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Women's work

About: Women's work is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1625 publications have been published within this topic receiving 33754 citations. The topic is also known as: woman's work.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This study drew on a life course approach and a sample of 293 women from four birth cohorts in upstate New York to examine the relationship over time between women's paid work and their informal caregiving of aging or infirm relatives.
Abstract: This study drew on a life course approach and a sample of 293 women from four birth cohorts in upstate New York to examine the relationship over time between women's paid work and their informal caregiving of aging or infirm relatives. We find that such caregiving is an increasingly likely role for women, both as they age and across birth cohorts. One in four (24%) women became caregivers at some time between ages 35-44, and over one in three (36%) of these same women became caregivers between ages 55-64. Only 45 percent of the oldest cohort (born 1905-1917) were ever caregivers, compared to 64 percent of the most cohort (born 1927-1934), an increase of almost 20 percent. Clearly changes in the labor force participation of more recent cohorts of women do not appear to alter their caregiving responsibilities. In fact, women in this sample were equally likely to become caregivers, regardless of whether or not they were employed.

261 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored whether occupational gender segregation at the labor market level exacerbates the wage penalty associated with female-dominated jobs, and investigated the association between gender composition and the size of within-job gender gaps.
Abstract: Although abundant evidence documents pay penalties for female-dominated jobs, there is also substantial variation in gender inequality across U.S. metropolitan areas. These lines of research are united by exploring whether occupational gender segregation at the labor market level exacerbates the wage penalty associated with female-dominated jobs, and investigating the association between gender composition and the size of within-job gender gaps. Results show that the penalty accruing to female-dominated jobs is weaker in more integrated labor markets, but only among men, and that labor market integration does not significantly influence the association between the gender composition of jobs and within-job inequality. Further, even women in completely segregated jobs benefit from a context of occupational integration. It is concluded that, although gender devaluation is widespread and systematic, variation in gender composition effects across local contexts is an important dimension of gender inequality.

252 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined the ways in which men manage their gender identity on entry into occupations traditionally undertaken by women and found that men who entered "female" occupations face a range of challenges to their sense of "masculinity" and that gender identity and occupational identity become misaligned during this transition.
Abstract: This paper examines the ways in which men manage their gender identity on entry into occupations traditionally undertaken by women. Drawing on in-depth interviews with men in non-traditional occupations the paper demonstrates how men who enter “female” occupations face a range of challenges to their sense of ‘masculinity’. It is argued that gender identity and occupational identity become misaligned during this transition. The paper shows how men attempt to realign these two identities, either by a reconstruction or rationalization of the nature of their occupations, or by renegotiation of their own conception of what it means to be a man. The article concludes that the first of these approaches has important implications for the nature of occupations and the way in which work is carried out, while the second may be one of the key processes at work in the desegregation of the labour market.

220 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: There is a great deal of confusion about the history of women's work outside the home and about the origin and meaning of women' traditional place within the home as discussed by the authors, and most interpretations of either of these questions depend on assumptions about the other.
Abstract: There is a great deal of confusion about the history of women's work outside the home and about the origin and meaning of women's traditional place within the home. Most interpretations of either of these questions depend on assumptions about the other. Usually, women at home in any time period are assumed to be non-productive, the antithesis of women at work. In addition, most general works on women and the family assume that the history of women's employment, like the history of women's legal and political rights, can be understood as a gradual evolution from a traditional place at home to a modern position in the world of work. Some historians cite changes in employment opportunities created by industrialization as the precursors of legal emancipation. Others stress political rights as the source of improved economic status. In both cases, legal-political and economic ‘emancipation’ usually are linked to changes in cultural values. Thus William Goode, whose World Revolution and Family Patterns makes temporal and geographic comparisons of family patterns, remarks on what he calls ‘the statistically unusual status of western women today, that is their high participation in work outside of the home’.

210 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20235
20228
202139
202046
201952
201848