Working Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma

Working Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma PDF Author: Lisa Pasolli
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774829265
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
During the twentieth century, child care policy in British Columbia matured in the shadow of a political uneasiness with working motherhood. Working Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma examines how ideas about motherhood, paid work, and social welfare influenced universal child care discussions and consistently pushed access to child care to the margins of BC’s social policy agenda. Charting the growth of the child care movement in this province, Lisa Pasolli examines the arrival of Vancouver’s first crèche in 1912, the teetering steps forward during the debates of the interwar years, the development of provincial child care policy, the rebellious advancements of second-wave feminists in the 1960s and 1970s, and the maturation of provincial and national child care politics since the mid-70s. In addition to revealing much about historical attitudes toward women’s roles, Working Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma celebrates the efforts of mothers and advocates who, for decades, have lobbied for child care as a central part of women’s rights as workers, parents, and citizens.

Working Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma

Working Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma PDF Author: Lisa Pasolli
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774829265
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
During the twentieth century, child care policy in British Columbia matured in the shadow of a political uneasiness with working motherhood. Working Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma examines how ideas about motherhood, paid work, and social welfare influenced universal child care discussions and consistently pushed access to child care to the margins of BC’s social policy agenda. Charting the growth of the child care movement in this province, Lisa Pasolli examines the arrival of Vancouver’s first crèche in 1912, the teetering steps forward during the debates of the interwar years, the development of provincial child care policy, the rebellious advancements of second-wave feminists in the 1960s and 1970s, and the maturation of provincial and national child care politics since the mid-70s. In addition to revealing much about historical attitudes toward women’s roles, Working Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma celebrates the efforts of mothers and advocates who, for decades, have lobbied for child care as a central part of women’s rights as workers, parents, and citizens.

Child Care Problem

Child Care Problem PDF Author: David M. Blau
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610440595
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
The child care system in the United States is widely criticized, yet the underlying structural problems are difficult to pin down. In The Child Care Problem, David M. Blau sets aside the often emotional terms of the debate and applies a rigorous economic analysis to the state of the child care system in this country, arriving at a surprising diagnosis of the root of the problem. Blau approaches child care as a service that is bought and sold in markets, addressing such questions as: What kinds of child care are available? Is good care really hard to find? How do costs affect the services families choose? Why are child care workers underpaid relative to other professions? He finds that the child care market functions much better than is commonly believed. The supply of providers has kept pace with the number of mothers entering the workforce, and costs remain relatively modest. Yet most families place a relatively low value on high-quality child care, and are unwilling to pay more for better care. Blau sees this lack of demand—rather than the market's inadequate supply—as the cause of the nation's child care dilemma. The Child Care Problem also faults government welfare policies—which treat child care subsidies mainly as a means to increase employment of mothers, but set no standards regarding the quality of child care their subsidies can purchase. Blau trains an economic lens on research by child psychologists, evaluating the evidence that the day care environment has a genuine impact on early development. The failure of families and government to place a priority on improving such critical conditions for their children provides a compelling reason to advocate change. The Child Care Problem concludes with a balanced proposal for reform. Blau outlines a systematic effort to provide families of all incomes with the information they need to make more prudent decisions. And he suggests specific revisions to welfare policy, including both an allowance to defray the expenses of families with children, and a child care voucher that is worth more when used for higher quality care. The Child Care Problem provides a straightforward evaluation of the many contradictory claims about the problems with child care, and lays out a reasoned blueprint for reform which will help guide both social scientists and non-academics alike toward improving the quality of child care in this country.

