Full Description
Conflict between work and family life is an all too familiar experience for many Americans. The difficult choices facing women who combine paid work with childcare are the subject of a deluge of books and articles in addition to an ongoing public debate about how women and men should balance their work and family commitments. Although we know a great deal about the social and cultural environment fueling these contradictions among middle-class and upper middle class women, we know little about the forces that influence poor and low-income women. Work and Family Commitments of Low-Income and Impoverished Women addresses this omission and gives voice to women in poverty as it traces the moral and cultural structures that help shape the meaning and value of paid work and motherhood among a group of mothers who rely on welfare or a combination of low-wage work and welfare to provide and care for their families. This portrayal of poor women's lives rarely enters the work-life debate over women's choices, generally characterized as between mothers who have to work versus those who choose to. Judith Hennessy puts low-income women front and center to shed light on less explored aspects of the moral and cultural foundations of contemporary work and family conflict from interviews and survey data of a group of low-income and poor mothers on and off welfare.
Hennessey explores the paradox in American society where combining paid work with caring for children continues to generate considerable ambivalence (and often guilt) on the part of married middle-class mothers for devoting too much time to paid work and supposedly neglecting their children. While poor and working class mothers who might otherwise rely on welfare are relegated to working at low-wage jobs outside the home in fulfillment of their family responsibilities.
Contents
1.The Paradox
Women's Work and Family Choices
Opting Out
Welfare Assistance and Work and Family Decisions
Divergent Values
Devotion Schemas
Poor Mothers' Schemas
Work Commitment Schema
Family Commitment Schema
The Study
Overview of the Book
2.Historical Context From Mothers' Aid to Personal Responsibility
Maternalist Welfare State
ADC to AFDC
The War on Poverty—1960s
Work Incentive Program
The Family Assistance Plan
Retrenchment
Family Support Act
Ending Welfare As We Knew It: PRWORA
The Cultural Contradiction in PRWORA
3.Work Commitment: Learning to Love Labor
Theorizing Work and Family Conflict through Cultural Schema
Work Commitment
Work Commitment Defined
I Never Give Up
Rewards From Working Outside the Home
Personal Rewards
Character
Examples for Children
Working for Family
Working Mothers Are Not Welfare Mothers
Mothers Need to Work
Job Quality
Work and Family Trade-offs
Giving up on June Cleaver
Work or Family?
4.Family Commitment: Guilt is for Mothers with Good Jobs
Family Commitment Schema
Family Commitment Defined
Competing Schemas
Paid Work and Caring for Children Are Two Opposite Things
Family Commitment: The "Natural" Gendered Schema
The Social Costs of Mothers' Work outside the Home
Actually It Is Freedom of Choice
"Mommy Wars"
Family Values
I Just Thought I Would Take Care of the Children
Conclusion
5.Work and Family at the Welfare Office
Nobody Likes Welfare
Welfare Mothers
We'll Give You Help, but Not a Gravy Train
They're Not There to Help You
Paying the Daycare but Not the Moms?
They Want You to Work
You Can't Just Throw Somebody into a Job
Support for Educational Goals
Penalties for Work and Family Choices
What if Your Kid Gets Sick?
Sending Three-Month-Old Infants to Daycare
Conclusion
6.Survey Findings
Descriptive Findings
Regression Analysis
Independent Variables
Dependent Variables
OLS Regression Findings
Compatibility of Paid Work and Childrearing
Traditional Family Values
Welfare to Work
7.Conclusion
Work and Family Paradox
Why Study Low-income Mothers?
Gendered Schemas
The End of Welfare
Work Commitment
Family Commitment
At the Welfare Office
Public Policy
Meeting the Needs of Families
Appendix A: Methods and Data
Interview process
Survey Design and Sample
Survey Instrument
Administering the Survey
Quantitative Analysis
Dependent Variables
Independent Variables
References
