Gender, work and family (1)

Objective: 1) to examine the frequency of income quintiles by gender and ethnicity in Thai Nguyen 2) to explore the differences between these groups.

Method: 1568 individuals more than 18 years old who are working as farmer were selected. The weight values have been added in this paper so that the estimated population is closer to the reported population of Thai Nguyen province in 2009 Census.

Results: Males accounted for a smaller proportion than females (46.2% versus 53.8%). Mean age is 39.2 years old. There are more Kinh people in high income quintile than ethnic minorities (EM). By gender, women had lower income than men, although the total working time per week of women was similar (in EM) or higher (in Kinh) than men.

Conclusion: In Thai Nguyen province, there are the differences between man and female, Kinh and EM in income and working time.

Keywords: income, ethnic minorities, gender, Vietnam, Thai Nguyen

Transnational Call Centres in India cater to the customers of developed countries like United Kingdom and United States. Due to time differences between Western countries and India employees have to work at night. The objective of the paper is to bring out how far the women employees are able to negotiate between their career and family life. The study is based on data and evidence available from various surveys carried out on women employees of transnational Call Centres located in India cities. The night shift disrupts normal social and family life routine and becomes challenging, especially for married women. It challenges and changes the position of women by physically taking her away from home, family and society and leading to her social and mental isolation. Women hardly have time to spend with family during daytime or holidays. The cumulative outcome of all these is increasing health hazards and mental stress, which women manage through positive and negative coping mechanism.

Reallocation of economic resources between generations has important consequences for economic growth and inequality. This study provides estimates of time transfers between generations and genders, and complements existing literature on monetary transfers. We use data from the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS) to estimate age- and sex-specific profiles of time allocated to unpaid productive activities for a number of countries. The unpaid working time is then distributed, with a statistical model, to those age groups that benefit from it, in order to estimate age-specific consumption profiles of time. We observe large transfers of time from females to males, and from adults to children and the elderly. Life course trajectories are qualitatively similar across countries, but with significant variations in levels. Differences in profiles by household structure allow us to evaluate the the extent of incentives and disincentives for particular fertility choices in different social and institutional settings.

In India, longstanding structural and cultural barriers and pervasive gender inequality have curtailed access to work experience and future employment opportunities for adolescents girls. This paper argues that early exposure to information, communication and technology (ICT) and work experience is rapidly challenging societies and these barriers, changing family and household structures, and importantly creating opportunities to change aspirations and mindsets of adolescent girls, and their families.

This qualitative study was carried out in Tamil Nadu investigated attitudes and structural barriers faced by young females attending two engineering colleges. Questionnaires were completed by male (n=364) and female students (n=241), representing all social groups and castes. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted to explore the role of agency and structure in promoting and constraining the student's aspirations and ambitions.

This paper presents the girls’ perceptions of the difficulties and realities they face, giving unique insights to the barriers facing this cohort of the ICT era, and struggles between reality and optimism. Interestingly, these young women were more focused on studies, determined to succeed, and many had higher goals and aspirations than their male counterparts.

This paper examines the relationship between family structure (indicated by presence of partner, young child, and another adult) and labour force participation of immigrant women. Immigrant women have lower labour force participation rates than Canadian-born women. Presence of partner, young child, and another adult are each associated with lower labour force participation for all women, with young child showing the largest association. Multivariate analyses confirm the negative effect of each indicator of family structure and the lower participation of immigrant women compared to Canadian-born women, with some exceptions. Family structure effects differ for partnered and non-partnered women, particularly the diminished effect of presence of young child on non-partnered women’s labour force participation. The findings suggest that ways to increase immigrant women’s labour force participation are mostly similar to those for increasing women’s labour force participation in general, including increasing educational attainment and providing childcare facilities for women with young children. Because most immigrant women are still less likely to be in the labour force, more research is needed on factors associated with immigrant ethnic groups that may discourage women’s labour force participation.

