalence

• The path chosen may not reflect what they wanted as much as a selection made in consideration of constraints

• The shift from a social order organized around clear gender differences to one with blurring gender boundaries represents one of the great revolutions

• New conflicts and uncertainties on how to combine work, family, and parenthood have emerged

• The central focus of the author's work has been to address the sources, meanings, and consequences of the profound social revolution since the 1970s

• There is evidence that younger generations have largely benefitted from growing up with employed mothers and more involved fathers

• Families with flexible gender arrangements are better equipped to weather the challenges of unpredictable change

• New generations generally support more egalitarian work and family arrangements

• Aspirations are thwarted by time-demanding workplaces and privatized caretaking structures

• The answer is not to turn back the clock but to finish the gender revolution with flexible job and career paths

• Gender gaps are usually small among values relating to work and family and can disappear entirely

• Analysis reveals that values regarding work are the same once differences are taken into account

• Variation in values is far more pronounced within than between genders

• Women and men are converging in their divergences of what they want from their careers and their families

• Approachs to ease work-family tensions include limiting diversity or supporting diverse values

• Some advocate for policies that reward families that fit ideal work-family arrangements

• Some find inequality as a positive strategy of managing work and family commitments

• Most women and men want equality inside and outside of the home

• Diverse structures guide people in their ability to act on diverse values

Diverse Employment

• Instead of identifying a "typical" worker, identify stress points common to substantial portions of the labor force
• Four areas of diversity to consider are industry/occupation/job variation, compensation, work availability/schedules, and risk/insecurity

Industry/Occupation/Job Variation

• In 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics Standard Occupational Classification System (SOC) identified 840 occupations
• The Bureau of Labor Statistics also identified 1,176 detailed types of employers with the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)
• Assessments of the quality of work can differ
• Important to consider how the configuration of occupation and industry influences compensation
• Subcontracting services have a remarkable impact on intrinsic and extrinsic rewards received from work
• Occupations define a general range of duties, however, specific job assignments vary in degree of emphasis
• It is important to know occupation and industry and to understand variation in assignments and the ways jobs are structured
• Common and specific concerns emerge among similar types of workers and employers
• Fulfillment of work and families will play out differently depending on work organization

Compensation

• Attachment to the labor force is the means to achieve economic security
• A "winner takes all" system is in place, with jobs in the primary labor market offering more compensation and benefits
• Part-time employment and jobs in the secondary labor market provide far fewer resources
• Even in winning positions, economic resources are not always substantial as paychecks might suggest
• Need to recognize not only money inflows but also the extent earnings match family needs
• Wage structures in the United States are regulated in a manner that limits economic security
• Federal minimum wage in 2012 was $7.25 per hour
• In 2008, 1 in 20 workers (6%) could be classified as working poor
• Workers are disproportionately women, racial minorities, younger adults, and the less educated
• Calculations reveal that full-time workers in most locales need a minimum of $11 per hour to attain housing, nutritious food, and other necessities for their families
• Quality of life varies substantially even for those in the middle class
• To accommodate dual-earner arrangements, families buy two cars, purchase childcare services, and rely on costly prepared foods
• Most parents expect their children to go to college, and parental incomes are the primary source of financial support
• Quality of life may not be enhanced to the extent that a simple analysis of paychecks might suggest

Work Availability and Schedules

• In late 2012, the global recession that began in 2008 continued
• Official national unemployment rate in the United States in late 2012 was 9%
• Approximately 1 in 5 workers would be willing to trade away some pay for shorter hours
• Today, conditions of work poverty (not enough work), work affluence (sufficient work), and work overloads (too much work) coexist
• These contexts shape the challenges and successes of managing work and family roles
• Less than 40% of employees in the United States work a full-time daytime schedule
• Employment in jobs with nonstandard schedules can help people serve family needs
• These alternate arrangements can introduce strains
• Newly married workers who have young children and work nonstandard shifts are five times more likely to divorce than comparable workers who labor standard shifts

Spousal Income Inequality

• The past several decades have witnessed the narrowing and reversing of a number of gender gaps
• Both women's labor force participation rate and earnings stand at approximately 80 percent of men's.
• Dynamic analyses of career and family trajectories and their interrelations is important
• Resolution of work-family strains requires considering variation in employment access, the volume of work as weighed against off-the-job demands, and how work schedules overlap with family schedules
• Staffing needs of employers need to be considered by rethinking questions and providing community support

