SOCI 247 - FINAL

Historically, what was the meaning of marriage?

- not symbolic
- dictated: distributions of property, bonded those to church, bound people to state

Today, what do marriage trends look like?

- most people will still marry though it happens later in life
- cohabitation is more common
- people stay single later

What is marriages social meaning?

It entails social and legal recognition and responsibilities

Marriage Premise

1. Expectation of permanence: to raise kids in a marriage, have a home, etc.
2. Expectation of primariness: partner as most important person to you, faithfulness, etc. are all expected

Marriage Premise

1. Expectation of permanence: to raise kids in a marriage, have a home, etc.
2. Expectation of primariness: partner as most important person to you, faithfulness, etc. are all expected

Marriage as an Exchange (Becker 1973)

1. Marriage as a market:
- voluntary (people marry when they think it will improve life), and competitive (competing for a spouse)
- People behaving in marketized ways in terms of marriage
2. The traditional exchange
- Men choose younger women, marry for sex, for kids, status, protection, econ support, security
- Women provide for children, domestic chores, sexual accessibility, and emotional support

What do the Critiques of Becker say?

1. Conflicting desires
People can made marriage decisions based on conflicting desires → eg. marrying out of sexual desire rather than for "rational" desires like econ security
2. Bad decisions
People made bad decisions, especially based on love and romance
- Therefore we cannot really see people as always rational in terms of marriage
3. Limited choice
It may not be reasonable to assume that people are making a calculated so freely chosen decision → instead they may be making a limited choice

The Marriage Gradient, and cause Bernard(1970)

-noticed women marry older men
- women marry or look for taller men
- women look for men with a higher occupational position
this was due to the fact that women's economic status was based on her husbands social class, because women entered relationships with fewer assets
- less schooling, less job experience
- because women marry up and men marry down Bernard says that “cream-of-the-crop” women and the “bottom-of-the barrel” will be less likely to marry because there are no appropriate mates for them

Endogamy vs. Exogamy

Endogamy: Cultivating relationships with people like is → same class, education, race/ethnicity
Exogamy: outside the same social group

Homogamy vs Heterogamy

homogamy- marrying someone like ones self in terms of social characteristic
heterogamy - marrying someone unlike ones self in terms of social characteristics

Loving vs. Virginia

around 1960s
- in Virginia a white person could not married a "coloured person"
- a couple who married out of state were arrested when they moved back to Virginia

The "retreat from marriage"

- since the late 1970 marriage has been on a decline
- though a significant portion of people do marry

What are the factors for marriage decline?

1. Culture
individualism/self-interest --> weakening bonds
= “deinstitutionalization of marriage” (Cherlin 2004) – marriage option,
rules/norms within marriage more flexible/negotiable
-marriage as a high ideal
-”wedding industrial complex” (Ingram 2008)--> wedding are symbolic, people may spend a long time saving
2. Economics
-women’s growing economic independence reduces need for marriage as a means of economic support and security
- reduced incentive for men because women no longer willing to
take up ‘homemaker’ role exclusively
THE PARADOX
-both men and women with higher incomes are MORE likely to marry
than those with lower incomes.
-for those with lower incomes, marriages more burden than benefit
- when financially unstable people don't marry or divorce
3. Demography
• -‘marriage squeezes’
• Baby boom --> surplus of women who were born in the baby boom, but there were not enough older men (different generations) for them to marry in hypergamous relationships
• 1970s-80s move towards post-industrial economy (=decline in industrial manufacturing jobs) --> these jobs would send man overseas taking them out of the market
• Racialized incarceration --> mainly homogenous marriage

Cornerstone vs capstone

• Marriage, historically, was a ‘CORNERstone’ to
adulthood--> start of
• For some, now the ‘CAPSTONE’ = adulthood
Kefalas et al. (2011)---> after everything else
‘naturalists': marry first, in parts of the us where manufacturing jobs are still around, more mid 20th century esc
‘planners': where living costs are high, post industrial economy
- key factors economy and geography shape when marriage occur

Why do people still get married?