The structure of China’s economy and labor market has undergone dramatic changes in the last 30 years, moving from state-centered organization towards marketization. The principles governing employment and gender relations likewise changed. State sector employment remains more secure than the more lucrative market sector, yet market sector jobs do not typically offer wages high enough to support a family on a single income. In order to minimize the risk associated with market sector work while reaping the economic benefits, scholars noted the emergence of a two-system adaptation in which one spouse (typically the wife) retains employment in the state sector with the benefits it entails, while the other ventures into the market. However their findings have been limited to small, non-representative samples. We bring a dataset representative of the Shanghai population to bear on the question of whether or not spouses are specializing in state and market work. We follow changes in couples’ ownership sector of employment and ask if wives are more likely to retain state sector jobs (or be laid off) while their husbands seek market sector work.

The study seeks to advance and contribute to the debate in several ways: investigating the extent and patterns of marital assortative mating, as well as the changes in family structures in Brazil; discussing whether, how and how changes in the patterns of assortative mating marital and family structures affect income inequality in recent decades in Brazil. The analysis exploits the potential of microdata from household surveys in several particular aspects. The rotating panel of the Monthly Employment Survey (PME) from 1982 to 2012 follow transitions (in labor market participation, income and type of occupational structure) which determine patterns of social mobility, according to different family structures and patterns of marital assortative mating. Samples are restricted to individuals 25 to 60 years old, divided into triennial cohorts followed over time. Then, the implications of changes and / or permanence of the identified patterns of living arrangements and marital assortative mating in terms of the distribution of labor income and household income are assessed using a model of quantile regressions. The main question is the extent to which barriers to marriage between educational groups are responsible for differences in income between these groups.

The paper seeks to reflect on the conditions of "reconciliation", or better, articulation between work and family among female workers in two different familiar conditions: spouses and heads of households. It analyzes data from a survey of the Project "Vulnerability" held in 2007 in two metropolitan regions of São Paulo, Brazil (Metropolitan Region of Campinas and Baixada Santista Metropolitan Region) involving almost 4000 households.

It starts with the assumption that the dynamics of gender relations in work-family articulation, i.e., the linkage between productive and reproductive work allows to foster reflection on the vulnerability of families. Since the paid work of women - household heads and spouses/partners - becomes increasingly important in the maintenance of families, forms of "reconciliation" between work and family can shape the direction of family unity for the good and for evil.
It is from this perspective that, for both regions, comparative data are analyzed referring to the labor insertion of women, and their concurrent participation in domestic work. Three dimensions are analyzed: the distribution of domestic tasks between household members, caring for children and the making of important decisions for the family life.

Although it is well documented that the correlation between female labor participation rate (FLPR) and total fertility rate (TFR) among the OECD countries changed from negative (where countries with higher FLPR had lower TFR) to positive during the 1980s, it has not been well known whether this implies a change in the causal relationship between the two variables and, if it does, what the mechanism behind this change is. This article shows that the average effect of FLPR on TFR is still negative when controlling for unobserved heterogeneity in the TFR level, but this effect has been weakened through two mechanisms that involve the role of work-life balance: (1) an interaction effect of FLPR and work-life balance on TFR and (2) a positive indirect effect of FLPR on TFR through the attainment of work-life balance. It also shows that two aspects of work-life balance, namely, compatibility between work and childrearing and the flexibility of workplace and employment, play distinct roles in realizing those two mechanisms.

The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region has experienced a process of economic and social change that has enabled the reduction of the gender gap in some areas and reversed it in others. Demographic and urban transitions have enabled women to live longer and to have fewer children. They have surpassed men in education and reduced the gender gap in the labor market, although various forms of occupational segregation and wage discrimination remain. As elsewhere, the region has made advances in its epidemiological transition, but external causes of death have affected men much more than women, resulting in a growing surplus of women. Social achievements in the region have been reflected in higher levels of female participation in decision-making arenas, although parity is still far-off. The objective of this paper is to analyze recent reductions and reversals of the gender gap in the LAC region in the health, education, labor market and decision making arenas. This type of analysis is crucial for updating the debate on issues of gender and sustainable development, as set out in the ICPD Plan of Action (1994), Beijing Plataform (1995), Millennium Development Goals (2000) and The future we want (Rio + 20, 2012).