Why Racial Stereotyping Doesn’t Just Go Away: The Question of Honesty and Work Ethic

One of the most persistent stereotypes about blacks concerns honesty and work ethic. These characteristics are also central to employers\u27 evaluation of prospective and current workers; employers say that these traits matter more than skills. However, honesty and work ethic are difficult to observe and assess, placing them squarely in the terrain of statistical discrimination theory. One common criticism of this theory is that employers should be able to collect enough information on prospective workers to render race irrelevant, and that highquality workers have incentives to signal their productivity to employers regardless of race. As a result, inefficient stereotypes should erode over time. In contrast, I argue that there are many reasons for inefficient stereotypes about honesty and work ethic to persist, and I investigate the empirical evidence for these theories

THE GROWTH OF NONMARRIAGE AMONG U.S. WOMEN, 1954-1983 (MARRIAGE, FAMILY, HOUSEHOLDS, UNITED STATES)

The secular decrease in the proportion of United States women who are married, not separated, has contributed to the unprecedented growth of female-headed households, and has fueled both popular and academic debates about the nature of family change. This dissertation argues that the recent transformation of the family must be understood as the outcome of internal gender relations of domination in the family, in a context of rapidly changing labor market conditions and state policy. The dissertation extensively critiques Gary Becker\u27s models of altruism and marriage, and develops an alternative model of women\u27s economic independence and marital choice, in which the rigidity of internal family relations is a critical feature motivating women to be unmarried. The model is supported by time-series regressions on levels and first differences over the period 1955-1983, using Census Bureau data. Finally, the model implies that a dual policy objective of promoting women\u27s equality and facilitating long-term family cohesion can be achieved if internal family relations adjust to women\u27s new economic bargaining power

FLEXIBLE HOURS, WORKPLACE AUTHORITY, AND COMPENSATING WAGE DIFFERENTIALS IN THE US

The theory of compensating differentials suggests that workers with flexible schedules will earn less than other workers. Some authors have also contended that the concentration of women in jobs with flexible hours explains a significant part of the gender pay gap. This paper uses data from the US subset of the Comparative Project in Class Analysis to test these hypotheses. These data first indicate that, contrary to popular wisdom, women workers do not have more flexible schedules than men. Second, the really striking differential is by race: black workers have much more rigid schedules than white workers. Third, workers with more authority at the workplace typically have more flexibility than subordinate workers. Finally, the data show that any compensating differentials for flexible hours are small and are offset by returns to workplace authority.Flexibility, work schedules, compensating differentials, gender pay gap,

WHEN WORK DOESN'T WORK

Mandatory workfare has been the centerpiece of welfare reform in this decade. In 1992-94, there was a pitched legislative battle over mandatory workfare in Vermont. Feminist organizations mobilized to oppose the mandatory work requirement, producing data to substantiate the claims that women's jobs did not pay enough to purchase basic needs for their families, that unemployment remained a serious problem for single mothers, and that in states where workfare had already been adopted, it did not raise families out of poverty. Vermont's original bill was made less punitive for welfare recipients in some significant respects as a result of the debate.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67887/2/10.1177_089124398012001004.pd

Division of Domestic Work: Is There Adjustment Between Partners when One is Unemployed?

Coming back to the main models of division of work within the couple, the aim of this article is to analyze the possible transfers of domestic chores between partners facing an external shock. We test it by studying the allocation of domestic time on couples facing unemployment on the French time-use survey. Are domestic chores transferable between partners? Controlled for many covariates, bivariate tobit regressions on indicators of time, variety and number of activities show that domestic tasks performed by unemployed people, either men or women, increase. Despite the inertia due to couple’s specialization, the hypothesis of versatility is partially checked. “Dominantly Feminine tasks” are the more transferable tasks. Unemployment involves a new division of labor between spouses. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2005division of labor, specialization, household production, unemployment, family, D13, D19, J12, J19,