Halving it All: How I Did My Study

1
Halving it All How I Did My Study

• Recruited 429 couples by a letter to dual earner
  couples at daycares and schools in New England
• Word of mouth and snowball sampling
• Random sampling using a local telephone directory
• Result was 429 couples, each partner working at
  least 20 hrs a week and with at least one child
  under 18

2
Characteristics of sample

• 96 white
• Religiously diverse
• Averaged 2 children
• Average age of children 5 and 8
• Over-represent upper middle class

3
Initial telephone interviews

• Asked to interview each partner out of hearing of
  the other
• 15 minute interviews, asking about percentage of
  childcare by each, along with demographic
  questions
• Key question Considering everything that goes
  into parenting in a typical week, what do you
  do and what does your spouse do.

4
Face-to-face interviews

• Used the telephone interviews to choose 30
  couples in each of five groups for face-to-face
  interviews
• Equal sharers, where both agreed
• Potential equal sharers (at least one spouse
  reported husband doing 50)
• 60-40 couples
• 75-25 couples
• Alternating shift couples

5
Face-to-face interviews II

• Most participants interviewed at home
• All interviewed by Deutsch
• Interviews from 1-4 hours, averaging 2 hours
• Questions listed beginning p. 243

6
Equally shared parenting

• Many studies documenting that women, in the U.S.
  and in the world, do more than half of the
  parenting, even if
• They say they believe in equal sharing
• E.g. Hochschild, Second Shift
• They work comparable hours
• They make comparable incomes

7
My partner and I

• Intention to share equally
• First year after sons birth
• Deutsch No matter how intensely you love them,
  caring for small children full time is incredibly
  hard work, much of it stressful, boring, and
  isolating.
• By second year and move to Duluth
• Dad teaching and Mom in nursing school
• Momdad

8
Creating Equality at Home

• Deutsch As all parents do, they muddled
  through, adjusting as they go. Parenthood has
  the capacity to change peoples deeply held
  beliefs, relation to work, relationships with
  other people, and even ones identity. The
  magnitude of the changes parenthood entails
  almost always comes as a shock to new parents.
• I had a complete mental image of parenthood that
  didnt last twenty-four hours after Noah came
  home. Daniel

9
Creating Equality at Home

• Many of the equal sharers did not begin equal
  even if they did, making a success of it
  required conflict and compromise
• Equality from the 1st Daniel and Janet, pp.
  16-21
• Evolving into equality Kevin and Donna, pp.
  28-31
• Often still involved specialization
• Mary is more involved in their emotional lives
  
• He(Kevin) is one of the few who truly share the
  mental work of parenting.
• Often the woman has the higher standard of what
  constitutes good parenting (Dan and Kaelene)

10
Creating Inequality at Home

• Helpers Eric will do stuff, but he wants to be
  asked. Denise
• Sharers the men do more paid work but when they
  are available, they are every bit as involved as
  their wives.
• Slackers the men who relax while their wives do
  the second shift see p. 46

11
Creating Inequality at home

• Denise and Eric
• Denise I have greater needs as a nurturer.
• Eric Im either more selfish or I just dont
  have the patience. D needs to nurture Eric
  more ambition.
• Ethan and Peg
• Ethan I dont have the opportunity or the
  desire If I come home from work at six-thirty,
  seven, Im tired, basically fatigued.
• Peg Sometimes I feel like I have no time for
  myself ever There are days when I feel like Im
  just going crazy.

12
Creating Inequality at home

• Family myths?
• Denise promotes the myth that Eric is the one
  with ambition (although shes the one who went to
  graduate school)
• Hochschild and symbolic interaction. The need to
  justify inequality if youre going to accept it.
• Deutsch
• Notably absent from any of these explanations
  is any mention of male power in resisting the
  work at home.

13
Fighting for equality

• Dorothy I actually went on strike a few times.
• Roberta That is when we entered into our hard
  negotiations I think I sort of learned to talk
  backto sort of stand up for myself.
• Rita Of course we are always arguing about
  which way its tilted.

14
Fighting against equality

• A husband She probably wont sit still on a
  Sunday Shes not happy unless shes doing
  something. Im different. I can relax.
• Carol works 52 hours a week and also does
  virtually all the housework. When I asked how her
  husband responded to her desire for him to do
  more he said I just chuckle.
• she seems resigned, perhaps because his behavior
  seems so normal. I see it in a lot of the
  guys.

15
Relationships and power

• Groups Do your own questions on the two
  readings, but if you need more, try this one
  what creates power in an intimate relationship?
  What gives more power to one partner than the
  other in a marriage relationship (or domestic
  union)?