The Changing Rhythms of American Family Life

The Changing Rhythms of American Family Life PDF Author: Suzanne M. Bianchi
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 161044051X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Over the last forty years, the number of American households with a stay-at-home parent has dwindled as women have increasingly joined the paid workforce and more women raise children alone. Many policy makers feared these changes would come at the expense of time mothers spend with their children. In Changing Rhythms of American Family Life, sociologists Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, and Melissa Milkie analyze the way families spend their time and uncover surprising new findings about how Americans are balancing the demands of work and family. Using time diary data from surveys of American parents over the last four decades, Changing Rhythms of American Family Life finds that—despite increased workloads outside of the home—mothers today spend at least as much time interacting with their children as mothers did decades ago—and perhaps even more. Unexpectedly, the authors find mothers' time at work has not resulted in an overall decline in sleep or leisure time. Rather, mothers have made time for both work and family by sacrificing time spent doing housework and by increased "multitasking." Changing Rhythms of American Family Life finds that the total workload (in and out of the home) for employed parents is high for both sexes, with employed mothers averaging five hours more per week than employed fathers and almost nineteen hours more per week than homemaker mothers. Comparing average workloads of fathers with all mothers—both those in the paid workforce and homemakers—the authors find that there is gender equality in total workloads, as there has been since 1965. Overall, it appears that Americans have adapted to changing circumstances to ensure that they preserve their family time and provide adequately for their children. Changing Rhythms of American Family Life explodes many of the popular misconceptions about how Americans balance work and family. Though the iconic image of the American mother has changed from a docile homemaker to a frenzied, sleepless working mom, this important new volume demonstrates that the time mothers spend with their families has remained steady throughout the decades.

Working Mother

Working Mother PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
The magazine that helps career moms balance their personal and professional lives.

Economics of Child Care

Economics of Child Care PDF Author: David M. Blau
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610440609
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
"David Blau has chosen seven economists to write chapters that review the emerging economic literature on the supply of child care, parental demand for care, child care cost and quality, and to discuss the implications of these analyses for public policy. The book succeeds in presenting that research in understandable terms to policy makers and serves economists as a useful review of the child care literature....provides an excellent case study of the value of economic analysis of public policy issues." —Arleen Leibowitz, Journal of Economic Literature "There is no doubt this is a timely book....The authors of this volume have succeeded in presenting the economic material in a nontechnical manner that makes this book an excellent introduction to the role of economics in public policy analysis, and specifically child care policy....the most comprehensive introduction currently available." —Cori Rattelman, Industrial and Labor Relations Review

Caring for Children

Caring for Children PDF Author: Rachel Langford
Publisher: University of British Columbia Press
ISBN: 9780774834285
Category : Canada
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Social inequality. Selective political attention. Insufficient funding and access. Caring for Children provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of the crisis in care for Canadian children and their caregivers. Couched in the language of choice, government policies on the care of Canadian children over the past decade have favoured professional, nuclear families while doing little to assist children with the greatest needs, including those from low-income, immigrant, and Aboriginal families. This feminist collection explores the politics of the care crisis, drawing on historical and contemporary materials to document policy shifts and associated social movement responses, and using comparative examples from across Canada to illustrate how public policies have both caused and emerged from the crisis. Analyzing the connections between services and programs, the contributors reveal how childcare, parental leave, informal care, live-in caregiver programs, and child tax benefits affect the well-being of Canadian children, caregivers, and families. They explain how social movements are fighting to change contemporary approaches to the care of children and affirm the urgent necessity of questioning Canadian political attitudes and arrangements."--

Impolite Conversations

Impolite Conversations PDF Author: Cora Daniels
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476739137
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
When was the last time you said everything on your mind without holding back? In this no-holds-barred discussion of America’s top hot-button issues, a journalist and a cultural anthropologist express opinions that are widely held in private—but rarely heard in public. Everyone edits what they say. It’s a part of growing up. But what if we applied tell-it-like-it-is honesty to grown-up issues? In Impolite Conversations, two respected thinkers and writers openly discuss five “third-rail” topics—from multi-racial identities to celebrity worship to hyper-masculinity among black boys—and open the stage for honest discussions about important and timely concerns. Organized around five subjects—Race, Politics, Sex, Money, Religion—the dialogue between Cora Daniels and John L. Jackson Jr. may surprise, provoke, affirm, or challenge you. In alternating essays, the writers use reporting, interviews, facts, and figures to back up their arguments, always staying firmly rooted in the real world. Sometimes they agree, sometimes they don’t, but they always reach their conclusions with respect for the different backgrounds they come from and the reasons they disagree. Whether you oppose or sympathize with these two impassioned voices, you’ll end up knowing more than you did before and appreciating the candid, savvy, and often humorous ways in which they each take a stand.

