The Economics of Women, Men, and Work: Three Chapters in Focus - Book Report/Review Example

The Economics of Women, Men, and Work: Three Chapters in Focus The book The Economics of Women, Men, and Work showed the relationship between both the genders male and female and their economical capacity and situation. Many issues had been laid down in the book based upon decades of research and changes in the economic status of both genders through time. Changes in roles, family as a basic economic unit, work roles, labor market and employment trends are just some of the topics discussed in the book. The paper will be focused on Chapter three – The Family as an Economic Unit, Chapter four – The Allocation of Time between the Household and the Labor Market, and Chapter five – Differences in Occupations and Earnings. Chapter Three - The Family as an Economic Unit The traditional form of a family is a marriage between opposite gender and having their own children. The family is tied-up by marriage and blood (Corbett 3). The concern of the third chapter is to analyze and study the family as an economic unit which is not limited to the neoclassical model of a family. The time changed and modernization brought about changes in the system. At present, some states in the United States allow same-sex marriage and the traditional model of a family is not the only family pattern that can be seen today. Afterwards several evaluations must be presented like the specialization and the economic capacity of a family in the present time. Some alternative models to the neoclassical models will also be tackled. Some aspects of time allocation to nonmarket work will also be discussed (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 34). Under the neoclassical model, it is said that the adults have the responsibility to decide on how to maximize the utility and economic result. The neoclassical model is used to analyze the behavior of various members in the family like division of labor, education, volunteerism and work (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 35). Specialization is analyzed by comparative and absolute advantage. Comparative advantage allows the husband or the wife in a family to be efficient at home and at work while absolute advantage is specializing in just one whether it is at home only or at work only (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 36-37). Even if the abilities at home and at work of both husband and wife are the same, they still have several advantages. Though the advantages may also be present outside of the family, the benefits are enhanced when the advantages happen within the family through strong commitment and long-term relationships. The advantages are economies of scales, public goods, externalities of consumption, marriage-specific investments, risk-pooling and institutional advantages (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 39). According to Blau, Ferber and Winkler, for every advantage, there is a disadvantage. The same applies for family. The disadvantages of specialization on economic capabilities of a family are sharing of housework, life cycle changes, and costs of interdependence, bargaining ability, and domestic abuse (p. 41). Based on Blau, Ferber and Winkler, transactional costs and bargain approaches can show the internal decision-making structure of a family that the neoclassical model cannot explain (p. 45). There are also other point-of-views in studying the economic issues in a family. Marxist point-of-view uses capitalism to explain the relationship in a family and economic capabilities. Feminist point-of-view uses an argument on gender role and patriarchy upon the potential abuse of the weaker party in marriage (Blau, Ferber & Winkler 48). Nonmarket work must also be considered since majority of economic activities are done outside the job like housework and child care and volunteerism (Blau, Ferber & Winkler 50). It was found out that people with higher educational attainment and higher income are more engaged in volunteer activities whether the selfish purpose is to network, to gain experience or to help with the advocacy (p. 60). Chapter Four – The Allocation of Time between the Household and the Labor Market The labor market is very important in the economy since people get income through labor. Studying labor economics is needed to learn the allocation of paid work in market economies (Jacobsen and Skillman 1). In chapter four, labor force was defined, and the general trends in labor force across time were discussed. It could be observed that participation of women in the work force increased while the participation of men decreased although not dramatically. The change resulted to almost the same participation of both male and female in labor force and market work over time. Using economic concepts, the dramatic increase in women entering the labor force will be explained while economic theories will be used to further analyze the factors affecting the decrease in male participation in labor force (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 76-77). Paid work is a very important economic activity to study since many participate in the work force through employment or not part of employment but still earn from their labor. It is also important to know that some people are looking for work but for the moment cannot find work and distinguish employee from self-employed (Jacobsen and Skillman 3). Labor force is composed of people working for a company for certain number of hours per week and people who work for themselves (self-employed). On the other hand, the unemployed people are those who give effort to look for work but still no source of income within four weeks or those people who are waiting for calls and company response within 30 days. To get the quantitative aspect of the employed and unemployed, labor force participation rate and unemployment rate can be computed. Labor force participation is the