Good Essay About Work And Gender Intersection:

How Work and Gender Intersect

And Affect Families and Marriages
[Student’s Complete Name]
In many countries around the world, work and gender are two very influential factors to the success of family life and marriages. In many societal settings, income is a very important issue that people are most concerned about such that it affects the quality of living among individuals, particularly so if basic needs are compromised in the first place. However, in some other countries like the United States, workers do not enjoy paid parental leave like most other nations. In the United States, people do not receive pay from their employers every time they need to leave from work to give birth. In a report made by the Huffington Post (2013), it reveals that there are only four nations that do not pay maternity leave: United States, Swaziland, Lesotho, and Papua New Guinea. And while these countries provide free medical care for births, the same thing happens in almost all other countries. This makes a substantial argument for the limitedness of women at work, particularly for countries that do not pay maternity leave. This affect the number of hours women has to work on a daily or weekly basis, which is significantly adversary to family relationships. As women tend to work longer hours, it decreases their time for family bonding and household management, posing threat to marriages and parenthood. In essence, gender posits a critical factor in work and how it may affect family relationships. The duration at which women have spend working serves as an alternative to cover the number of hours they might be unable to work if they get pregnant and eventually give birth.
In an article written for The Economist, authors C.W. and J.K.D. (exact names not disclosed) observes that the number of hours people spend at work decreased throughout time due to the advent of technological advancement, which freed workers from toil (n.d.). A relationship between hours worked and productivity among OECD countries between years 1990 and 2012 proved that society can be managed in such a way that would enable people to work less hours but with higher productivity. For example, the Greeks who are putting more than 2000 hours at work on annual average do not surpass Germans who are relatively slacking with 1,400 hours spent at work but with 70% productivity rate. The formula for the working class nowadays is more work means more wages. In effect, people get to work longer hours with very less benefit. People do not get to enjoy the results of their labour because they spend most of their time at work instead of taking in the comforts of life. C.W. and J.K.D. (n.d.) argues that men should work moderately so that their health will be preserved longer; furthermore, they suggest that “when wages are high, drivers will reach their target more quickly and quit early; on long-wage days they will drive longer hours to reach the target.” This is what the authors suggest for drivers who should have income target per day. However, in general, this is not really what’s been going on in the society because for people to earn more income, they should be able to work longer hours. For women or men, this would mean that as they work longer hours, they will have to spend less time with their families, affecting parenthood and quality of living.
Another interesting study was conducted by Chalabi (n.d.) that provides a graphical data of women doing more work than men on a worldwide setting. For instance, in the United States, while men spend 82 minutes, women spend 126 minutes, which is significantly longer than men. Even in other countries, women spend more time at work than men. On daily average, this means that men will have to cover household chores if necessary, tweaking gender roles a little bit.
The gist of all of these investigations and reports suggest that if women work longer hours, it would affect their household responsibilities. Even as men do have responsibilities for children and spouses also, women tend to work longer because of work conditions such as unpaid maternity leaves especially in countries like the United States and Lesotho. In effect, the intersection of work and gender can potentially put a strain or marriages and family relationships. But while it is preventable, the necessity for both women and men working together for the family is what’s called for today’s economic situation.

Work Cited Page

Chalabi, Mona. N.d. “Internationally, Women Still Spend More Time Doing Chores.” Five Thirty Eight: Data Lab. Accessed March 2, 2015 from http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/internationally-women-still-spend-more-time-doing-chores/.
Huffington Post. 2013. “Paid Parental Leave: U.S. vs. the World (Inforgraphic). The Huffington Post. Accessed March 2, 2015 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/maternity-leave-paid-parental-leave-_n_2617284.html.
W., C. and A.J.K.D. 2013. “Get a Life.” The Economist. Accessed March 2, 2015 from http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/09/working-hours.