Risk and Insecurity

• Many workers worry about the prospect of job loss
• Pervasive job insecurity is built into the ways jobs are designed and managed
• Whereas employers used to expect enduring relationships with their workers, employers now strive to “right size” their workforces
• Reliance on contingent workers and shorter-term contracts has increased
• Not all workers are in precarious positions
• Dual-earner couples face unique concerns
• Risk shapes work and family lives
• Access to resources varies widely with job loss
• The capacity to form a successful family life is enhanced by the capacity to exert control in maintaining predictable employment
• Rethinking supports that people may need to gauge career prospects, manage gaps in employment, and navigate toward new opportunity horizons is important

Diverse Families

• Challenging the archetype of the "typical" family is important when understanding family structures
• Describing different ways of understanding family structures and how these structures give shape to the work interface is important
• Introducing life course perspective and understanding family careers is important
• It becomes apparent that there are so many types of families and caregiving situations
• Looking at sources of strain and how tensions can be eased is required

Kinship Structures

• Core residency is needed to be a member of a family, as defined by the U.S. Census

• Family is not determined by official standards but by personal understandings of relationships

• The Standard North American Family or SNAF vision of what a family should be, has limited understanding of work-family connections

• SNAF idealizes nuclear family self-sufficiency and frames alternate family structures as inferior

• This thinking shapes critical evaluations of specific types of family structures such as out-of-wedlock birthrates in the African American community

• Stack revealed that the movement of children adapt to economic strain

• Gerstel argued that reliance on extended kin relations is underrecognized and that departures from the family structures idealized in the culture are not a threat to work attachment

• Family and kinship networks are critical to the performance of work

• Kinship ties are not only resources, but can also operate as constraints.

• Full understanding of work and family connections requires consideration of the ways people define their families

• Coverage is not provided when worker familial commitments extend to broader kin networks

• Most common health insurance is directed to families that conform to a heterosexual nuclear family structure

Caregiving Structures

• Caregiving obligations can be brief, sporadic, intense, or prolonged.
• Obligations can be extended to children, spouses, parents, and broader kin networks.
• People are sandwiched and provide care to younger and older generations at the same time
• One means of provision is performed directly by family members
• Greater strain is placed on women's careers than men's due to gender imbalance in care work
• In contrast to hands-on family care, outsourced care relies more on the provision of financial resources

Work-Life and Parents of Children and Youth With Disabilities

• The challenges faced by parents of children and youth with disabilities when attempting to integrate work and family can overwhelm even the most resourceful.
• Fluctuations in the child's physical and mental health symptom severity, lack of disability-specific childcare resources, inflexible work arrangements, and stigmatization are among the significant barriers to effectively knitting together these two life domains.
• Stories were universal to parents of children and youth with all types of disabilities
• Understanding parents' experiences and needs in tandem with those of employers is essential to bridge the gap in workplace supports
• Integrating personal and cultural values is important when examining caregiving structures
• The issue of eldercare and the evaluative judgment of the best means of providing this care is another concern

Families in the Life Course

• Adds the dimension of time to family diversity

• Key concern is to understand how circumstances and choices affect subsequent options, choices, and experiences

• Understanding now is to understand how the circumstances present and choices made at one stage of life affect subsequent options, choices, and experiences

• Careers are understood in respect to work-related outcomes

• A career can be thought of more broadly to include educational and family progressions

• Understanding divorce affects the financial status of women more than men requires understanding earlier decisions

• Observation reveals how trajectories can be identified

• Life course research is sociological

• Perspective considers meso-level and macro-level concerns

• Perspective informs issues of diversity

• Workers are not a homogenous group

• Recognising arrangement types opens up questions

Work, Family, and the Gendered Life Course

• Aimed to work full time continuously from the time they left school to when they retired
• Those who could follow this path reaped security, advancement, and benefits
• Unequal pathways represent what is called "gendered life course"
• Few can follow the traditional lockstep path
• Needed are public and organizational policies promoting flexible career options

Summary

• Values, employment conditions, kinship structures, caregiving arrangements, and life course progressions are far too varied to create a “one size fits all” solution to the easement of work-family tensions
• The need to recognize new types of diversity are primary reasons why people continue to struggle to find ways to harmonize work with family
• The challenge that lies ahead involves reshaping work and family institutions