Gender and the Second Shift

Gender and the Second Shift

As a working parent, I identify with the challenges resulting from attempts to balance the expectations inherent to working outside of the home (full-time employment), with fulfilling the responsibilities within the home associated with being a spouse and parent (i.e., household organization, resource supplying basic living necessities, disciplinarian, etc.), specifically a wife and mother or the “Second Shift” (Hochschild, 1990).

The social phenomena coined by Sociologist and Professor at University of California- Berkeley, Arlie Hochschild, as the “Second Shift”, describes the “real world” experiences of dual-career households, specific to division of household responsibilities. In her book of the same name, Hochschild described the results of her research, indicating the overwhelming number of women in the United States, maintaining full-time employment outside of the home, along with the day-to-day responsibilities associated with childcare and household functions (i.e., cleaning, meal preparation, etc.). Although women make-up 51% of the our country’s full-time workforces, along with the social and legal efforts toward achieving professional equality, the obligations associated with maintaining a household, remain largely left to them (Hochschild, 1990)

Due to our society’s seemingly overwhelming acceptance of this behavior as a “cultural norm” (“Rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit.”) (ChangingMinds.org, n.d), economists and sociologists alike, have conducted numerous studies attempting to “calculate the salaries” associated with the duties of mothers who’s full-time responsibilities lie within the home and mothers maintaining employment outside of the home. "Mom.salary.com" features "Mom Salary Wizard 2”, which attempts to assess a monetary value to such duties (Mom.salary.com, 2010). In addition, the article entitled, "What is a Mother's...

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