Essays
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Changing Work–Family Equilibria and Social Inequality - Scherer, Stefani
Profound changes in families and in employment patterns challenge the conventional view of work and family as two separate spheres, and finding a balance between them has become vitally important in economic, social, and even demographic terms for today's societies. Current trends also potentially alter families' role in societies' stratification system and overall inequality. Only recently research started to systematically link demographic and employment behavior and the family to the consequences for societies' inequality structure. Often the empirical impact is much less straightforward than parts of the literature suggest, and for a detailed understanding lifetime inequality and stratification rather than distributional inequality will need to gain major attention. -
Feminists in Power - Orloff, Ann
In contrast to the scholarship allied with first and second waves of feminism, feminist analysts today survey a changed landscape of gender across the United States and much of the world: formal exclusions and discrimination are outlawed, gender hierarchies have been undermined, and women are appearing among economic, political, and other elites to an unprecedented degree even as gender inequalities stubbornly persist across multiple arenas. A focal point of debate among analysts of sexuality, political economy, and culture is the meaning and implications of pursuing gender equality in a world that no longer neatly divides into subordinated women and powerful men, and in which the increasing number of women among the socially advantaged problematizes traditional notions of female victimization and male domination. In this essay, we first offer an overview of earlier approaches to gender equality, then turn to critiques of these approaches which insist on the need for a new starting point for considering gender equality and women's emancipation. -
Gender and School‐to‐Work Transitions Research - Smyth, Emer
This essay critically reflects on existing conceptualizations of gender in school‐to‐work transitions research. Gender is always included as a “control” variable in analyses of post‐school transitions, but the way in which gender is embedded in institutional structures across different national settings is rarely unpacked in a systematic way. The essay draws on recent research to outline the way in which gender differences in labor market outcomes, especially at the early stages of the career, are likely to reflect variation in the nature of education and training systems. In doing so, it argues for the need to build bridges between transitions research and other sociological accounts of education and gender and highlights methodological challenges in combining insights from detailed case‐studies of specific workplaces and from multivariate analyses of large‐scale national and cross‐national data sets. -
Gender and the Transition to Adulthood: A Diverse Pathways View - Schoon, Ingrid
The transition to adulthood can be considered as a status passage in the institutionalized life course, involving the assumption of new social roles, such as the completion of education, entry into the labor market, and family formation (Shanahan, 2000). It is guided by age‐related legal norms as well as population‐based norms and informal expectations regarding appropriate ages for the completion of education, marriage, or becoming a parent, and the sequencing and combination of these roles (Buchmann & Kriesi, 2011). These norms and expectations, or “scripts of life” (Buchmann, 1989), can vary by gender, ethnicity, and social class—and are also highly responsive to social change. In this essay, I introduce a diverse pathways view examining variations and changes in transition experiences among men and women, as well as similarities in pathways to independent adulthood between the 1960s and today. The essay also addresses the intersection of multiple inequalities (focusing on class and gender) that shape individual transition experiences, and introduces the notion of “bounded diversity” taking into account the institutional framing of transitions. It is argued that existing templates for the transition to adulthood are dominated by the assumption of a linear career path moving from full‐time education to full‐time continuous employment, which is more typical for males than females, ignores the dynamics of human lives, and the need to combine work and family roles. To address the complexities and variations in transitions of men and women and in different subgroups of the population, it is necessary to revise existing templates and increase awareness of persisting inequalities. Moving toward more flexible and dynamic conceptions that represent the changing everyday arrangements between men and women, it can be possible to undercut traditional views of status differences and open up new potential for life projects. I first review key findings regarding gender differences in transition experiences, followed by a brief consideration of recent research, and a discussion of issues for future research. -
Gender and Women's Influence in Public Settings - Mendelberg, Tali
Does gender equality in public meetings improve as women's numbers grow? Research applying critical mass theory to the exercise of influence in public discussion and decision making reveals a complicated story. Women have made significant progress in education, employment, and the attainment of elected office; yet, they continue to lag behind their male counterparts in substantive, symbolic, and authoritative representation. Across political, nonpolitical, and experimental settings, women's participation and influence does not follow necessarily from their numerical proportion. We review previous studies of how women's lower status is manifested in group interaction, and we argue that research can better identify when and how numbers matter by attending to the group's context, institutional features, and informal norms. We describe cutting‐edge research designed to explore the effects of institutional rules and norms on women's authority. Women's increasing numbers in positions of potential influence constitutes a timely, promising, and challenging agenda for further scholarship. -
Gender and Work - Williams, Christine L.