1. Incentives
- you have rights when you get married, ex insurance
2. Social pressure: marriage = normative → to not marry = deviant
3. Imitation/modelling
- people tend to want to conform

Marriage: happy, healthy, wealthy

•Majority of US married adults report being ‘very
happy’ in their marriage, figure stable since 1970s
-Men happier than women
-Whites happiest
•Health and Wealth –-> people wait until they're financially stable to marry
-more social integration/support
-economic cooperation
-social status (fatherhood bonus,
motherhood penalty)

Same-sex marriage

- we don't know much about timing
- the majority of same-sex couples who are living together are married
- there has been a large increase of same-sex couples who have married
- though there is not much info on same sex couples

Marriage promotion in the US

- many efforts to promote opposite-sex marriage --> " if we want our children to grow up to be good people they should grow up with married parents"
- no room for "alternative" lifestyles
- those who am impoverished are told marriage is the solution
- marriage therapy centred around wealthier couples
-while it most relates to the Us also relates to Canada

Reproductive labour

Defn:
- Labour that goes into reproduction of the family
- Has to do with provision of caring, food prep, clothing, shelter, cleaning, repairs and maintenance, childcare, eldercare, shopping, transportation and travel, etc.
- Produces coming-labourers
Meaning:
- Necessary daily grind → necessity of the tasks
- Expression of love or caring
- Seen as requiring no skills
- A tool for self-care
- A task with reward(s)
- Is a form of discipline
- Unwelcome task preceding reward

COGNITIVE LABOR (DAMINGER, 2019)

1. Anticipating needs
2. Identifying options for
meeting those needs
3. Deciding among the options
4. Monitoring the results
- these are non-physical tasks
- we should look at these tasks separately
- without understanding this we cannot fully understand gender inequality

How do we record unpaid work?

- time using diaries
- though it cannot record 2 things happening at once
- people may over estimate how much time was spent

The Diminishing Value of Housework: Ideological and Material Explanations

- The diminishing value of housework has much to do with industrialization and capitalism
- Men's and women's labour were more valued in the colonial era
- Deterioration of value in industrial/capital society → played a major role in devaluing women's labour in particular
Material / Economic
- We took much of the labour done in the home out of the household → into factories, etc.
- Increasing importance / dependence on men's wages (female dependency on male earnings)
- Survival = contingent on who brought home wages → i.e men
- Industrialization brought technological advance --> Eg. washing machine, dishwasher, became more available and affordable → consequence: women more focused on consuming than producing
- Tech changed the way women did tasks and changed the nature of women's labour → became less visible
- Not necessarily making women's work easier, but instead made it harder b/c they had to be more perfect (ideal housewife)
Ideological (housework = woman)
- Separate spheres: men in public, women in private
- Cult of domesticity → virtue, purity, piety, housework, childrearing, etc. → defining what it meant to be a good woman

Chores and Allowances: difference in labour for children

Boys: 30% less time doing household chores
- Girls: less likely to get paid to do chores
- This is how girls learn about the worth of their labours → viewed as just things you will do with no link to $
- based on and app called "busy kids" boys were paid more often for personal upkeep where as girls were not

How does growing up with a working mother affect children?

- Men who grew up with working mothers tend to do more childcare
- Women who grew up with working mothers tend to work higher paid jobs

The 'stalled revolution'

- A concept proposed by Arlie Hochschild wherein contemporary women are stalled b/c they continue to perform the majority of domestic labour in the family
- Women entering the labourforce more than ever, and yet they are not performing less household labour than previously
- This means that women must perform a first shift at work all day and then come home and perform a second shift, i.e. cooking, cleaning, child rearing, and other reproductive labour
- Society is therefore stalled b/c the "good provider" role and ideal is still important
- Continuing assumption that women will do most all reproductive work and men should focus on productive labour
- without equality in the private sphere you can't get equality in the public sphere

Time Famine

- A phenomenon whereon women do not have time for everything (work, home, family), and so they are starved of or stretched for time
- Women therefore have very little time to relax or do the things that they want to, for they are constantly working in the paid labour market or they are working during a second shift in the home for their male partners and/or children

Leisure Gap

- Women's time famine is not paralleled by men, meaning there is a gap in the amount of leisure time women have compared to their male counterparts
- Men have more time to do the things they want or relax (leisure) because they are not performing a double shift or caught in a double bind since they are not performing the majority of housework on top of paid labour

The rise in Women's employment

- In North America women have surpassed man in university education
- majority of mother s in labour force
- high employment rate --> major shift
- significant amount of women make more than their husbands
- both women and men are uncomfortable admitting when the women are breadwinners (although men are more comfortable admitting it)

Penalizing working women at home

- While we may see more equality amongst household work with income between couples in equal, as women begin to earn more she begins doing more household work and the man begins to sit back more
- "deviance neutralization": women earning more than their husbands in not yet in our social scripts,
earning more --> deviant, stripping men of their masculinity, revert back to social scripts
- while in most tasks women are doing more, in these circumstances men may do more cooking than women

