37:575:100 Chap.5 Gender, Work and Family
Gender, Work and Family
From sex to gendered work
Week 8 covers women's participation in paid work, gender inequality and discrimination, and work and family policy. The slides begin by separating sex, a biological classification, from gender, the roles a society considers appropriate for men and women.
Gender is produced through socialization, internalization, actualization and institutionalization, and work organized around these expectations becomes gendered work: jobs labeled as men's or women's, with men's work given more status and pay.
The size of the gap
The slides define the gender wage gap as the difference between men's and women's median earnings relative to men's.
In 2024 women in the United States earned about 85% of what men earned, up from 65% in 1982, but progress has slowed over the past twenty years. For women of color the shortfall is larger: against white, non-Hispanic men in 2023, Black women earned 66% and Latinas 58%.
New Jersey's ratio was 82.7% in 2023.
Three explanations
Choice theory says women earn less because they choose less demanding work; critics reply that choices are shaped by socialization. Interpersonal explanations point to statistical discrimination, hostile and benevolent sexism, and subtle barriers such as the glass ceiling.
Structural explanations, following Joan Acker, locate the cause in organizations built around an ideal worker with no caring duties, which produces a motherhood penalty and a fatherhood bonus. The slides stress that the explanations can all be partly true.
Care, flexibility and policy
Arlie Hochschild's second shift describes the housework and childcare women do after paid work.
The assigned interview with Heejung Chung adds that flexible work often means longer hours, and that mothers working from home do more unpaid care. The slides note that US family leave is less generous than in other rich countries and list remedies such as paid family leave and a stronger Equal Pay Act.
The global picture
The slides place the US in international context.
Across industrialized countries, the median full-time pay gap between men and women stood at 11.4% in 2022, down from 17.6% in 2010. The World Economic Forum's 2025 index finds that 68.8% of the overall gender gap has been closed across 148 economies, with the smallest progress in political empowerment and economic participation.
Education and health gaps are much closer to closed, which shows that equal schooling alone has not produced equal pay.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Sex, gender and social construction
- 02
Gendered work and unpaid work
- 03
The earnings ratio in the US and New Jersey
- 04
Choice, interpersonal and structural explanations
- 05
The second shift and the flexibility paradox
- 06
Family policy remedies
Worked example · free
Trace a leave policy through the four stages of gender
- 1Socialization: the policy echoes messages that women are the natural caregivers.
- 1Internalization: fathers may feel stigma for caregiving and mothers guilt for returning quickly.
- 1Actualization: mothers take the leave and step back from paid work while fathers stay.
- 1Institutionalization: a formal rule locks the pattern in, feeding the motherhood penalty.
Key terms
- Gendered Organization
- Joan Acker's term for an organization whose practices and processes produce and reproduce inequality between men and women.
- Motherhood Penalty
- The lower pay or stalled advancement mothers often face after having children, while fathers may gain a bonus.
- Second Shift
- Arlie Hochschild's term for the housework and childcare women do after a day of paid work.
Gender, Work and Family FAQ
Is the gender wage gap 85% or 15%?
The slides' 85% figure for 2024 is the ratio of women's to men's earnings, so the gap in that measure is about 15%. Keep the ratio and the gap distinct, and do not mix it with the separate international measure in the slides.
Isn't the pay gap just the result of women's choices?
Choice theory says so, but the slides note that choices are shaped by socialization and that male-dominated jobs pay more than female-dominated jobs requiring the same skill, which choice alone cannot explain.
Does flexible work help close the gap?
Not automatically. Chung's research finds flexible workers put in longer hours and mothers at home take on more unpaid care, so without supporting policies flexibility can reinforce the traditional division of labor.
What is the motherhood penalty?
It is the lower pay or slower advancement mothers often face after having children, because employers see them as less committed. Fathers, by contrast, often receive a bonus, since they are seen as more committed providers.
Exam move
Learn the earnings ratios as a set, 65% in 1982, 85% in 2024, 66% and 58% for Black women and Latinas, and practise stating each correctly. Then write one paragraph combining the three explanations of the gap, and one applying the flexibility paradox to remote work.
