Tag: Care economy

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Highlights

• While scholars have studied the impact of the motherhood penalty on women’s labour market outcomes, few have explored the impact of these penalties on family income inequality.
• This research finds that the rising cost of care can negatively impact family income (total combined earnings for a family), particularly when mothers do not have college degrees.
• If governments provide greater care supports—such as subsidized access to paid caregivers, or income transfers to offset childcare costs—there is potential to help reduce family income inequality.

We know that children can significantly affect mothers’ labour and earnings, shaping their individual labour outcomes in multiple ways. However, these individual outcomes can also have lasting consequences for their families.

Historically, government policies have sought to address these potential impacts by developing childcare policies intended to reduce financial burdens on families. In the United States, such policies have often been insufficient—for example, through the lack of an income transfer program for unpaid caregivers or a myopic focus on the traditional male-breadwinner family model, which has negatively impacted poor and non-White families. Childcare in the U.S. is among the most expensive in the OECD (alongside countries like Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom).

Do rising childcare costs affect family income?

Researchers Pilar Gonalons-Pons and Ioana Marinescu explore the impact of births on family income and potential policy implications in their recent paper in American Sociological Review. The authors investigate the impact of the cost of care infrastructures, defined as the policy environment that shapes how care needs are met, including policies that affect the availability and prices of paid childcare services as well as policies that provide income transfers for unpaid caregiving. In their empirical analysis, the authors focus specifically on childcare prices, measured as the market cost of paid childcare services, as an indicator of how affordable formal care is for families.

The authors used data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), nationally representative panel data on households, to explore how births and childcare costs affect family income. In addition, they looked at the impact of childcare costs on mothers’ monthly earnings and hours of work, and those of their partners.

Rising care costs affect women without college degrees

The findings show that childcare costs substantially exacerbate inequalities by pushing some mothers to cut back on paid work after having a child, which in turn widens family income gaps. Focusing on partnered women, the researchers find that a $1,000 increase in the annual price of childcare—approximately a 7 percent increase relative to the mean—is associated with a 0.5-hour decline in weekly work hours and an 8 percent decline in monthly earnings for women without a college degree. These earnings losses translate into a 2.3 percent decline in family income for this group.

In contrast, childcare costs have no statistically significant effect on the work hours or earnings of women with a college degree, underscoring the role of earnings potential in shaping mothers’ ability to absorb childcare costs. In other words, education supports mothers in maintaining their earnings even with rising costs of care.

…a $1,000 increase in the annual price of childcare—approximately a 7 percent increase relative to the mean—is associated with a 0.5-hour decline in weekly work hours and an 8 percent decline in monthly earnings for women without a college degree.

Importantly, the authors also find no corresponding increase in male partners’ earnings or labour supply. This suggests that partners’ income does not replace women’s post-birth earnings losses.

Taken together, increases to childcare costs widen the family income gap between women with and without college degrees by 34 percent, revealing how market-priced childcare amplifies inequalities.

The importance of care support

One implication of this research is that rising childcare costs impact mothers’ earnings if they do not have a college degree, which translates into widening family income inequality because partners’ earnings are unable to compensate.  Another implication is that families, not just mothers, are impacted by the motherhood penalty and by high costs of care.

If governments provide greater care supports—such as subsidized access to paid caregivers, or income transfers to offset childcare costs—there is potential to help reduce family income inequality.

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Research brief prepared by:

Laura Lam

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Title

Care Labor and Family Income Inequality: How Childcare Costs Exacerbate Inequality among U.S. Families

Author

Pilar Gonalons-Pons, Ioana Marinescu

Source

American Sociological Review

Published

2024

Link

https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224241297247

Research brief prepared by

Laura Lam

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Highlights:

• Women’s career and family aspirations are influenced not only by their ambitions, but also by their perceptions of men’s increasing involvement in caregiving and domestic roles.
• Women who believe men are taking on more caregiving roles than before are more likely to envision themselves as primary breadwinners, while those with stagnant views on men’s roles have expectations of becoming the primary caregiver.
• Policies that promote men’s caregiving involvement are essential not only to reduce caregiving burdens on women, and but also to expand their career possibilities.

Can women’s perceptions of men’s domestic involvement shape how they imagine their career and family? Researchers have long studied how gendered stereotypes have constrained women’s professional choices, impacting women’s career and labour market decisions. However, recent research suggests that women’s career and family aspirations are not solely shaped by their own ambitions, but also by their expectations about men’s involvement in domestic roles.

Men’s roles influence women’s aspirations

In a 2019 study by Alyssa Croft, Toni Schmader, and Katharina Block, the authors used five experiments and a comprehensive meta-analysis to uncover how women’s perceptions of men’s domestic involvement might impact their career trajectories. Prior research had not directly tested whether changes in men’s roles influence how women imagine their futures.

They found that women who are primed to believe that men’s domestic involvement is increasing are significantly more likely to envision themselves as primary breadwinners and less likely to foresee themselves as the primary caregiver. The authors introduce the “complementarity hypothesis,” which proposes that women are more likely to imagine themselves as primary economic providers if they believe men are becoming increasingly engaged in caregiving.

…women who are primed to believe that men’s domestic involvement is increasing are significantly more likely to envision themselves as primary breadwinners

The experiments also showed that women who were exposed to changing expectations that men were performing greater caregiving roles were more likely to expect equal sharing of both breadwinning and caregiving responsibilities. Meanwhile, women primed with messages suggesting slow or stagnant change in men’s caregiving roles were significantly more likely to anticipate becoming the primary caregiver.

Policies for men’s caregiving

Women have entered the workforce in greater numbers over recent decades, yet they continue to bear a disproportionate share of family responsibilities. These findings suggest that the perception that men’s caregiving contributions are stagnant may reinforce traditional gender roles, leading women to anticipate becoming the primary caregiver in their future families.