number of people working divided by the total number of groups in the population. On the other hand, the unemployment rate is equals to the number of people without work and no source of income divided by the size of the labor force (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 77-78). According to Blau, Ferber and Winkler, the trends in labor force since World War II showed an increase in participation of women in working while participation in men decreased. Men left the labor force to join the army during World War II that gave opportunity to women to work and be part of the labor force (p. 79). The decrease in number of men in the labor force is concentrated on men below 20 years of age and above 50 years of age (p. 84). For women, the trend started as women from 20 years of age until about 24 years of age is the peak age for working women and they left the labor force for marriage and child bearing. After 20 years women went back to join the labor force and they were already older with grown-up or school-age children (p. 82-83). For women who still earn but not going to work in other places usually participated in waged home work because they have the responsibility to take care of the sick and elderly, working at home is easier for them and probably they perceive themselves better to work at home than outside (Dangler 99). In analyzing the trends in participation of women in the labor force, factors affecting the value of market time and factors affecting the value of nonmarket time are considered. The factors influencing the value of market time are increase in qualifications in terms of educational background and experience, the demand for female labor and improvement of overall productivity (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 112). The factors affecting the value of nonmarket time are technological change, tastes, demographical trends and changing the role of husbands (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 113). Chapter Five – Differences in Occupations and Earnings Despite the growing similarities between the jobs and works being offered for women, the fact still remains that there are still differences between the occupations and earnings between men and women. The difference is internal in nature and each country in the world differs from one another in terms of the on-going discrimination in earnings, degree of disparity and improvement over time between men and women (Giele and Stebbins 23). Chapter five focuses on the existing disparity and discrimination between the occupations and earning of both male and female despite the efforts made the past decades. The market outcomes and trends being described in chapter five were categorized into occupational differences, trends in occupational segregation, and female to male earnings ratio (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 130). According to Blau, Ferber and Winkler, traditionally women get administrative and office jobs like secretary, administrative assistant, book keeper, clerk and customer service representative. Women also commonly get service occupation like police, childcare workers, hairdressers, maids and cook. Data gathered in chapter five shows that in 2007, 22 percent of women work in office with administrative jobs while six percent only for men. Twenty percent of women on the other hand work under service occupations while 13 percent only for men (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 131). Men have different set of jobs wherein they usually dominate. Usually males tend to work on blue-collared jobs which require skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled manual work. The list includes construction and extraction works such as plumber, electrician and carpenter; installation, maintenance and repair occupations like computer technicians, mechanic and office machine repairers; production occupations like machinists, butchers and sewing machine operators; transportation and material moving jobs such as public vehicle drivers, airline pilots, seamen and garbage collectors (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 132). According to Blau, Ferber and Winkler, another aspect that must be considered in differences between occupation and earnings of men and women is the occupational segregation. A great example is the sales job category; women are more prominent in being cashiers, telemarketers and retail sales persons while men are better at being insurance sales agents and manufacturing sales representatives (p. 134). For professional jobs, the specific jobs are usually predominantly male or female. A way to compute the magnitude of differences in distribution in job categories of male and female is through index of segregation. By using the index, the percentages of male or female workers who must change jobs are identified to balance the job distribution between the two groups. The index must be zero if distribution is identical while one hundred percent for purely male or female job category (p. 135). Lastly, female-to-male earnings ratio also has discrimination since statistically, the earnings of female workers is 59 cents for every one dollar earnings of male workers (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 141). Works Cited Blau, Francine, Marianne Ferber and Anne Winkler. The Economics of Women, Men, and Work. 6th ed. USA: Prentice Hall. 2010. Corbett, Andrew. What is a Family and Why It Matters? Achieving a Workable Definition. Australia: Tasmanian Family Institute. 2004. Dangler, Jamie. Hidden in the Home: The Role of Waged Homework in the Modern World- Economy. USA: State University of New York Press. 1994. Giele, Janet and Leslie Stebbins. Women and equality in the workplace: a reference handbook. California: ABC-CLIO Inc. 2003. Jacobsen, Joyce and Gilbert Skillman. Labor Markets and Employment Relationships: A Comprehensive Approach. USA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004.   Read More