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Women's role in society over the centuries
Women's role in society over the centuries
Women's role in society over the centuries
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Throughout history, women have been encouraged to only play one role. This role has been to care after their children. For many generations women have been the predominant caretakers of their children, while the man goes out to work in order to provide for his family. The theorization has been that women should care for their children and have a well-kept home, where everything runs smoothly. Nevertheless there is still much argument over whether mothers should stay at home, or work. Over time many studies have shown the advantages of having a stay at home mother as well as disadvantages of having a working mother. Although most people believe that the negative out ways the positive many studies have proven that children of employed mothers are equally affected.
According to David Pelcovitz, Ph. D In recent years, Mothers working full time employment has risen, mothers working outside of the home have become part of the norm in the United States. Recent statistical polls show that 75% of mothers work full time in the first year of their child’s life. This is driven by the fact that most jobs in the United States only offer maternity leave for the first four to six weeks of a child’s life. The truth is that most working mothers are back to working full time while their child in still in their infant stage. The National Institute of Child Health and Development began an extensive comprehensive long term study in ten centers throughout the United States to answer the questions that had arisen about the relationships between maternal employment, child-care experiences and assorted outcomes in children. The conductors of the study were among the most respected researchers in the field of developmental psychology. After finishing ...
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...ent. Through the years we have seen the rates of mother employment skyrocket. At the present time most mothers in the United States are employed. Mothers working status does have an effect on her children, on the contrast many of these effects are positive. A child’s whose mothers work becomes more independent at an earlier age. They also achieve higher academic outcomes and are more socially adjusted. Daughters whose mothers work have a higher sense of competence and effectiveness. As a child there a pros and cons attracted to having a working mother. Working mothers have to manage an overabundance activities, this encourages their kids to take responsibility and become independent children. With both parents working, each family member has to play a more active role. These skill prepare children for the real world and instill in them sense of responsibility.
Harrison, L. J. and Ungerer, J. A., (2002). Maternal Employment and Infant-Mother Attachment Security at 12 Months Postpartum. Developmental Psychology, Vol. 38, No. 5, 758-773.
An argument has been raised that women have to be in charge of their home due to a man’s unwillingness to take over parenting responsibilities. That is quite beneficial to the women’s rights movement for the reason father’s helping a lot more time with children, building a stronger family relationship. Women have been subjected to fit into a certain image to suit society eyes for a long time, one of the main images being a stay at home mom nut they a capable of so much more. Females have more of a broader range of abilities than men do regardless of widespread idea that they are incapable of doing most activities.
In Letha Scanzoni’s book Men, Women, and Change: A Sociology of Marriage and Family she observes that a wife’s duty was “to please her husband...to train the children so that they would reflect credit on her husband”(205). Alongside the wife’s duties Scanzoni provides the husband’s duty to “provide economic resources”(207).These expectations have long been changed, since then these have become common courtesies. Today, we see less and less of the providing father, homemaking wife and respectable children family structure. We are now seeing what sociologists call the senior-partner/junior-partner structure. Women and mothers are now opting for the choice to work and provide more economic resources for the family. This has changed those expected duties of both men and women in a family scene. A working mother more or less abandons the role of homemaker, to become a “breadwinning” mother, and the father stays his course with his work and provide for the family. Suzanne M. Bianchi in her book Changing Rhythms of American Family Life comments on the effect of mothers working and the time they spend in the home. “Mothers are working more and including their children in their leisure time” (Chapter 10), now that ...
For low-income families, particularly single mothers, preschool is a huge financial burden. Despite what parents want for their children, it isn’t always a practical option; sometimes, the cost of enrolling their children outweighs the money earned at a job (Mason 46). Soon, mothers are sending their kids to preschool so they can work to make money to pay for preschool. Furthermore, without an education, parents are confined to minimum wage jobs with no hope of advancement (49). Where’s the incentive to work? Robin Mason describes one single mother’s motivation. For her, employment is more than just money; rather, it’s also a means to boost her self-esteem, gain financial independence, and set a positive example for her children. She emphasizes her responsibility to her children to keep a roof over their head, be a good mother, and choose a quality daycare (47).
Working women took jobs for various reasons. Some worked to help financially while others took jobs out of desire for a larger role in society. Women's roles in society changed, and so did their households. Some negative effects took place as a result of women working. Family members were under more stress because of the absence of the main caregiver during working hours. Children who once had their mother at home taking care of them were now being cared for by relatives or neighbors. Working women also had added pressures. Not only did they work out of their homes, but after work, they were expected to fulfill their household duties when they got home.