16
Conflict theory

• Power and social movements feminism as a
  stalled revolution(Hochschild)
• Emerson power/dependence theory power in
  relationships based on perceived needs and
  alternatives
• , Second Shift, Peter and Nina the economy of
  gratitude
• I just kind of do it. He helps much more than a
  lot of fathers help.

17
Strategies of Resistance to equality

• The raw spoken claim of male privilege seems to
  have become taboo. Instead Deutsch finds
• No initiative Ill do anything you want just
  tell me what.
• I have to direct him and its just easier for me
  to do it.
• Passive resistance the kids could be yelling
  and screaming. Hes just oblivious.

18
Strategies II

• Incompetence I wasnt as good as Roz. Rozs
  just good. Many of the women learn these skills
  after they are married and the men could too.
• Praise Shes wonderful as a mother. I feel
  lucky to have her as a partner because it takes a
  lot of the burden off me.

19
Strategies III

• Different standards Women often care more about
  keeping the house neat. Why?This probably needs
  to be compromised. But what about childrens
  needs?
• Denial the husband who says he does 35 (she
  says 25) and thinks hes great, probably
  compared to his father
• Deutsch The myth implicitly promulgated by
  these men is that their wives do the work at
  home because they notice it, theyre better at
  it, and they enjoy it more.

20
Symbolic Interaction

• The larger cultures assumptions about women who
  work too much and men who share equally.
  Coworkers, bosses, mothers-in-law
• Creating a new social world
• ¾ of the equally sharing fathers know someone
  else doing the same
• Only 18 of the 25-75 fathers
• Equal sharers actively work to create this
  alternative world.

21
Why Couples Dont Practice What They Preach

• Gender equality often just doesnt feel right?
  Intellectually I believe all the right things. I
  dont always feel them correctly? Why?
• Deep-rooted cultural images about women and
  children, men and work
• Implicit messages from coworkers, parents, peers

22
Women and Mothering

• One mother discovered a very strong gut feeling
  of wanting to be part of her childrens lives in
  a major way. Another woman said of her infant
  daughter I want to be with her every minute.
• Yet for every unequal mother who told me she
  found infant care immensely satisfying, I found
  many more who were desperately unhappy during the
  years they spent at home without paid work.

23
Men and work

• Jobs were often seen as a given, nonnegotiable
  part of mens identities.
• Many occupations have some room for limiting
  hours, but almost always at a cost in terms of
  advancement
• Deutsch Male investment and female
  disinvestment in jobs fuels the inequality in
  parenting.

24
Switching places??

• D Two other mothers I interviewed, happily
  working part-time, saw themselves as relatively
  advantaged compared to their husbands Both women
  claimed their husbands would love to change
  places with them.
• Despite these mothers claims, their husbands
  werent the least bit interested in changing
  roles.

25
Functionalism

• Institutions are interdependent
• Trends in the economy
• Deindustrialization, globalization, and wages
• NOW, Oct. 24, 2004 In 48 of 50 states
• industries adding jobs paying less than
• industries losing jobs (30 less in Minnesota)
• Female work force participation
• Chart 1. Married women, by age of child
• Chart 2 By age, 1970 and 1990

26
Hochschild The Time Bind

• Research basis 3 summers of fieldwork at a
  Fortune 500 company in Wisconsin (1/3 of workers
  and ¼ of managers women)
• Corporation identified by Working Mother magazine
  as one of ten most family friendly companies in
  America
• Interviewed top and middle managers, clerks,
  factory workers (N130) qualitative research.

27
Employee survey, mid 1980s

• It is hard for me to manage my work and
  family/personal responsiblities 75 of women,
  50 of men
• My health suffers as a result of meeting both my
  work and family responsibilies 60 of women, 50
  of men
• By 1990, 84 of its employees with children under
  13 had no stay-at-home spouse

28
Package of family-friendly reforms

• 1. High quality childcare, childcare for sick
  children, before- and after-school programs,
  referral for elder care
• 2. Part-time work, job-sharing, flexible hours,
  work as home as employee options

29
Paradox

• Amercos workers consistently reported being
  strained to the limit.
• The company offered policies that would allow
  them to cut back.
• Almost no one took the policies in fact, most
  people she talked to seemed to be increasing
  their hours!