However, shifting social norms about male caregiving can expand women’s perceived career possibilities. Traditionally, there has been a focus on finding ways to change stereotypes about women in the workplace or their caregiving duties, but this research sheds light on the need for supporting policies, cultural narratives, and workplace practices that promote men’s caregiving involvement, which could expand women’s career aspirations and reduce caregiving burdens.

…this research sheds light on the need for supporting policies, cultural narratives, and workplace practices that promote men’s caregiving involvement, which could expand women’s career aspirations

In addition, the authors found that although men’s changing norms might influence women’s role expectations, women might not be aware that this is happening, or why. This might point to the need to discuss these embedded norms and ideals explicitly, or investigate how subconscious perceptions shape how women might view their caregiving or economic responsibilities, particularly in the context of changing gender roles.

In sum, the findings show that men’s potential caregiving roles play a pivotal role in enabling women to pursue career paths, which have been historically constrained by traditional family role expectations. Future research can address whether men also experience complementary patterns in their expected future roles if they face new information about women’s changing roles.

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Research brief prepared by:

Laura Lam

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Title

Life in the Balance: Are Women’s Possible Selves Constrained by Men’s Domestic Involvement?

Author

Alyssa Croft, Toni Schmader, and Katharina Block          

Source

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Published

2019

Link

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167218797294

Research brief prepared by

Laura Lam

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Highlights

• While parents think they are making rational financial decisions about their working arrangements and child care costs, gender norms continue to influence these decisions.
• Parents underestimate costs consistent with the idea that mothers should be caregivers and fathers, providers. They overestimate the cost of fathers reducing their full-time work to act as caregivers, but underestimate the cost of mothers reducing work. In other words, fathers reducing work hours is perceived as more expensive than mothers doing so.
• Greater awareness around child care policies and financial costs of caregiving might address gendered assumptions and provide support to enable parents to make equitable and informed decisions on child care and their division of labour.

For new parents, decisions regarding child care and working arrangements are some of the most pressing and impactful. Women have increased their participation in the labour force and their incomes, but they still seem to take a step back from full-time work for child care. Even if mothers make higher incomes than their counterparts, it is fathers who continue to work full-time.

To investigate why this happens, Regula Zimmermann analyzed 133 in-depth interviews with 54 individuals (27 couples) in Switzerland about their financial decisions before and after the birth of their first child. This setting is of interest because in Switzerland, the state offers little support for child care and parental leave is short–hence, parents need to make pressing decisions about labour and child care.

Parents make “gendered cost estimates”

Zimmermann found that parents do not know the actual costs associated with their decisions, making what she calls “gendered cost estimates.” In lieu of knowing the real costs associated with their child care or working arrangement decisions, these estimates rely on both assumptions about finances and gender norms, and may not align with real costs.

For instance, the real cost of reducing a parent’s labour requires knowing income tax rate and the cost of child care, yet parents did not mention that they knew these calculations. Instead, consistent with existing literature, almost all parents in Zimmermann’s sample described parental duties as belonging to the mother.

Another finding of her study was the perception of “gain” versus “loss” of income if mothers decided to reduce their working hours to care for children. Most parents did not view a mother’s transition to part-time work as a loss of full-time income. Instead, they compared her reduced earnings to the alternative of her not working at all. Comparatively, the reference for a father’s reduction in work was full-time work (i.e., income loss), thus reinforcing the narrative that care provided by fathers is expensive, and care provided by mothers is free.

Most parents did not view a mother’s transition to part-time work as a loss of full-time income. Instead, they compared her reduced earnings to the alternative of her not working at all.

The research showed that money did have a small effect on how parents share paid and unpaid work. The norm of fathers as the primary provider is in decline, with mothers who earn substantially more than their counterparts spending more time working outside the home, compared to women who earn less or the same as their partners. Yet, the “gendered cost estimates” undertaken by parents attributed less financial value to mothers’ paid work and child care than to fathers’ paid work and child care, even when both earned the same amount of money, or she earned more.

Informing parents through policy

This reluctance to engage with financial specifics sheds light on a social dimension of decision-making around work and child care. “Parents often avoid discussing their financial calculations, perhaps because they feel it reflects a personal failure not to have planned better,” Zimmermann noted. She described how deeply entrenched societal norms influence these decisions: “None of the parents I interviewed said, ‘It costs us $60,000 a year for a mother to stay home, but we think it’s worth it.’” Instead, they often ended up undervaluing mothers’ caregiving.

Zimmermann highlights that future policy initiatives can equip parents with accessible tools to calculate the financial implications of child care and reduced work hours. “There is no calculator which integrates taxes, child care costs, and other financial factors,” she explains, emphasizing the complexity of these decisions. “Policymakers implicitly assume that parents are informed, but this study found that none of them were aware of the costs of their work and childcare arrangements.” This lack of accessible information leaves parents to navigate decisions without a clear understanding of their long-term financial risks, such as implications for pensions and retirement, or financial vulnerability.

“Policymakers implicitly assume that parents are informed, but this study found that none of them were aware of the costs of their work and child care arrangements.”

For parents making important child care decisions, gender norms on child care and valuation of work continue to shape parental decision-making around work and child care, often under a guise of rationality. While parents believe they are making rational choices, greater education and awareness of true costs are still needed to achieve equality.

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Research brief prepared by:

Laura Lam

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Title

Do Couples Take Financially Rational Decisions When They Become Parents? No, But They Believe They Do

Author

Regula Zimmermann

Source

Gender & Society

Published

2024

Link

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08912432231189302

Research brief prepared by

Laura Lam

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