Career and Family

Career and Family PDF Author: Claudia Goldin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691228663
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
In this book, the author builds on decades of complex research to examine the gender pay gap and the unequal distribution of labor between couples in the home. The author argues that although public and private discourse has brought these concerns to light, the actions taken - such as a single company slapped on the wrist or a few progressive leaders going on paternity leave - are the economic equivalent of tossing a band-aid to someone with cancer. These solutions, the author writes, treat the symptoms and not the disease of gender inequality in the workplace and economy. Here, the author points to data that reveals how the pay gap widens further down the line in women's careers, about 10 to 15 years out, as opposed to those beginning careers after college. She examines five distinct groups of women over the course of the twentieth century: cohorts of women who differ in terms of career, job, marriage, and children, in approximated years of graduation - 1900s, 1920s, 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s - based on various demographic, labor force, and occupational outcomes. The book argues that our entire economy is trapped in an old way of doing business; work structures have not adapted as more women enter the workforce. Gender equality in pay and equity in home and childcare labor are flip sides of the same issue, and the author frames both in the context of a serious empirical exploration that has not yet been put in a long-run historical context. This book offers a deep look into census data, rich information about individual college graduates over their lifetimes, and various records and sources of material to offer a new model to restructure the home and school systems that contribute to the gender pay gap and the quest for both family and career. --

The Second Shift

The Second Shift PDF Author: Arlie Hochschild
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101575514
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
An updated edition of a standard in its field that remains relevant more than thirty years after its original publication. Over thirty years ago, sociologist and University of California, Berkeley professor Arlie Hochschild set off a tidal wave of conversation and controversy with her bestselling book, The Second Shift. Hochschild's examination of life in dual-career housholds finds that, factoring in paid work, child care, and housework, working mothers put in one month of labor more than their spouses do every year. Updated for a workforce that is now half female, this edition cites a range of updated studies and statistics, with an afterword from Hochschild that addresses how far working mothers have come since the book's first publication, and how much farther we all still must go.

Families That Work

Families That Work PDF Author: Janet C. Gornick
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610442512
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
Parents around the world grapple with the common challenge of balancing work and child care. Despite common problems, the industrialized nations have developed dramatically different social and labor market policies—policies that vary widely in the level of support they provide for parents and the extent to which they encourage an equal division of labor between parents as they balance work and care. In Families That Work, Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers take a close look at the work-family policies in the United States and abroad and call for a new and expanded role for the U.S. government in order to bring this country up to the standards taken for granted in many other Western nations. In many countries in Europe and in Canada, family leave policies grant parents paid time off to care for their young children, and labor market regulations go a long way toward ensuring that work does not overwhelm family obligations. In addition, early childhood education and care programs guarantee access to high-quality care for their children. In most of these countries, policies encourage gender equality by strengthening mothers' ties to employment and encouraging fathers to spend more time caregiving at home. In sharp contrast, Gornick and Meyers show how in the United States—an economy with high labor force participation among both fathers and mothers—parents are left to craft private solutions to the society-wide dilemma of "who will care for the children?" Parents—overwhelmingly mothers—must loosen their ties to the workplace to care for their children; workers are forced to negotiate with their employers, often unsuccessfully, for family leave and reduced work schedules; and parents must purchase care of dubious quality, at high prices, from consumer markets. By leaving child care solutions up to hard-pressed working parents, these private solutions exact a high price in terms of gender inequality in the workplace and at home, family stress and economic insecurity, and—not least—child well-being. Gornick and Meyers show that it is possible–based on the experiences of other countries—to enhance child well-being and to increase gender equality by promoting more extensive and egalitarian family leave, work-time, and child care policies. Families That Work demonstrates convincingly that the United States has much to learn from policies in Europe and in Canada, and that the often-repeated claim that the United States is simply "too different" to draw lessons from other countries is based largely on misperceptions about policies in other countries and about the possibility of policy expansion in the United States.