Penalties and rewards at work

What happens in our homes greatly influence things outside of the home,
MOTHERHOOD/Care PENALTY: women have a greater penalty when caring for others
- those who experience higher degrees of the penalty tend to be lower income women
FATHERHOOD PREMIUM/BONUS: new father may get a bonus

GENDERED DIFFERENCES IN TASK AND
TIME (HOCHCHILD AND MACHTUNG 1989)

1. Women – daily, time-bound
Men –flexible
2. Women – multi-task
Men – singular focus
3. Women – “time-and-motion experts” ex. mom's planner, mom's calendar

STRATEGIES/MALE PLOYS TO RESIST
“disaffiliating” (Hochschild and Machtung 1989)

“disaffiliating” (Hochschild and Machtung 1989)
1. ‘Playing dumb’
- Exaggerating inability and incompetence
2. Dragging one’s feet
-Men delay doing chores, outwaiting their partners so that the partner will simply end up doing it, OR they wait until they are asked to do it
3. Downplaying need
- Downplay need for the task being done or do part of it but not all

A ‘FATHERING’ REVOLUTION?

-significant increase in stay-at-home fathers
-extension of parental leave and increased uptake by men

SAME-SEX COUPLES AND CHILDCARE

74% share routine childcare vs. 38% of heterosexual couples
- gay men show greatest satisfaction with division of reproductive labour

Sharing household chores and happiness

When couples share household chores more equally they tends to have a happier marriage

The Domestic Division of Labour: A Typology

1. Egalitarian, non-gendered
- both partners are employed
- equal share of childcare and housework
--> seen more in childless relationships
2. Equitable but gendered
- similar work hours
-equal share of housework but follow gendered tasks
3. Specialist of labour
- may be equitable, may not be equitable
- they pick what their good at, or maybe what they want to do
4. Husband-helper
- Woman does all tasks and husband takes no responsibility (simply helps sometimes)
- Usually happens with stay at home moms
- Men choosing what they want/like to do and doing only that (and sometimes)
- Could potentially be the reverse with the wife as the helper when her job is way more demanding than his
5. Complete:
- The woman, who has less power does everything
- No involvement of partner (husband)
6. Delegated
- Cleaners, gardeners, nannies, etc. are employed to do the housework so that the burden falls neither on the woman nor man
- Only done when families can afford to → upper- and middle-class
Most common types
- Specialist and Husband-helper

Infertility

Defn: the inability to conceive after 12 months of unprotected intercourse or inability to carry a pregnancy to live birth → affects 12-15% of population
- Is just as likely to be male-caused as female-caused, but culture views infertility as women's problem
- Only in the 1940s that physicians found a relation between ovulation and menstruation
- Therefore, have had very little understanding about fertility and infertility throughout history for women

Options for those who went children but are infertile

1. Artificial insemination
2. In vitro Fertilization
3. surrogacy
- sometimes the surrogate will have no biological ties to the children, sometimes the surrogate will also donate the eggs and having a biological tie

Parental rights in Canada

- the women who birthed the child is considered the child no matter how the child was conceived
- the biological father os always considered the father
Distinguishing the parent is unclear : if sometime has biological ties but does not raise the child are they a parent?
- complicates this for Queer parents with kids

Children ' made to order'

- pick your child characteristics

Surrogacy in Canada vs. the united states

- Canada doesn't want the those who need money "to be taken advantage of"
- much easier to get and abortion in the US

Intensive Mothering → Hays

1. A societal expectation surrounding motherhood in NA:
- Expectation that a "good" mother must be an intensive one
- Must be attentive to psychological and physical well-being of their children → constantly being there for kids and spending as much time with them as they can when they are home
2. This is happening at the same time as women's increased participation in the labourforce
- Therefore, we are telling mothers to go to work, but to never neglect home and kids
- Lead to a decrease in leisure time, participation in the second shift and third shift
3. Leads to the Mommy Wars: between stay at home moms and paid working moms
- War of who is a better mother → both feel they must defend whatever position they are in
- Rather than taking divergent paths, as one might expect, both groups attempt to resolve their feelings of inadequacy by returning to the logic of intensive mothering

what does it mean to be a 'good mother'

1. ultimate achievement and fulfillment via motherhood
2. work assigned, children, husband and home
3. to be a good mother you must enjoy it
4. A women's attitude matters

rejection of hyper-parenting

free range child
- children have more autonomy
slow parenting

Good father vs good mother meaning

- we understand what a 'good mother' is, but what makes a 'good father' is less clear although Shift since 1970s to more involved fathering
(more hands-on)

“CONCERTED CULTIVATION” (LAREAU
2002)

STAGES OF PARENTING
(ROSSI 1968)

1. Cultural pressure encourages adults to
become parents (even if they may not
want to).
2. Most mothers/fathers approach
parenthood w/little to no experience in
childcare.
3. Unlike other adult roles, the transition to
parenting is abrupt.
4. Adjusting to parenthood requires changes
in couple’s relationship.
5. Today’s parents do not have clear
guidelines about what constitutes good
parenting.