In the United States, a third of mothers return to work within three months of childbirth compared to only five percent in other industrialized nations such as Germany, Sweden, and the UK (Berger, Hill, and Waldfogel 29). The rapid return of mothers to the workforce sparked interest in the effects the return has on the child’s behavior and health. The experiments measure the child’s health and development by the amount of time the mother breastfeeds, the immunizations the child receives, their score on a vocabulary test, behavioral problems, and the amount of doctor’s visits (Berger, Hill, and Waldfogel 36). Mothers who returned to work within twelve weeks were less likely to breastfeed their child, provide as many doctor’s visits and immunizations, and there were more noticeable behavioral problems at age four (Berger, Hill, and Waldfogel 39-42). The data is significantly lower for mother’s who work full time within twelve weeks after maternity leave (Berger, Hill, and Waldfogel 43). Therefore, it is proved that the duration of maternity leave is directly correlated with children development and
Men are likely to get hired if they have children and tend to get paid more. In contrast, women are less likely to get hired even though they have more quality and children. This is when the gender inequality come in. In this article “The Motherhood Penalty vs. the Fatherhood Bonus” the author presented the role and the impact between the roles of the genders. Michelle Budig, a sociology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst put it this way, “The inequality of gender role reveals when men get paid high for having children and women pay the biggest price for the low income” (Qtd. in Miller). According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, 71 percent of mothers are with their children working at home and 40 percent are the primary bread winner (Pew Research Center). In this perspective of women working at home and men working in career shift the qualification between them. The inequality is that employer sees the father as a commit worker and a mother as a distraction in workplaces because women have extra hours of work to do at home with their children and house chores. Claire Miller states that, “one of the worst career moves a women can make is to have children” (Claire Miller). As for the women in the United States, there are a lot of negative impact for them if they decide to have babies. The quality for them shrink to the corner while men hold the advantage of having
Child development is a very important in today’s psychology. That is why it is not surprising that so much research has been developed on that topic. In the article “Transforming the Debate About Child Care and Maternal Employment” the author, Louise B. Silverstein, presents a very interesting point of view on the history as well as the future of psychological research on child care and influence of maternal employment on child development.
In the late 1920s, this started to change for good. More and more woman was becoming educated and finding work outside of the home. Woman were earning money and doing many of the same jobs as men when the 19th Amendment to the constitution gave women these rights. This changed how modern Parent balance work and family time. Should Women have to work or staying home? “Over the past generation, home prices have risen twice as fast for couples with young children as for those without kids… The average couple with young children now shells out more than $127,000 for a home, up from $72,000 (adjusted for inflation) less than 20 years ago (“Why Women…Work”).” This shows that now days it’s expensive to have kid and for couple’s more adjustment that both support each other economically. Many women and solo parent neglect to stay home because they decide that the cost is just too high, and the choic...
Due to parents having to take on 2-3 part-time jobs or low wage jobs, parents are required to deal with long hours, unusual hours, lack of benefits that cover paid sick days, paid medical, parental leave, and vacation time. This prevents parents from participating in their children’s development. (Spross, Jeff. "Low-Wage Jobs Don’t Just Harm Workers — They Harm Their Children." ThinkProgress RSS. 7 Dec. 2012. Web. 5 Oct. 2014.) Parents are not home to look after their children. When parents are home, it is for a short period that allows parents to feed the children, bath them and put them to bed. Parents have to choose their family time or making income and income is priority to try and provide the necessary needs like a home, electric, and food. This struggle between income and family has put tremendous stress on parents which lead to a higher level of depression which affects the whole family. Some young adult children are forced into the work force before they graduate to help the family. If these young adults are one of the fortunate ones that don’t need to join the workforce, they are still faced with taking on an adult role due to having to play mommy or daddy to their younger siblings. Having this kind of responsibility at such a young age causes some of these young adults to fall into a depression or stressed out with all the responsibility that they start rebelling authority or looking for
In a society with the muajority of mothers joining or returning to the workforce, there is a growing body of research documenting the demands placed on these women and what can be done to help their transition into this new role. According to the United States’ Department of Labor, in the year 2012, 70.5% of mothers with children under the age of 18 were a part of the workforce; of these women 73.7% were employed full-time, working over 35 hours a week, and 26.3% were employed part-time, working less than 35 hours a week (United States Department of Labor, 2012). Given this information, it is becoming more important to further research how this new role as an employee affects the role of parenting and what can be done to help this transition. The intent of this paper is to compare the experiences of a working mother to the current research on the topic of working mothers. Moreover, this paper addresses the demands placed on working mothers as well as the factors that ameliorate their transition into this new role.
Paternity leave is the time off from work that a father takes after the birth or adoption of a child, with corresponding employee benefits (“UC Baby”). This kind of leave is rarely paid by the governments or companies. Maternity leave is a common topic, but paternity leave often gets overlooked. Because of this, fathers seem to barely take any time off after the birth of their child. All studies about paternity leave show many benefits for the family, kids, and for the fathers themselves. Fathers should have paid paternity leave because it boosts family relationships, it can empower men as fathers, it gives fathers time for adjustment, and it boosts the economy.
Furthermore, women are still expected to give up their job pursuits for children. Men, when they get married tent to earn more power. However, women lose their power or even have to give up everything that they had been working toward their whole life to bear the child who will keep the lineage for her husband’s family. “It is not false that today, almost half of infants’ mothers are employed” and the percentage of working moms has risen much over recent years. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that it is unfair for women to have to be pressured by both work and children.
During the last half of the twentieth century, America has witnessed a rapid increase in the percentage of women in the workforce and a corresponding rise in the number of children who receive routine care by someone other than their mothers. Children are entering child care at younger and younger ages. By 1990, in the United States, over half of the infants under one year old regularly received care by someone other than a parent (US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1994). At age 24 months, children
There was a time when the woman 's expected role was based on staying at home. Now there are many more working mothers. This has caused changes in many attitudes. Those that