Different Views about the Concept of Families - Book Report/Review Example

Review: Chapter 3 This chapter of the book includes different views about the concept of families. Division of labor in a family is the focus of this chapter. Men and women divide their roles according to the nature of different daily life activities. The authors have performed a detailed analysis of neoclassical model in order to get a better understanding of division of labor. As a large number of people live in the form of married couples, the analysis of how husbands and wives separate their roles become essential. Along with analyzing heterosexual couples, the authors have also focused the division of labor between gay and lesbian couples. The authors have made it clear in the chapter that families are not formed just because of economic reasons. Blau, Ferber, and Winkler states, “Human need for companionship, sexual attraction, affection, and the desire to have children also play a substantial part in family formation” (34). Economic factors although play a major role but the desire to live with the opposite gender is a more logical reason to form a family. Along with the focus on family formation, the authors have also discussed the reason behind family breakups. Some of the main reasons provided in this chapter included desire of a person to have sexual relationships with more than one partner, incompatibilities, and human need of independence. The authors have evaluated the neoclassical model of family in detail in order to highlight the advantages associated with this model. Along with the benefits of neoclassical model of family, the authors have also discussed the traditional model in which men are supposed to perform outdoor activities and women are supposed to remain at homes for taking care of the children. The decline of traditional model of family is also discussed in this chapter. The authors have described the disadvantages of specialization and revealed that couples can enjoy a number of economic benefits while living in the form of families. Specialization is just one issue; couples can gain many other economic benefits while living in families. The traditional division of labor is the biggest disadvantage of the traditional families. After discussing traditional model in some detail, the authors have shifted their focus towards neoclassical approaches of transactional costs along with Marxist feminist and radical feminist views and different bargaining models. The authors have also discussed how men and women usually allocate their time to work and family and how the allocation of time is changing with the passage of time. The authors have also revealed that the concept of marriage is shifting towards egalitarian marriages in which both men and women work to run their families. The time has come when a single person cannot earn a good amount of money for the whole family. Therefore, people are adopting the concept of egalitarian marriages in which both men and women share responsibilities. In the end of the chapter, the authors have focused towards decline in the trend of marriages and the reasons, which have increased complexities of families. Review: Chapter 4 This chapter focuses on the participation of women in the labor force along with trends in hours worked and gender differences in employment. The authors have described labor force and the participation of men and women in the labor force. It has been revealed in the chapter that women are becoming more and more interested in participating in the labor force for many reasons. They want to increase their earnings in order to achieve a good social status. Along with this, women also want to become a valuable part of their families by earning for them. Trends in labor force participation have been changed dramatically in this decade. Today, women are becoming more and more aware of their role in the society. They want to play a key role in strengthening the financial status of their families and for this reason; they are participating in the labor force more than ever. Another issue, which the authors have discussed in this chapter, is that the percentage of white females in the labor force is increasing whereas the percentage of men in the labor force is on decline. However, the authors have not declared this change to be a very dramatic one. Rather they have said that the decline in the male labor force is occurring slowly and steadily. The authors have also predicted that a time will come soon when the labor force participation of both men and women will become same. The authors have also discussed the reasons behind decline in the male labor force and increase in the female participation. Labor force of a country includes both employed and unemployed labor. A key point made in this chapter is that labor force does not include the people who are involved in illegal activities to earn money. Labor force includes only such men and women who put their efforts to find and do legal work. Blau, Ferber, and Winkler found that in 1940, the rate of female participation in the labor force was just 28 percent, which has been increased to nearly 59 percent in 2007 (79). The point here is that this increase in the female labor force has not ended; rather it is increasing with every passing year. Another point discussed by the authors in this chapter is that White and Black male participation in the labor force is on decline whereas Hispanic and Asian male participation is increasing year by year. On the other hand, White and Black female participation in the labor force is increasing significantly as compared to Hispanic and Asian women. Blau, Ferber, and Winkler state, “Rising female participation rates have associated with an increase in the labor force attachment of women over the life cycle” (84). Change in the ratio of fulltime employment is one of the main reasons behind increase in the women labor force. Moreover, women are becoming more and more committed to work than ever. They like to work even during pregnancies in order to earn money. Increase in then number of women joining the labor force and decrease in the number of women leaving the companies where they work is a major reason behind increase in the female participation rate. Review: Chapter 5 This chapter focuses the gender differences related to occupations and earnings of women. The authors have indicated a decline in both gender differences and earnings of women. Today, both men and women make mutual efforts to run their families. Women are becoming more and more educated in order to get good jobs. The authors have found that decline in the occupational segregation by gender has been occurring continuously since 1960s. Changes in the trends in earning convergence over the time have been also discussed in this chapter. In the first section of the chapter, the authors have focused occupational differences between men and women. The authors have revealed that women are usually concentrated in official and administrative tasks. Women usually perform clerical jobs, such as, data entry, customer services, and bookkeeping. A large number of female workers have also adopted service occupations, such as, childcare, hairdressing, cooking, and grounds maintenance. Blau, Ferber, and Winkler state, “Traditionally, and to a considerable extent today, women are concentrated in office and administrative support and service occupations” (131). Although the occupational differences between men and women are decreasing with the passage of time, but it will take a long time to eradicate the differences completely. Women are becoming more and more educated and this is the reason why we see a large number of women becoming doctors, engineers, architects, physicians, and computer programmers. On the other hand, men are adopting blue-collar professions along with construction and extraction professions. Gabriel and Schmitz state, “Traditional blue-collar occu­pations such as operatives and craft continue to be male dominated, while women remain concentrated in service and clerical occupa­tions”. The authors have shown statistics of percentage of men and women concentrated in different occupations in 1983 and 2007. It is revealed that men and women like to work at different levels of hierarchy within different types of occupations. The chapter also reveals that the percentage of women at the top positions is still very less although the number of women doing managerial jobs is increasing. Wootton states, “Currently, women and men are most equally represented among managers and professionals; in 1995, women held about half of such jobs”. The trends in occupational segregation have been also discussed in this chapter. Today, the number of men and women adopting the professions of each other has increased significantly. However, the earning difference is still a question. The gender earnings ratio has been almost persistent for the last couple of decades. Women usually earn a less amount of money as compared to their male counterparts. The issue of gender differences even exists between the people belonging to the same gender. For example, the wages of minority women are set lower than that of White females. Black female employees face greater gender and wage discrimination than White women or Black men. It is also revealed that Blacks and Hispanics earn less amount of money as compared to Whites. Along with this aspect of earnings gap, several other aspects of earning differences have also been discussed which provide us a good understanding of gender differences in occupations and the gap between gender earnings. Works Cited Blau, Francine, Marianne Ferber, and Anne Winkler. The Economics of Women, Men, and Work. 6th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2010. Print. Gabriel, Paul, and Susanne Schmitz. “Gender differences in occupational distributions among workers.” Monthly Labor Review, Jun. 2007. Web. 26 Sep. 2011. Wootton, Barbara. “Gender Differences in occupational employment.” Monthly Labor Review, Apr. 1997. Web. 26 Sep. 2011. Read More