UNIT A: BLOG 3: Home & Work

Blog #3

The House, work, and the divisions of labor have been a distribution of tasks that has been around for centuries. Women are labeled as the caregivers, taking care of the house, the children, family, and doing the “labor of love” work that was unpaid. Men are labeled as the workforce, going out into the world and working, and doing the “real work” that was paid. Even though both types of work are indispensable and require hard work women’s work, the care work, was looked down upon compared to the men’s work.

Care work, is the “work of love” as described in the power points. Care work in the past has predominately been classified as women’s work. Care work would include taking care of the child, all family members, doing the cleaning, the laundry, the cooking, and anything else that had to be done in the house and all the family members living there. As stated before people perceived Care work as been less valued and they would refer to it as “Shadow work.” This would refer to the fact that people saw it as not being real work, but in fact it is very important and without it the family could not function.

These divisions of labor, of care work jobs in the work force are taking a new turn. In “Changing Gender Roles at Home” video it stated that in the 1940s 5 times more families had men as the provider in the work force and women as the caregivers in the home, but now women are shifting the divisions of labor. Women are going into the work force along with their male counterparts. Now, a typical family is 3 times as likely to have the father and mother in the work force. This shift has changed the divisions and women are doing less work in the homes and men are doing a little more to help.

This shift and change in the divisions of labor has changed some, but people still perceive women as responsible for the care work. Now, women are not only working in the work force, but they are coming home and working a “second shift.” A “second shift” refers to the fact the women now have a paying job, but they are still responsible for coming home and doing most of the unpaid work as a second job. In the clip “Changing Gender Roles at home” this added responsibility for women to hold down two jobs is called a “Stalled Revolution” or in other words the divisions have changed, but the responsibility has not. This is not a constant because in some households the men are helping out the care work, but in others they are not.

In my experience of growing up the divisions of labor in my house would land somewhere in-between the “Stalled Revolution” and the new and improved division of labor. Our household consisted of my father and mother, my sister, me, and our cat and dog (which have to be counted because they were family member and treated as one). My father worked over full time, which could be defined as the equivalent as working 50 plus hours a week and mother worked full time as well. My father ran two businesses and held stock in another while my mother co-owned one of the businesses. They both worked a lot which created a shift in our family structuring. The fact that they both worked showed that there was a shift or a change in the divisions of laboring my house, but the care work was divided in a different way. The care work I feel was shared, but it was shared in a different way than what would be expected.

As stated before when women went into the work force they ended up working a “second shift” and this is what happened in my household, but with some changes. Although my father and mother both shared and worked to help the family the traditional roles were held in the house when they were home. When women go into the work force some times they would have to “outsource” which is what happened part-time in my house. The term out sourced is referring to the fact that my sister and I had a nanny. We would be in the care of our nanny from the time we got out of school until dinner time or later, which would be different depending on the day. Our nanny would take on some of the care work by helping us with homework, playing games with us, making us dinner, and some times cleaning the house. When my father and mother got home from work they would take over. My mother would assume her “second shift” responsibilities of the care work and my father would do chores outside, work, and when we could help with doing some care work. I would like to think of this as an Integrated Stalled Revolution. I use these terms because both my father and mother worked, but my mother is still responsible for the care work primarily in conjuncture with some help from my father and help from an outsourced caregiver.

Caregivers are essential and a key component in the family structure. When women are going back to work there is an issue of how they are going to manage their new job in the work force and their job of care work. This issue exact issue of juggling the two jobs was studied in the UK. In the video “Juggling Work and Care” it defines and lays out the problems and issues that women have when entering the work force while being caregivers. It is states that there is a big issue of people not being able to handle being a caregiver and managing a job. In the UK 7 out of 10 caregivers will have to give up there jobs because there care work is too over whelming which is creating a loss in the business force. This UK study stated that 1 out of 3 people will need care at some point in their life whether it be as a child, because of an illness or when they are elderly. These numbers made it apart to businesses that they need to create answers to the care givers issues and needs.

One business called Centrica created focus groups to figure out what exactly caregivers needed to mange care giving and work. From these studies Centrica created a “Care Network” to find out and help people manage their needs in their business. In this network they created a website including surveys and community out reach forums. This network is composed of over 200 care givers that share issues, suggestions and tips to help each other cope. Although with being able to reach out to their co-workers the suggestions help management collect this data and help their employees and being more flexible to their needs. This company and companies like this are helping, working with, and being flexible to individual needs which in turn are making everyone happy and more productive. It is there policy that it is more important to be flexible to hard-working and knowledgeable employees so that they can keep them on and not have to train a new person which helps everyone.

This is a system of community in the work force. The businesses are getting the people a voice, a choice, and a helping hand. They are creating a network, giving them helpful pamphlets on stress management, and resources for juggling work and care which should be implemented everywhere. Another company called Listawood is very support and understanding of their employees and has implemented a system of teams among the employees. These teams work together to finish jobs and tasks and if one team member has a care giver responsibility at home it is up to them to let them go. They work together, are very supportive, and check and balance each other this way management does not even have to get involved at all.

These networks, ideals, and techniques need to be implemented into businesses all over and in turn will make society more efficient, happy and motivated because everyone will get what they want and need. Caregivers will get a flexibility they deserve and businesses will get to keep their employees and still get there work done. History has seen care givers as primarily women, but in fact care givers can be anyone. We need to as a whole change the ideals that care giving is only “women’s work.” Care giving is the back bone of our society. It is the caring of our children, of our future, of our friends, of our elderly, our community, and organizations around us. Care givers in a regards to our human wealth are the most important occupation out there.

The problem is that people do not hold it in a higher regard only because it does not have a monetary value. Society as a whole needs to re-evaluate their idea of care givers by not only giving them the credit they deserve but knowledge the ideal that this is not only woman’s work, but can be anyone. One way in which people are acknowledging care givers work is the Time Dollar program in which care givers are use hour credits of work toward monetary things or may give there time dollars to family member or people that are less fortunate. Before we were not acknowledging a huge portion of our force in the GDP losing trillions of dollars, but with understanding and acknowledging the care givers work force we are improving our society. Society needs to release that anyone can be a care giver and if they are needed they should want to be a care giver because they are an indispensable important aspect of our society.