Long Work Hours In Dual-earner Households Widen The Gender Gap Print E-mail
Living - Workplace
Written by TS-Si News Service   
Saturday, 02 August 2008 17:00
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Boston, MA, USA.  Overtime work has a disproportionate affect on women in dual-earner households. Those women whose husbands work long hours are more likely to leave their jobs. The negative impacts are most likely for professionals with children. This comes from a presentation at the American Sociological Association (ASA) annual meeting.
 
Overall, more than 68 million women work in the civilian labor force: 63% of women work, while 54% of women work full time. Nationally, women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. [C1]
 
 
Facts about Working Women. US government statistics as of April 2004; calculations are based on 2002 income data. Women Employed Institute (We). 
 
Overwork and the Persistence of Gender Inequality in the U.S. Labor Market. Youngjoo Cha. Dissertation. Cornell University, Department of Sociology. Under preparation. 2008.
 
Resurgence of the Separate Spheres Arrangement?: The Effect of Spousal Overwork on the Employment of Men and Women in Dual-Earner Households. Youngjoo Cha. Conference Presentation. Inter-Ivy Sociology Symposium, Princeton University. 29 March 2008.
 
 
The need to leave their jobs, exacerbates gender inequality for women and supports the classic "separate sphere" phenomenon in which men are the breadwinners while women tend to the home.
 
Youngjoo Cha, author of the study and a doctoral candidate in sociology at Cornell University."Women whose husbands work long hours are more likely to quit their jobs, yet men's careers are not impacted when their wives put in long hours," said Youngjoo Cha, author of the study and a doctoral candidate in sociology at Cornell University. [C2]
 
"This suggests a potential return to the 'separate spheres' arrangement — breadwinning men and homemaking women — as long hours become increasingly common." [C3]
 
To determine the impact of longer work hours on dual-earner households, Cha analyzed data from the 1996 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), a longitudinal household survey conducted by the US Census Bureau that covers calendar years 1995 through 2000. The sample was limited to dual-earner married couples in professional and non-professional employment.
 
Cha found that women whose husbands worked more than 60 hours per week were 44 percent more likely to quit their own jobs. However, there was no impact on husbands' odds of quitting when wives worked long hours.
 
Results were even more pronounced when Cha isolated professional workers. Professional women were 52 percent more likely to quit their jobs when their husbands worked more than 60 hours per week. As in the case of all workers, overworking wives did not affect the employment status of professional men.
 
Among professionals, husbands were more than twice as likely as wives to work more than 50 hours per week (30 percent of husbands compared to 12 percent of wives). According to Cha, this suggests that in professional occupations, women are less likely to expect spousal support than men are.
 
Dual-earner households with children were the most likely candidates for the "separate spheres" arrangement Cha discusses. Professional mothers whose husbands worked more than 60 hours per week were 90 percent more likely to quit their jobs than childless women whose husbands did not work long hours.
 
The effect of overwork was less in the case of non-professionals, yet still had a negative impact on the employment status of women.
 


[C1] Facts about Working Women. US government statistics as of April 2004; calculations are based on 2002 income data. Women Employed Institute (We).  [ Download PDF ]

[C2] Overwork and the Persistence of Gender Inequality in the U.S. Labor Market. Youngjoo Cha. Dissertation. Cornell University, Department of Sociology. Under preparation. 2008.

Abstract

In my dissertation, I investigate the effect of the increasing prevalence of overwork and the continuing gender gap in work hours on women’s achievement. In particular, I examine the effect of overwork on labor market outcomes by asking three research questions: (1) Does overwork widen the gender earnings gap?; (2) Does overwork contribute to perpetuating occupational gender segregation or a “glass ceiling” effect?; and (3) Does overwork reinforce the separate spheres arrangement, where men are oriented to the paid labor market and women to household labor? Findings that address these questions provide empirical evidence that helps us to understand how overwork contributes to the “stalled revolution,” in which progress toward gender equality is slowed by the gendered workplace.

[C3] Resurgence of the Separate Spheres Arrangement?: The Effect of Spousal Overwork on the Employment of Men and Women in Dual-Earner Households. Youngjoo Cha. Conference Presentation. Inter-Ivy Sociology Symposium, Princeton University. 29 March 2008.

 
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Last Updated on Saturday, 02 August 2008 07:21