Abstract
The demographics of the American workforce shifted considerably throughout the last several decades, most notably reflected in the increasing number of women employed outside the home. Researchers from a wide range of disciplines thus examined issues related to women’s involvement in the workplace, including their work-family conflict. One emergent criticism of work-family research, however, is that extant research tends to emphasize work-family experiences of professional white women, while women of color are largely overlooked. Whereby some suggest that all women remain disadvantaged in the workplace (Hakim, 2004), women of color are often in “double jeopardy” for belonging to two disadvantaged status categories of gender and race (King, 1988). Thus it is reasonable to suspect that the work-family experiences of women of color are substantially different from professional white women. The goal of our chapter is to provide a comprehensive overview of work-family experiences of women of color. We first discuss embracing a multiple identities’ approach (i.e., the intersection of gender and race). We then review the role of gender and the role of race/ethnicity in work-family research. Using national labor force data, we then compare descriptive variables of white women to women of color to identify how their needs and resources differ. Finally, we discuss methodological considerations and research suggestions to guide future scholars’ work within the work-family area.
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Notes
- 1.
For a scholarly debate about why and how organizational scientists and practitioners should study workers’ multiple identities, see Ruggs et al. (2013) and its twelve associated commentaries in Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice.
- 2.
Arguably, the plot device in this film was not only a man being a stay-at-home father or a woman being the primary breadwinner, but also from the difficulties that each faced in his/her new role, which speaks even more to prevailing social norms that these were not “typical” or “natural” roles for these individuals because of their gender. Further, the film presents the switch as forced: the husband is laid off and unable to find a new job, thus the wife dusts off her college degree and gets a job in advertising. At the film’s end, he is called back to work and she happily quits her job, insinuating the role reversal was an anomaly and life has returned to “normal.”
- 3.
The persistence of traditional gender norms is further demonstrated by the sharp contrast between the expectations of mothers at work and the expectations of fathers at work, as men appear to be a given a wage premium for fatherhood (Lundberg and Rose 2000, 2002). The “fatherhood premium,” however, seems to advantage white and Latino males, but not necessarily black males (Glauber 2008).
- 4.
As of 2013, Slaughter’s article is the most widely read piece in The Atlantic’s history (Rottenberg 2013).
- 5.
Indeed, Hewlett once suggested that women should start having babies in their twenties or risk ending up being childless and sad (see Creating a Life 2003). Her controversial message was trumpeted by news media outlets as a dire warning to women to mind their biological clocks (St. John 2002), yet was criticized by the feminist community (Gilbert 2008), attributed to the “baby panic” narrative (Faludi 2007), and lampooned on Saturday Night Live (Hewlett 2009).
- 6.
For a review on men and work–family research, see Chap. 2.
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Frevert, T., Culbertson, S., Huffman, A. (2015). Exploring the Double Jeopardy Effect: The Importance of Gender and Race in Work–Family Research. In: Mills, M. (eds) Gender and the Work-Family Experience. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08891-4_4
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