{"id":5247,"date":"2012-05-29T14:49:27","date_gmt":"2012-05-29T19:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=5247"},"modified":"2012-05-29T14:49:27","modified_gmt":"2012-05-29T19:49:27","slug":"nice-work-research-taking-men-for-granted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2012\/05\/29\/nice-work-research-taking-men-for-granted\/","title":{"rendered":"NICE WORK: Research Taking Men for Granted"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"There\u2019s this recent study<\/a> that shows that in countries with higher divorce risk, married women work more hours than in countries with lower divorce risk. The same study looks at how married men work more when the tax rate is lower, and work less when the tax rate is higher. The study, using data from the US and Europe, was done by a trio of economists, and can be read here<\/a>, and it is cited in Freakonomics here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The authors were curious about why people in the US work more than those in Europe. They start with this: on average, people in the US work more than people in Europe\u2014one study shows the difference is 30 percent more; other studies show how little vacation time<\/a>, paid sick leave<\/a>, or family leave that the US has relative to European countries\u2014although the current recession may end up reducing these differences.<\/p>\n

Sure enough, divorce rates plus tax rates told the story. Even cooler, the explanation was much clearer when they divided their data up into menfolk and womenfolk. Men\u2019s labor varied with tax rates, though women\u2019s did not. When tax rates were relatively low, as in the United States, men worked more hours, when tax rates were relatively high, as in Belgium, men worked fewer hours. No such variation existed for women. Meanwhile women\u2019s labor varied with divorce rates, but not men\u2019s. So high divorce rates, more women’s work hours–as in the USA. Low divorce rates, fewer women’s work hours–as in Ireland. No such pattern existed for men; divorce rates didn’t matter.<\/p>\n

The authors interpret their results like this:<\/p>\n

We believe [women\u2019s work pattern] is because marriage provides an implicit social insurance since the spouses are able to share their income. However, if divorce rates are higher in a society, women have a higher incentive to obtain work experience in case they find themselves alone in the future. The reason the incentive is higher is because in our data, women happen to be the second earner in the household more often than men. European women anticipate not getting divorced as often and hence find less reason to insure themselves by working as much as American women.<\/em><\/p>\n

And the study was covered with enthusiasm in Freakonomics, \u201cWhy do American Women Work More\u2026?\u201d A tour of coverage in the blogosphere highlighted the \u201cwoman\u2019s predicament\u201d foregrounded by this interesting study, here<\/a> and here<\/a>, for example. (A counter example that included a look at both sides of the equation is here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

I liked the study. Still, the way the study gets talked about you\u2019d think it was only about women\u2019s behavior, not about men\u2019s behavior, too, or about what it means for humans. Men did not respond to divorce rates but did respond to tax rates. Yet there was no curiosity about that. Men were being taken for granted. And so was the logic of labor markets, marriage, and patriarchy. And so was the economic model that treats as \u201cnormal\u201d (and normative) that people will maximize income unless policy has messed things up.<\/p>\n

You hardly even notice that it is happening, but this is the kind of thing that happens all the time. In this story, men\u2019s behavior gets treated as if it is \u201cnatural.\u201d The baseline is that men are expected to respond to tax rates, and are normal because they do so. And now we have to figure out those puzzling women. They are kind of like men in that they go to work, but they don\u2019t work the same as men. What\u2019s up with that?<\/em> When it comes to labor market behavior, men are treated as the \u201cnormal\u201d or \u201ccontrol\u201d category and women as the \u201cexperimental\u201d category.<\/p>\n

So who cares? I\u2019ll tell you: if you give yourself time to interpret men\u2019s as well as women\u2019s behavior in this study you start to understand what men and women have in common. Perhaps from this view it will emerge for you as has for me that this study looks like it is about \u201csafety nets.\u201d The role of the government in many European countries has been to provide basic security for all citizens. That\u2019s where higher taxes over there go–universal health care, child-care, more generous retirement and unemployment benefits, and other social services and income supports. Lower taxes mean fewer public services and not much of a safety net.<\/p>\n

So in this study I see marriage as another kind of safety net–as do most of those who interpreted the study. The safety net interpretation is one with deep roots. The breadwinner\/homemaker model was the 19th\u00a0century version of \u201csocial safety net\u201d complete with a \u201cfamily wage\u201d for the breadwinner man to support a homemaker woman to take care of home production as well as to be a live-in psychologist to the breadwinner, a gentle voice who would soften the angry blows of the harsh world outside the home. (That\u2019s how they talked about it then.) And even though not all families had a family wage, the model was idealized and seared into social and economic policy, especially in the United States. In fact so much so that it continues to play a role today, as the US marriage movement<\/a> highlights.<\/p>\n

Though the traditional imagery hangs around, the reality hasn\u2019t existed for nearly 40 years. We don\u2019t have a family wage anymore; instead, families keep their heads above water in the US by having two earners.<\/p>\n

So, watch out for your implicit comparison group. Watch out for what gets cast as normal. Ideas about normal can get in the way of seeing possibility, and seeing things as they really are, or at least seeing things from more than one point of view.<\/p>\n

The study wasn\u2019t talked about in terms of the unifying theme of safety netting. It talked about a story of how \u201cwomen are different.\u201d Look, women aren\u2019t like men, they don\u2019t respond to taxes the way men do<\/em>. And the way the men\u2019s side of the story is told\u2014well it isn\u2019t really told but implied\u2014is that men constitute the \u201ccomparison group\u201d the natural <\/em>worker, who responds to the labor market in the way that \u201cwe expect.\u201d What I expect, as I think about this study, is that men and women will feel more ease when there is more of a safety net for all.<\/p>\n

-Virginia Rutter<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s this recent study that shows that in countries with higher divorce risk, married women work more hours than in countries with lower divorce risk. The same study looks at how married men work more when the tax rate is lower, and work less when the tax rate is higher. The study, using data from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}