Baumrind's 'Parenting Styles' (4)

1. Authoritarian
- Demand absolute obedience from kids, often resorting to violence as punishment to control their kids as a result → power enables them to set a norm
- Some kids turn out submissive, but others act out
- Parents see their exercise of control and authoritarian acts as examples of being protective over their kids
2. Permissive → seen in middle-class fams
- More expression, less conformity promoted by parents
- Try to reason with kids instead of physical punishment
- Leads to kids with high self-esteem, but less discipline and understanding of other people's rights
3. Authoritative → seen in middle-class fams
- Parents encourage kids to be self-reliant, autonomous
- Less punitive, repressive punishment in favour of positive reinforcement
- Parents are not relinquishing control, but are giving kids more
- Leads to achieving, competent kids
4. Uninvolved
- Indifferent parents with few demands on and support for their kids
- These kids have the most behavioural problems

Concerted cultivation (Lareau 2002)

natural growth: working class, more leisure time, more autonomy
concerted cultivation: middle class, less leisure time, structure activities, more negotiation and entitlement, more comfort with authority figures

Amber 2012 additions to Baumrind's Parenting Styles (2)

Wavering-negotiation (Ambert 2012)
- Style where parents don't guide kids or make demands on them
- However, parents consult the children along the way → what they want/like, etc.
No-nonsense (Ambert 2012)
- Seen among families such as Black Americans and Canadians
- Between authoritarian and authoritative parents → Higher on control than authoritative parents but warmer and more supportive than authoritarian parents
- Leads to functional adaptation to dangerous societies
- Parents are vigilant but caring

Emerging adulthood Arnett 2004

- sentimentalization of childhood
mid 20th
- grad high school, left parents home ,got a full time job, got married, had kids
now: identity exploration, age of instability, period of self focus, feeling in-between, possibilities

Divorce

Divorce is only between people who are married, includes the division of each individuals rights over property, custody over children.

Timeline of Divorce in Canada

Marriage long controlled by church of England/Roman Catholic Church
- no such thing as divorce
- abused was excepted as normal in marriages
1840-1968; divorce required an act of Parliament
- a bill had to be passed by both the house of commons and the senate, and had to be given the royal assent by the monarch
- women had to prove they had been wanting to leave for at least 2 years, of that there was extreme abuse
"poor man's divorce"
- due to length and cost of divorce many people would walk out
Mid-1960s easing up, federal legislation on divorce, "no faults divorce"
- everywhere except Quebec and Newfoundland had legislation on divorce
- during time of civil rights movement and women's liberation movement
- increased rates of divorce
- much easier to get a divorce

"no faults divorce"

if you want a divorce you get one

Statistics Canada hasn't published/collected data on divorce since 2008, why?

- many different forms of families and couples
- divorce is most reflective of traditional census family, these types of families are no longer the majority, this means knowing the exact number of divorces isn't as relevant
- there are other ways we can roughly record number of divorces, eg. through tax data

Timeline of Divorce in the US

1639 Puritan court in Massachusetts granted first divorce
- not simple, at times needing family/friends to testify
- divorce looked down upon
1960s-1980s 'divorce revolution'
- no longer takes two people for divorce to happen

When was same-sex divorce recognized?

1995

Describe divorce rates in same-sex couples why might it look this way?

There is a higher risk of divorce, this may be due to the fact that same-sex marriage is still more stigmatized and there is less community support.

What are the three forms of calculating divorce?

1. Ever married divorce rate 2. Crude divorce rate 3. Refined divorce rate

How do you calculate the " ever married divorce rate"?

Number of marriages in cohort x
1000/number of divorces in cohort =

What are the pros and cons of "ever married divorce rate"?

pros, the most accurate number of marriage cons, you must wait until all people either die or have their last divorce

How do you calculate "crude divorce rate"?

2. Number of divorces in a given year x
1000/total population in a given year =

What is a con of the "crude divorce rate"?

