A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

A Treatise on the Family

Wives' Employment and the Division of Family Work Basic Patterns of Family Work and Paid Work Paid Work, Sex, and Sex Role Ideology as Determinants of Family Work Wives' Desire for Greater Husband Participation in Family Work The Consequences of Role Overload Husbands' Psychological Involvement in Work and Family Husbands' and Wives' Roles The Issues Today

Working Wives, Working Husbands

Gender inequality remains both a pressing social issue and a fruitful area of social science research. This edited volume seeks to examine gender inequality and the production of well-being in Europe from an interdisciplinary perspective that is perhaps more feminist economics than sociology. The chapters draw on historical and contemporary European examples and offer a somewhat different take (both theoretically and methodologically) on what is usually found in American sociology journals. This book takes a broader view on gender inequalities and the production of wellbeing, with the ‘‘capability approach’’ serving as the theoretical connection between the chapters. The chapters reemphasize that social reproduction is more complex than the production of goods. The various authors also call for and (in the empirical chapters) take into account the socio-political and economic context. An entire chapter is dedicated to the introduction of the capability approach (Chapter Two). But the description of the theory remains lacking amidst numerous references that point the reader towards clarification elsewhere. The authors posit that well-being is an important outcome, and that the production of well-being itself needs to be included in the study of gender inequality (Chapter One), while also demanding that women are not just another vulnerable group (Chapter Four). Chapter Three further challenges conventional notions about the evolution of the ‘‘modern family’’ in the wake of the industrialization process, and argues that the fragility of families is not a novel concept. These theoretical chapters call for a more multidimensional assessment of gender inequality, and remind readers of the importance of the concept and production of well-being. The topics covered in the two empirical parts of the book are very diverse in terms of subject, methodology, and historical time period. The first empirical section ‘‘Gender Care and Work’’ is held together by the challenge to the idea of women as passive victims and in need of assistance. Chapter Five demonstrates widows’ relative economic independence in urban Sweden and Finland from 1890 to 1910, and Chapter Six shows the centrality of female relatives in caring for extended family members in times of crisis. Chapter Seven reaffirms the idea that intergenerational support is not one-sided, and those often thought of as needing care due to older age are also givers of care and other forms of support. The findings from the chapters emphasize the importance of non-monetary transfers outside the market system. The theme of caregiving is readdressed in later chapters which illustrate how home caregiving in Belgium is situated between the public/market divide (Chapter Nine) and the problems of combining market work with caregiving, especially for those in the ‘‘sandwich generation’’ (Chapter Ten). In a seeming departure from studies in the capability approach tradition, Chapter Eight is a more typical time-use study that examines the gender asymmetry in unpaid labor in Italy. The results are not novel as women are found to do more unpaid work, especially in couples with children. The second empirical part of the book focuses on the intra-household allocation of resources. Three of the five chapters in this section center primarily on the nineteenth century, examining consumption patterns in Spain (Chapter 11), gender differences in children’s schooling in Switzerland (Chapter 12), and the differences in the treatment of and opportunities for celibate men and women in the Pyrenees (Chapter 13). These chapters illustrate gender differences, but not in

Managing the Margins: Gender, Citizenship, and the International Regulation of Precarious Employment

Sociological discourse analysis shares many of the procedures of other social sciences. Yet sociologists differ greatly in terms of how they approach discourse analysis, thus leading to confusion and doubts regarding the scientific status of sociological discourse analysis. In this article I attempt to clarify the methodological basis of sociological discourse analysis by differentiating it from other discourse analysis practices. To do so, I examine what sociologists actually do when they analyze discourse, while focusing on the common elements and principles shared by the different approaches to sociological discourse analysis.
URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0902263

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Sociological Discourse Analysis: Methods and Logic

Shortly after the financial crisis hit the USA and Europe in 2008, commentators started to debate the gendering of this recession. Initial response from North America suggested that a ‘man-cession’...

Women and austerity: the economic crisis and the future for gender equality

El articulo hace un repaso de las diferentes propuestas que dentro del ambito de la sociologia (o cercanos) toman elementos de o se han inspirado en el analisis de redes sociales para realizar el analisis de textos y/o discursos. A pesar de que la concepcion relacionista tiene ya una cierta tradicion en el analisis del discurso, no ha sido mas que a partir de la decada de los ochenta que se han desarrollado propuestas que, con mayor o menor intensidad, aplican la idea y el instrumental de redes sociales al analisis de textos. No obstante, muchas propuestas no superan los problemas que llevan asociados los analisis de caracter atributivo y/o categorial. Solo algunos procedimientos llegan a utilizar la aproximacion reticular como forma de preservar la articulacion y, con ello, la estructura semantica y sintactica del texto. Al panorama de las escasas propuestas existentes que siguen esta orientacion, el articulo incorpora los procedimientos (denominados analisis reticular del discurso) que los autores vienen desarrollado sobre dicha perspectiva y que insisten ademas, particularmente, en el trabajo de interpretacion y con-textualizacion del discurso.