30
Possibilities

• Men and women need to work long hours to support
  their families.
• Not supported by national studies of which
  mothers return to work quickly and which take off
  a year or more (28)
• Fear of being laid off
• Little fear expressed by Amerco employees
• Hours of work just as long in divisions not
  downsized as in divisions that had been downsized

31
Possibilities II

• Perhaps employees know that the official line
  about work friendly policies is just for show
• Amerco employees generally believe their CEO is
  sincere
• Some middle managers seemed more dubious but
  supportive managers had only a few more
  part-timers, job-sharers, and flex-time workers

32
Family values and reversed worlds

• Linda I usually come to work early just to get
  away from the house. So I take a lot of
  overtime. The more I get out of the house, the
  better I am. Its a terrible thing to say, but
  thats the way I feel.
• Home as the place where you emphasize efficiency
  work as the place you like to hang out.
• A pattern that is predominant in about 1/5 of
  Amerco families and an important theme in over
  half.

33
Top Managers

• Bill The people at the top are very smart, they
  work like crazy, and dont flame out.
• Hochschild The twelve top managers I
  interviewed all worked between 50 and 70 hours a
  week.
• About their parenting If you had it to do over
  again, would you do anything differently? I
  dont know. I cant answer that. Probably not.

34
How would you define commitment?

• I dont think we can get commitment with less
  than fifty or sixty hours a week. Thats what
  other corporations are doing.
• Just because a few women are concerned with
  balance doesnt mean we change the rules. If they
  chose this career, theyre going to have to pay
  for it in hours.
• What about women managers who have children? I
  dont know how they do it.

35
Back to Deutsch Alternating Shift Workers (30
of her couples)

• Among dual-earner couples with children under 15,
  51 have a parent working a non-day shift
• Often a very equal division of family work and
  paid work
• But a very different set of values and
  motivations than most of the upper middle class
  equal sharers

36
Why work alternate shifts?

• Finances
• Childcare options
• I get nervous having to trust somebody. Theres
  too many crazy people out there.
• I dont let people outside my family watch my
  kids.
• Values We both have the same understanding of
  how we want to raise our kids, with all the same
  goals and values.

37
Traditional gender ideology

• Men are the breadwinners, agree both spouses,
  although a number of the women earn more per
  hour.
• The mother is the primary parent, and again both
  spouses agree.
• Husbands tend to maintain that their wives work
  only out of financial necessity many of their
  wives disagree.

38
Impact on fathers

• No father has changed more than David. David and
  Theresa have been alternating shifts longer than
  any of the other couples. Today David looks like
  the model of the new man. Hes learned the
  practical skills of taking care of children, has
  become more emotionally tuned to them, and has
  developed a different understanding of mens and
  womens roles in the family.

39
Egalitarianism

• Despite the ways in which these working-class
  men and women assert traditional gender
  identities, it is important to note the
  egalitarianism of their lives.

40
Equality Works

• Deutsch Equality is good for children. It is
  simply easier for two devoted parents to meet
  childrens needs
• Equal sharing can strengthen a marriage because
  family work, when shared, becomes a bond rather
  than a barrier to intimacy.
• Hochschild, The Second Shift Regardless of their
  reasons for doing it, the couples in her study
  who shared the second shift were the happiest in
  their marriages.

41
What needs to change to make equal sharing more
possible?

• Careers are designed for men.
• Conventional careers demand the willingness to
  put in long working hours, to relocate for good
  job opportunities, to shield work from personal
  responsibilities, and to give work priority over
  family. Career building at its most intense
  occurs during the childbearing years.

42
Downshifting to equality

• Accept that in order to be a really involved and
  equal parent, you will have to accomplish less in
  the world of work than someone with no family
  commitments.
• Deutsch Even Jonathan lives with regrets about
  his career, but he also knows that his career
  sacrifices have allowed him the happiest parts of
  his life, caring for his children.

43
De-gendering parenthood

• Deutsch Perhaps the thorniest issue in
  inventing truly genderless parenting is how we
  can reconstruct the meaning of motherhood. I
  wonder how most mothers would feel if their
  identity was simply expressed by the word
  parent instead of mother.
• Gendered choices at one time do not preclude
  gender-resisting choices at another.

44
Functionalism again

• Is it an accident that work seems to increasingly
  take precedence over family, in a society that is
  globalized and must compete with countries around
  the globe?
• What would be the costs of de-emphasizing work
  and career, not for individuals but for the
  society?
• Is it a given that whats best for the society is
  whats best for the economy?

45
Final words from changing parents

• A mother I think a child can have two number
  ones, I really do I am not afraid of losing my
  role.
• When I asked Barry if he thought his child had
  two mothers or two fathers, he was surprised by
  his own answer. Boy, thats a great question and
  as much as its an affront to my masculinity, I
  think its more like two mothers. Yeah I really
  do.