Deck 7: Household, Family, and Caring Work

Question 1

Which of the following is a central argument of Arlie Hochschild's book The Outsourced Self?

A) The marketization of caregiving has a negative impact on parents' sense of self.
B) Outsourcing family and household work involves outsourcing tasks well beyond carework and cleaning.
C) Outsourcing trends are restricted to carework and household work.
D) Outsourced family and household work is purchased in a strictly local market.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Time-use studies help us understand how participation in housework has changed over time. Which of the following best describes trends in women's and men's participation in housework?

A) The gender gap has decreased, as men have dramatically increased their time spent on housework.
B) The gender gap has increased, with women spending more time and men spending less on housework.
C) In general, men and women now spend an equal amount of time on housework.
D) A narrowing of the gender gap is mostly due to reductions in the amount of time women spend on housework.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Which of the following is a central finding in Duxbury and Higgins's research on work-family conflict in Canada?

A) Work-family conflict affects a majority of families.
B) More families experience family-to-work conflict than work-to-family conflict.
C) Compared to work-family conflict, role overload is much less of an issue for families.
D) Overall, role overload and work-family conflict have remained high since 1991.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Recent studies about gender differences in involvement and responsibility for childcare demonstrate which of the following?

A) The gender gap in time spent by women and men is narrowing, but women still assume almost all the responsibility for planning and coordinating carework.
B) Women spend more time on childcare, but men share equal responsibility for planning carework.
C) Time spent on planning and performing carework by women and men is roughly equal.
D) Men and women spend about an equal amount of time involved in carework, but women spend more time planning it.

Question 5

Which of the following is correct about the composition of Canadian families in 2011?

A) Roughly one in four families were single-earner families.
B) There were more single-earner than dual-earner families.
C) There was roughly the same number of single-female-earner families as single-male-earner families.
D) About half of lone-parent families were headed by men.

Question 6

Which of the following is correct about trends in eldercare in Canada?

A) Publicly funded organizations are positioned well to care for the aging population.
B) Men and women are equally likely to provide eldercare to aging family members.
C) The federal government's "Compassionate Care" benefits are accessible to all individuals caring for the elderly.
D) In general, the most common reason for providing care to an elderly family member is their aging and frailty.

Question 7

According to research, which of the following is correct about flexible workplace options in Canada?

A) Women and men working part-time jobs are as stressed about time as full-timers.
B) A majority of workers have control over their work schedules.
C) Most workers find it difficult to spend some of the day working from home.
D) Most workers find it difficult to interrupt their workday to deal with family needs.

Question 8

Which of the following best characterizes Arlene Kaplan Daniels's explanation for why early sociology of work studies mostly ignored household work and caregiving?

A) Caring and household work are often seen as lacking economic value.
B) Since paid work is more important to society than unpaid work, early sociology of work scholars focused on paid work first.
C) Early sociology of work scholars tended to ignore all work that women performed.
D) Caring and household work are not valid forms of work.

Question 9

The term separate spheres describes which of the following?

A) The concentration of men in resource extraction occupations and women in service occupations.
B) The suggestion that women perform carework and men perform household work.
C) The separation of yard work and housework.
D) The idea that women work in the household and men work outside of the household for pay.

Question 10

The term outsourced family refers to which of the following?

A) The practice of recruiting spouses from overseas.
B) The marketization of household and family work.
C) Parents paying children to do weekly household and family work.
D) The practice of friends and neighbours taking turns caring for each other's children.

Question 11

Which of the following best describes the convergence in weekly hours of housework completed by women and men in Canada in recent decades?

A) Men are putting in more hours; women are working as many hours as before.
B) Men are putting in a bit more time; women have reduced their housework by a larger amount.
C) Men are doing as little as before; women have reduced their housework considerably.
D) More housework is being done by female hired help.

Question 12

A parent misses her child's birthday because of a meeting that keeps her at the office later than anticipated. Which of the following best describes this situation?

A) Role overload.
B) Family-to-work conflict.
C) Work-to-family conflict.
D) Time-based conflict.

Question 13

Arlie Hochschild uses the term second shift to describe which of the following?

A) Extra paid work that parents take on to support their families.
B) Women being primarily responsible for domestic work even while working full-time outside of the home.
C) Unpaid domestic work that men and women take turns doing outside of paid work.
D) When parents employed outside of the home ask their mothers to help with household work and carework.

Question 14

Maureta has a high-pressure job as a lawyer, working 50 hours per week. She also performs the majority of the carework for her two-year-old son. Which of the following best describes the emotional and mental fatigue that Maureta experiences from balancing work and family?

A) Child-based conflict.
B) Time-based conflict.
C) Strain-based conflict.
D) Behaviour-based conflict.

Question 15

The term patriarchy describes which of the following?

A) Family organization in which husbands and wives hold equal power, but men perform the paid work while women perform unpaid work.
B) Female domination over men.
C) Family organization in which fathers and husbands hold the power.
D) Family organization where the main breadwinner holds the majority of power.

Question 16

Which of the following is correct about women's participation in paid work in the 20th century?

A) Participation steadily increased throughout the century.
B) The 1920s saw participation rise dramatically.
C) Participation spiked in the 1940s, only to decline in the 1950s.
D) Participation remained fairly low throughout the entire century.

Question 17

Henrietta and Na'im are married with two young children. Both doctors, they work long hours and have decided to hire a live-in nanny from the Philippines. Their work-family choices best illustrate which of the following?

A) Socioeconomic status impacts a family's ability to outsource carework and household work.
B) The extent to which Canadian families are not interested in carework.
C) The trend for all Canadian families to participate in stratified hierarchies of reproduction.
D) Canadians prefer to spend more time at work than at home.

Question 18

Every year during the Christmas holidays, Anne sits down to write cards on behalf of her immediate family to their friends and extended family. Which of the following best describes the type of work she is engaged in?

A) Carework.
B) Kin work.
C) Family work.
D) Seasonal work.

Question 19

Access to quality childcare is crucial to alleviate work-family conflict. Which of the following is correct about the availability of licensed child-care spaces in Canada?

A) Although available space has risen sharply over the past two decades, there are only enough regulated spaces to accommodate a small fraction of what is needed.
B) The available number of spaces outnumbers the demand.
C) Several provinces now guarantee that a sufficient number of spaces will be available.
D) The federal government adjusts the number of spaces available based on yearly demand.

Question 20

Research on work-family conflict and job satisfaction demonstrates which of the following?

A) There is little connection between conflict and satisfaction.
B) High satisfaction can decrease family-to-work conflict.
C) Low satisfaction can increase family-to-work conflict.
D) In general, high conflict is linked to reduced satisfaction.

Question 21

Describe what is meant by the terms household work and caring work. What types of activities do these terms refer to?

Question 22

Briefly discuss recent trends in time spent by women and men on housework and childcare in Canada.

Question 23

Define the various types of conflict involving family and work. What are the consequences of such conflict for workers, families, and employers?

Question 24

Describe the types of policies and programs that individuals/families can access to try to balance work and family responsibilities. How effective have such initiatives been in Canada? How might these policies and programs be improved so that individuals/families are better able to reconcile their work and family responsibilities?

Question 25

In a few sentences, explain what Arlie Hochschild means in The Outsourced Self. What factors might impact a family's ability to outsource work?

Question 26

"The only way to improve the ability of individuals/families to successfully balance work and family in Canada is to outsource more of the work involved in childcare, eldercare, kin work, and household work." Critically discuss this statement with reference to the material discussed in Chapter 7.