Over the past 30 years, the US labor market has undergone fundamental structural changes. In the past, loyal and hardworking employees could expect to spend their entire careers working for a single employer. But starting in the 1980s, globalization, deregulation, and the decline of unions transformed this standard employment contract between workers and employers. Today, employment has become more precarious, unstable, and insecure. This essay reviews the limited research on how the rise of precarious employment in the United States has impacted men and women. We also analyze the gender implications of policies designed to address precariousness, and set an agenda for future research on gender inequality and precarious work. -
Gender Inequalities in the Home - Drobnič, Sonja
Gender inequalities in the home are reflected across a range of issues centering on care. In this essay, we focus on household labor which is persistent, structured by individual, couple, and structural differences and reflective of broader issues of gender inequality. Initially, we identify the theoretical approaches that serve as the foundation of empirical work on domestic arrangements: relative resources, time availability, and gender display theories. Then we discuss cutting‐edge approaches to household arrangements focusing on emerging research that expands definitions of housework, investigates existing theories for new family forms, and identifies housework as fluid by situating these divisions over the life course. Next, we discuss the methodological concerns that limit the generalizability of existing housework research. Finally, we identify remaining theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues plaguing housework research to provide further directions for future research. Ultimately, we provide a road map for emerging research on the gendered distribution of household labor. -
Gender Inequality in Educational Attainment - McDaniel, Anne
Just a few decades ago in most nations in the world, women completed far less schooling than men. Today, throughout much of the world, the reverse is true, and on average, women complete more years of schooling than men. This essay identifies important cross‐national trends in gender inequalities in educational attainment, outlines foundational and cutting‐edge research on the topic and suggests directions for future research. We examine US‐based explanations for the female‐favorable gender gap in educational attainment, and argue that the gender gap must be studied from a comparative and international perspective. While little is known about why women outpace men in education throughout the world, we recommend three potential avenues for future research: (i) the sources of girls' better average academic performance in school, (ii) boys' apparent greater vulnerability to resource deficits within families, and (iii) changing incentives for women and men to complete higher education. We conclude by discussing the potential consequences of the female advantage in educational attainment and the challenges of conducting cross‐national educational research. -
Gender Segregation in Higher Education - Hendley, Alexandra
During the second half of the twentieth century, systems of higher education expanded and democratized around the world. Women's participation increased so dramatically that their numbers now surpass men's in many industrialized countries. But gender equalization has not occurred uniformly. Sex segregation of majors and degree programs is a striking feature of modern educational systems and a key reason for the ongoing social and economic inequality of women and men. While significant gender inequality is found within educational systems worldwide, recent evidence shows marked differences among countries and country groups in their degree and pattern of sex segregation. This essay reviews foundational research in this field, identifies emergent trends and cutting‐edge lines of inquiry, and poses questions for future research on men's and women's distribution across educational institutions and fields of study. Much research on sex segregation in higher education has focused on cross‐national differences and historical trends. A major question concerns the persistence of extreme gender differentiation even in the most economically and socially modern contexts. Research findings to date reveal a complex interplay between cultural beliefs, structural forms, and individual cognition in generating and maintaining sex segregation in the modern world. In order to advance research in this field, we suggest that future studies focus on: (i) how patterns of sex segregation differ by race, ethnicity, class, and national origin; (ii) how curricular preferences are formed; (iii) how characteristics of educational systems influence patterns of sex segregation; and (iv) how fields of study (and occupations) become defined as either masculine or feminine. -
Gender, Religion, and State in the Middle East - Charrad, Mounira M.
This essay discusses the major trends in the study of gender, religion, and state in the Middle East from colonialism to the Arab Spring. Showing how the field started as a critique of colonial representations of women in the Middle East as passive and subordinate, it reviews briefly the foundational studies. It then indicates the major frameworks that scholars have used subsequently to show the complexities of the linkages between gender, religion, and state. Diversity within Islamic law, the role of kinship and states, and the significance of women's agency are highlighted. The essay proceeds with a discussion of cutting‐edge issues raised by the Arab Spring and suggests future directions for research. -
The Egg Freezing Revolution? Gender, Technology, and Fertility Preservation in the Twenty‐First Century - Inhorn, Marcia C.
Egg freezing is the “newest” new reproductive technology, a form of flash‐freezing that allows human eggs to be successfully stored in egg banks. Touted as a “revolution in the way women age,” egg freezing is being heralded as a way for older career women to “rewind the biological clock.” This essay will examine the many factors in American women's lives—education, career, financial stability, relationship status, medical diagnosis and prognosis—that affect their egg freezing and disposition decisions. “Medical” egg freezing is being used by cancer patients, while “social” or “elective” egg freezing is being used by professional women in their late 30s and early 40s, both of whom face the threat of future infertility. Egg freezing among professional women represents a technological concession to ongoing gender inequalities in American society. These include employment constraints facing career women, the growing demographic surplus of college‐educated women who cannot find college‐educated male partners, and women's resultant delays in marriage and childbearing. Ultimately, egg freezing reveals a new and important interface of science and society—one with major implications for human reproduction, women's lives, and family formation in the twenty‐first century. -
The Gendered Transition to Parenthood: Lasting Inequalities in the Home and in the Labor Market - Evertsson, Marie
We discuss the slow process through which the gendered transition to parenthood has changed in Western societies and the degrees to which this process challenges economic theories on the utility‐maximizing rational man, woman, and/or couple. The transition to parenthood has long‐term consequences for women's careers, often even in couples in which the woman earns more than the man. The reason for the slow‐changing process can partially be found in gender norms and the physical aspects of the transition to motherhood, including breastfeeding and norms regarding how long the child benefits from being in the mother's care. One of the challenges faced by research on the gendered transition to parenthood is how to distinguish where the boundaries between biology and gender norms lie. We discuss the gendered transition to parenthood and its career‐related consequences, and we elaborate on potential ways in which research may advance to dismantle the interconnected nature of biology, gender, and economic reasoning in couples' transition to parenthood. -
Why So Few Women in Mathematically Intensive Fields? - Ceci, Stephen J.
Women have made huge gains in all fields of science over the past four decades, greatly increasing their presence in PhD programs and in postdoctoral positions. But, their progress has been greater in some fields than others. Although women constitute a critical mass of faculty in fields such as biology, medicine, psychology, veterinary science, and sociology, they continue to be underrepresented in mathematically intensive fields such as engineering, physics, chemistry, economics, computer science, and mathematics. In this essay, we describe both data and argument pertinent to women's underrepresentation, organized around three alleged causes. After reviewing these three causes, we conclude that neither sex differences in mathematical and spatial ability, nor the often‐alleged bias against women in science, can explain their dearth, whereas choices and family formation plans go a long way toward doing so.