This is will a better picture than the reality, because it takes into account children and widows which brings the number down

How do you calculate the " refined divorce rate"?

3. Number of divorces in a given year x
1000/number of existing marriages =
-within the marriages of that years how many will divorce

What are Gottman's (1994) "Four Horseman of the Apocalypse" also knowns as "stages of divorce"

1. Criticism 2. Contempt: the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration 3. Defensiveness 4. Stonewalling
- once you are moving through them it's hard to stop
- the further you move through them the harder it is to turn back

According to Bohanan (1979) what are the 6 types of divorce? Give examples of each.

1. Emotional
- withholding positive emotion and communication
- these things will be replaced with alienation
2. Legal
- dissolving marriage through state; court order
- financial independence
3. Community
- marriage brings together families, divorce is not only the separation of people but also of families
4. Psychic
- psychological autonomy
- you are now separated from both the things you like and dislike about you previous partner
5. Parenting
- renegotiating traditions, boundaries, rituals, authority, responsibilities
6. Economic
- financial independence

How does divorce effect wealth? Give examples.

Marriage grows wealth, divorce depletes it.
- shared pool of money in marriage, eg. house
- married people work harder
- divorce reverses the gains that people attain through marriage
- Divorced couples lose about ¾ of shared wealth within 5 years of divorce

What are some risk factors of divorce?

1. Age
- those who marry younger are more likely to divorce
2. Education
- individuals with less than a high school education more likely to divorce
3. SES ( socioeconomic status)
- lower SES higher risk of divorce
4. Religiosity
- those who attend religious institution more frequently are less likely to divorce
5. Interracial
- marrying across social categories leads to greater risk of divorce
6. Parental divorce
7. Social Network
- If you are to people who are have divorced there is an increased chance of divorce

Describe divorce and social contagiousness

- there was a study done on whether or not divorce is "contagious". They found that those who where closer to others who had divorced were more likely to divorce as well. This could be due to the spread of attitudes and info. This study was not generalizable.

Divorce and how it affects children.

1. Age
- the younger children are the less effected they are by divorce
2. Gender
- girls tend to adapts better than boys; this may be due to the fact that for the most part mothers gain custody
3. "Sleeper affect"
- When the impacts of divorce don't show up until later on in life
4. Stressor factors
- Absent
- Financial hardship: less resources for children
- Parental conflict, this has the largest effect of children
5. Protective factors
- positive impact
- resulting from bond with mother; empowerment, higher relationship suaveness

Remarriage

- 2/3rd of people who will divorce will remarry, than is higher than widows
- men are more likely to remarry

How many first marriage will divorce?

1/2

How many second marriage will divorce?

6/10th

heterogamy and remarriage

people are more willing to tolerate it in remarriage

How are step mother and step fathers portrayed in children's movies?

step mother: evil, compared to ogres and bears
step fathers: absent, may be portrayed as abusive

When was the first time step families were included in census Canada?

in 2011, included complex and simple step families

Describe the work-family balance involved in care work

1. Time balance
- the time you give to both work and family
2. Involvement Balance
- the time psychologically spent
3. Satisfaction Balance
- how satisfied an individual is with their work and family

What are the demographic pressure we see pertaining to care work?

- pressure for two incomes; if women are working who will care for children --> results in women having fewer children
- people are living longer -- someone needs to care for them
- there are less children meaning there wont be enough people to care for elders

Describe the "crisis of care" .

Women’s EXODUS from home = CRISIS in care (not only children, but also
chronically ill, disabled, and elderly)
OVERBURDENED FAMILIES
Care remains gendered, radicalized, and devalued (‘coerced care’)

What are solutions to the care crisis?

- understanding care work as a job
- service that provides well-being and happiness and takes many skills

What is the sandwich generation?

- middle-aged adults who care for both their children and their elder parents

What is the club sandwich generation

caring for grandparents, parents and children
- this is due to increased longevity

Describe leave available for mothers in the united states

- not paid leave
family and medical leave act: leave up to 12 weeks, unpaid, only if you work in an enterprise with 50+ employees

What is the government/employers doing to help with care work when it is handled as a private concern?

- care is private
- there are traditional underpinnings making these options exclusionary
- more invested in reproduction than eldercare

what is the governement/employers doing to help with work when it is handled as a public concern?

- cost of childcare is shared; everyone bares the cost
- offering flexible work schedules

ideally should we rely on government or employers to regulate family benefits?

- should fall back on government
- though it tends to be employers which means benefits aren't consistent
- if it fell back on gov there would more consistent and equal