No abstract

Using OLS regression we model predictors of housework hours for 393 Mexican origin and Anglo families from California and Arizona. Contradicting cultural theories, Mexican origin mothers performed less housework when they were employed more hours, had higher relative earnings, and when husbands had more education. Mexican origin fathers performed more housework when family income was lower, wives contributed a larger share of earnings, and fathers had more egalitarian gender ideals. Fathers' employment hours, wives' gender attitudes, and familism were not significantly associated with housework hours in Mexican origin families, but were significant in Anglo families. Unique features of the study include analysis of generational status, gatekeeping, and familism. Theoretical reasons for attitudes and socioeconomic status predicting housework are discussed.

The authors examined the degree to which disparities in parent and child acculturation are linked to both family and child adjustment. With a sample of 1st- and 2nd-generation Mexican American children, acculturation and parent-child relationship quality at 5th grade, and parent-child conflict, child internalizing, and child externalizing at 7th grade were measured. Acculturation gaps with fathers were found to be related to later father-child conflict as well as internalizing and externalizing outcomes. Many of the associations between father-child acculturation gaps and outcomes were moderated by the child's report of the relationship quality between the child and his or her father. Father-child acculturation gaps were associated with negative outcomes only when children reported a poor relationship with their fathers. Mother-child acculturation gaps were not associated with mother-child conflict or adjustment indices.

Men and women are increasingly likely to pursue careers in elite professions, but gendered expectations about homemaking and breadwinning continue to shape opportunities for professional advancement and individual decisions to marry, have children, regulate employment hours, or use “family-friendly” programs. This article describes how the Victorian ideology of separate spheres and other gendered beliefs and practices have spawned a modern-day “career advancement double standard” in which professional women who marry or have children are considered less serious about their careers, whereas professional men who marry or become fathers are considered more likely candidates for promotion. Trends in the general population toward more gender equality in labor force attachment and family labor sharing are compared to slower changes among elite professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and bankers.

Determinants of gender stratification range through every institutional sphere and every level of sociological analysis. An integrated theory is presented which charts the connections and feedbacks among three main blocks of causal factors and two blocks of outcomes. The GENDER ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION block includes the degree of compatibility between productive and reproductive labor, and determinants of the gender segregation of productive labor (including flows from other blocks). The GENDER ORGANIZATION OF REPRODUCTION includes demographic conditions, the social control of reproductive technologies, and the class and gender organization of parenting. SEXUAL POLITICS includes historical variations in family alliance politics, erotic status markets, and violent male groups. On the outcome side, GENDER RESOURCE MOBILIZATION centers on gender income and property, household organization, sexual coercion, and the distinctiveness of gender cultures. GENDER CONFLICTS involve the conditions for both gender movements and counter-movements, which feed back into the prior blocks of causal conditions. Despite rises in women's gender resources in recent decades, it is likely that gender conflicts will go on in new forms. An integrated theory makes it possible to examine alternative scenarios and policies of change in gender stratification of the future.