Stability and transformation in gender, work, and family: insights from the second shift for the next quarter century

Abstract

Arlie Hochschild's The second shift: Working families and the revolution at home argued that the revolution toward gender equality in the USA has been stalled due to three factors: (1) women continue to do most of the ‘second shift’ – the unpaid work of childcare and housework; (2) insufficient flexibility in the workplace for accommodating family caregiving needs; and (3) a deficit of public sector benefits, such as paid parental leave. Since the book's publication in1989, many aspects of the gender structure (how gendered opportunities, barriers, and cultural meanings are socially structured in the USA) remain the same. Yet many aspects have changed. This article looks at areas of stability in the gender structure and areas of transformation in the past quarter century. We then plumb the book for the analytical insights it generates for scholars today. We discuss how deep-seated cultural understandings of gender infuse all levels of analysis: macro-level policies, family and work institutions, and personal experiences of gender, intimacy, and moral commitments. These insights help illuminate paths forward for new research on how new economic developments, including economic insecurity, flexibilization (the increasingly reliance on temporary and contract labor), and the widening social class divide, continue to affect intimacy at home.

Le deuxième quart de travail: travail de familles et la révolution à la maison de Arlie Hochschild affirme que la révolution américaine vers l’égalité entre les sexes avait été retardée à cause de trois éléments: (1) les femmes continuent à faire le plupart du travail au «deuxième quart » – le travail non rémunéré de la garde des enfants et du ménage domestique; (2) la flexibilité insuffisante aux lieux de travail pour l'accommodation des besoins des responsabilités familiales; et (3) le défaut des bénéfices administrés par le secteur public, comme le congé parental rémunéré. Dès la publication du livre en 1989, plusieurs parties de la structure sociale du sexe (comment les opportunités sexués, les barrières, et les sens culturels sont construits socialement aux États-Unis) restent les mêmes. Cependant, plusieurs aspects ont changé. Cet article observe les domaines statiques de la structure de sexe et aussi les domaines de transformation du dernier quart de siècle. Ensuite, nous examinons le texte pour les réflexions analytiques qu'il offre aux spécialistes aujourd'hui. Nous discutons comment les compréhensions culturelles du sexe, profondément instituées, pénètrent tous les niveaux de l'analyse de la société: les politiques au niveau macro; les institutions de la famille et du travail; et les épreuves intimes du sexe, de l'intimité, et des obligations morales. Ces connaissances aide illuminer les voies à suivre pour la recherche nouvelle sur les sujets de comment les développements récents de l’économie, comme l'insécurité économique, la flexibilisation (la croissance de la dépendance d'emploi temporaire et contractuel), et la division élargissant entre les classes sociales continuent à influencer l'intimité à la maison.

Keywords:

• Second Shift
• work–family conflict
• leisure gap
• gender inequality
• gender
• work devotion
• flexibility stigma
• culture
• divorce

Mots-clés::

• Le Deuxième quart
• l'empêchement travail-famille
• la conciliation travail-famille
• l'écart du temps libre
• l'inégalité des sexes
• le sexe
• la dévotion au travail
• le stigmate de la flexibilité du travail
• la culture; le divorce

Acknowledgement

We acknowledge Jackson Sullivan for expert research assistance. We thank Ellen Kossek and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mary Blair-Loy is a sociology professor and Associate Vice Chancellor-Faculty Diversity and Equity at UC San Diego, and she directs the Center for Research on Gender in STEMM. Her research investigates the ways in which cultural structures shape careers, inequality, and meaning-making for women and men in demanding professions.

Arlie Hochschild is the author of The second shift and seven other books. She received the ASA Public Understanding of Sociology Award, the Jessie Bernard Award, and three of her books have been selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the ‘notable books of the year.’

Allison J. Pugh researches and teaches about culture, work, and family. Her book The tumbleweed society: Working and caring in an insecure age (Oxford, 2015) investigates how gender and class shape the impact of job insecurity, revealing the ways in which women and men re-interpret obligation at home, when the rise of precariousness is shifting obligations at work.

Joan C. Williams is Distinguished Professor of Law, Hastings Foundation Chair, and Founding Director of the Center for WorkLife Law at University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She is author or coauthor of over 90 scholarly publications and eight books, most recently What works for women at work: Four patterns working women need to know.

Heidi Hartmann is an economist who researches and lectures internationally on the intersection of women, economics, and public policy. She is the President and Founder of the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), as well as a Research Professor at George Washington University and Editor of the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy.

Notes

1. The Second shift examines the ripple effects in families of the increasing labor force participation of mothers since the 1950s. From the mid-twentieth century onward, workplace opportunities for women grew enormously in some areas, as the economy shifted toward white collar employment and service jobs, thus accommodating the women pouring into the workforce, but little was done to make jobs more family-friendly or to open the best paying jobs to women. Many female-dominated jobs remained so and expanded in numbers (e.g. teachers, teachers’ aides, secretaries, and nurses). The gender integration of higher education (due to Title IX of the Higher Education Amendments in 1972) opened law, medical, and business schools to women allowing them to earn academic credentials and move into those formerly male-dominated professions. However, many other occupations require getting credentials on the job, such as the skilled trades, and these jobs remain virtually closed to women. Because of their better pay and higher status, women have strived to enter men's jobs. By 2009, fewer than 41% of women remained in female-dominated jobs (those 75% or more female), while 50% of men remain in male-dominated jobs (defined as 75% or more male, per Hegewisch, Liepmann, Hayes, and Hartmann 2010). Most men continue to out earn their wives, especially when over the arc of their careers (Rose & Hartmann 2004). A broader consideration of the historical context of the gendered division of labor in households and how marriage has changed is beyond the scope of this article. Interested readers may see Coontz (2005) and Mintz and Kellogg (1988).