Showing papers on "Women's work published in 1980"

Postponing Marriage: The Influence of Young Women's Work Expectations.

Abstract: This paper investigates the determinants of one component of the recent changes in family life: the postponement of marriage among women in their early twenties. Single women in a national longitudinal study who planned to be housewives at age 35-as opposed to those who planned4to be working outside the home-were more likely to marry in the near future. But, between 1969 and 1975, the proportion of single women who planned to be housewives decreased sharply. Evidence is presented which suggests that the change in future work plans may have reduced the chances that a woman in her early twenties would marry in the next few years. The implications of these and other findings for the study of the transition to marriage are discussed.

"Women's Work" in Science, 1880-1910

Abstract: T HE PRACTICE OF SCIENCE, it has often been asserted, was always open to both sexes-or, to use sociological terms, was "universalistic" or "sex-blind"but in fact separate labor markets have long existed for men and women in the sciences.' Such markets seem to have emerged in the United States in the 1880s and 1890s, when women first began to seek scientific employment in significant numbers, and they were firmly established in several fields by 1910.2 Although the practice of sex segregation was usually justified with the essentially conservative rhetoric that women had "special skills" or "unique talents" for certain fields or kinds of work, the phenomenon seems to have been basically an economic one, originating in and sustained by three forces: the rise of a supply of women seeking employment in science, including the first female college graduates; strong resistance to their entering traditional kinds of scientific employment, for example, university teaching or government employment; and the changing structure of scientific work in the 1880s and after, which provided new roles and fields for these entering women. As a result, women were incorporated into the world of scientific employment but segregated within it, as the prevailing stereotypes of appropriate sexual roles interacted with expanding scientific research work and changing research strategies between 1880 and 1910. When the movement to give women a higher education had begun to take hold in the United States in the 1870s and 1880s, little thought had been given to the eventual careers that such graduates might take up. Because of the prevailing notion of "separate spheres" for the two sexes, most women were assumed to be seeking personal fulfillment and to be planning to become better wives and mothers. Advocates of their studying science saw it as offering a rigorous and satisfying intellectual experience to women who led essentially "aimless lives." Even such accomplished scientists as entomologist Mary Murtfeldt of St. Louis, Missouri, astronomer Maria Mitchell of Vassar College, ornithologist Graceanna Lewis of Philadelphia, and physicist Edward C. Pickering of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology expected that the women would participate in science only as amateurs. There were still so few women scientists

Female farming and the evolution of food production patterns amongst the Beti of south-central Cameroon.

Abstract: Three recent studies from rural West Africa link patterns of marriage with patterns of farming. Polly Hill writes a Fante village that a farmer should be conceived of as neither an individual male or female but as a husband and wife who work in a symbiotic relationship (1978:220). But in this village a high proportion of women were not living with a husband so that it was difficult for the husbandless wife to clear her land or the wifeless husband to weed his farms (p. 223). She implies the possibility that patterns of farming decisions may be affected by farmers access to the labour of the opposite sex. Jette Bukh makes a similar argument for Ewe farmers (Bukh 1979: 53-54). Haswell documents how a shift in staple foods may be due to the reallocation of male labour to commercial crops (Haswell 1975). The present case study of farming amongst the Beti people of Southern Cameroon pursues this line of thought. Through an ethnographic study of a food production system it focusses on the impact of the cash crop economy on farming practices. In certain respects the present system is the same in the past whereas in others it has changed. I will argue that both the continuities and he changes are related to the way in which the Beti division of labour by sex has adjusted to the cash-cropping of cocoa. Cocoa cultivation has altered the relationship of population to the land available for food farming; it has also made farmers incomes far more dependent on market prices than in the past. But the way in which agricultural practice has adjusted to both sets of pressure is a function of adjustments in indigenous social organisation. (excerpt)

Lateralness in women's work: New views on success

Abstract: Data from a longitudinal study of postbaccalaureate nursing careers are discussed in the context of the motive-to-avoid-success controversy Two groups of nurses with continuous work histories were intensively studied While most had experienced upward professional mobility, a significant minority had “lateral” careers, which, though not characterized by advancement, typically provide rewards of intensification Further, lateral careers only occurred in specialties allowing a high degree of professional autonomy Thus, upward mobility and advancement should not be the sole criteria of women's occupational progress Alternative conceptions of success may be significant in many occupations, although such beliefs may not serve as viable substitutes for professional autonomy and the opportunity for personal development Lateral movement may also characterize most men's work lives more aptly than descent or ascent; hence the findings underscore the necessity to rethink the image of movement in both male and female work spheres

The Political Economy of Women's Work: 1900-1920

Abstract: Recent work in women's history suggests that the dramatic rise in female labor force participation in the first decades of the twentieth century cannot be understood solely in terms of labor market forces. Although the demand for female labor increased substantially between 1900 and 1920 (Oppenheimer, 1970), such variables as religion, education, ethnicity, and social class interacted to determine the supply of women available for hire at any one time. It should not be surprising, therefore, that “cultural” variables such as these also served to limit the ability of women to improve their position in the labor market generally. This article will examine the ways in which the family and work environments interacted to determine the responsiveness of working women to different sorts of organizations which (theoretically) could have assisted them in altering the basic conditions of their work and family experiences.

Book Review: Sex Roles, Women's Work, and Marital Conflict: A Study of Family Change

Abstract: Astin said that gender was perhaps the most important factor influencing career outcomes. Homemaking and nursing belonged strictly to women; business, college teaching, law, engineering, science, and even social work strictly to men graduates. The few women in nontraditional careers such as medicine and law were more likely to leave than men, and sex discrimination in starting salaries was dramatic, even when controlled for background factors. Men earned better than $1,000 a year more than women entering teaching and bvsiness.