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Relaciones, redes y discurso: revisión y propuestas en torno al análisis reticular de datos textuales

La tesis analiza las transformaciones en la division social y sexual del trabajo en Espana, poniendo el foco en el hogar como unidad de analisis, y subrayando la dimension de clase de dichos cambios. El punto de entrada en la problematica se halla en los cambios acontecidos en la esfera productiva y, en concreto, nace del interes por estudiar el auge de las parejas de doble ingreso. De este modo, se estudian los cambios en los patrones de empleo a nivel de hogar, fijandose tanto en los desarrollos acontecidos durante el periodo de expansion economica, como en el impacto de la crisis iniciada en 2008. En particular, la investigacion se centra en las parejas de doble ingreso entre la clase trabajadora, como colectivo principal protagonista de las transformas recientes, y sin embargo frecuentemente olvidado por la investigacion en este ambito. Con tal de aproximarse a los distintos niveles de la realidad estudiada, la tesis plantea un diseno multiestrategico de investigacion. La combinacion de la comparacion internacional con un diseno de metodos mixtos nos ha permitido abordar el objeto de estudio en sus niveles macro y micro, en sus dimensiones material y simbolica, asi como complementar una mirada estatica con una perspectiva de curso de vida. Dicho diseno de investigacion incluye la explotacion de datos de European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) para 26 paises, con el objetivo de generar una tipologia de paises a nivel europeo con base en los patrones de empleo de las parejas. A ello se anade una explotacion en profundidad de los datos del caso espanol, para poner de relieve el papel de la clase como factor de diferenciacion de las formas de articulacion de vida laboral y vida familiar. Finalmente, se realizan entrevistas biograficas semiestructuradas con parejas de doble ingreso de clase trabajadora. La estrategia de articulacion de estos tres componentes se basa en la secuencialidad y en la anidacion.

La División social y sexual del trabajo en transformación

El articulo revisa las propuestas que dentro de la perspectiva del Analisis de Redes Sociales han realizado diversos autores en relacion al muestreo y la recogida de datos. Estos aspectos, resueltos de modo satisfactorio en la perspectiva individualista-atomista, plantean no pocos problemas en la perspectiva de redes sociales. Resulta especialmente problematica la posibilidad de realizar muestras representativas de las relaciones existentes en una poblacion. Aun en el caso de conocer con antelacion todos los actores y sus relaciones entre ellos, la eleccion de una muestra representativa de actores no garantiza una muestra representativa de relaciones. La alternativa tomada en el articulo es la de realizar el analisis de grupos sociales tomados como «poblaciones». Una aplicacion practica de esta ultima opcion es presentada como ejemplo.

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Muestreo y recogida de datos en el análisis de redes sociales

En los ultimos anos, el ya viejo 			debate en torno a la articulacion metodologica se ha centrado 			con fuerza en las implicaciones de las  investigaciones 			multimetodo o basadas en la mezcla de metodos (metodos mixtos). 			En este contexto se ha reflexionado con cierta profundidad, 			especialmente en el ambito anglosajon, respecto a las ventajas 			metodologicas que aportan este tipo de disenos, aunque bastante 			menos respecto a los beneficios que se aportan a la reflexion 			teorica. Partiendo de la premisa de que este tipo de diseno no 			debe entenderse como una via de escape a la realidad 			multiparadigmatica de la investigacion sociologica, el articulo 			defiende que el diseno multimetodo es mas eficiente teorica y 			metodologicamente que los disenos exclusivamente cuantitativos o 			cualitativos. Utilizando la terminologia de Creswell, se 			argumenta que la eficiencia metodologica se consigue 			especialmente con los disenos de caracter secuencial, mientras 			que la eficiencia teorica se consigue especialmente con los 			disenos de caracter concurrente, sobre todo en su vertiente 			anidada. Estos argumentos se refuerzan con ejemplos de una 			investigacion que los dos autores han terminado recientemente, 			centrada en la realidad juvenil catalana. During last years, the old 			debate on methodological articulation has strongly focussed on the 			implications of mixed methods or multimethod research. In this 			framework, the methodological advantages of this kind of designs 			have been commonly appreciated, especially in the Anglo-Saxon 			context, though the advantages for theoretical reflection have 			been much less considered. Taking for granted that multimethod 			research is not a way to elude the multi-paradigmatic reality of 			sociological research, the article supports the idea that 			multimethod designs are more methodologically and theoretically 			efficient than those designs that are exclusively quantitative or 			qualitative. Using the terminology by Creswell, it is argued that 			methodological efficiency is especially achieved by using 			sequential designs while theoretical efficiency is achieved by 			using concurrent designs—especially in its nested version. These 			arguments are backed with examples coming from a research that 			authors have recently finished, centred on the analysis of Catalan 			youth.

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La eficiencia teórica y metodológica de los diseños multimétodo

El articulo revisa el conjunto de aproximaciones al analisis de textos que se han inspirado en la teoria de redes sociales. Estas aproximaciones se agrupan en tomo a dos orientaciones principales: aquellas que buscan fundamentalmente la representacion y analisis de las palabras presentes en un texto dejando en una posicion secundaria el tipo de relacion que las une, y aquellas que otorgan la misma importancia tanto a las palabras que conforman el texto como al tipo de relaciones que las vinculan y les dan sentido semantico. El primer tipo de aproximacion, que se ha denominado analisis de redes de palabras, es el mas extendido, y presenta algunos inconvenientes que el segundo tipo de analisis —que se ha denominado analisis de redes textuales— intenta resolver. The article reviews the group of approaches to text analysis that have been inspired by social network theory. These approaches are set in two main orientations: those that search basically the representation and analysis of words that are present in a text, leaving in a secondary place the type of relation that links them, and those that give the same importance both to words in the text and relations that bond words and provide semantic meaning. The first kind of approach, that has been called word-network analysis and it is the most extended one, presents some drawbacks that the second kind of approach ‑which has been called network text analysis‑ tries to solve.

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Joan Miquel Verd Pericás

Papers

Relaciones, redes y discurso: revisión y propuestas en torno al análisis reticular de datos textuales

La División social y sexual del trabajo en transformación

Muestreo y recogida de datos en el análisis de redes sociales

La eficiencia teórica y metodológica de los diseños multimétodo

El uso de la teoría de redes sociales en la representación y análisis de textos. De las redes semánticas al análisis de redes textuales