The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

484 Chapter 12

Summary

In this chapter, I evaluated the effect of

paid worker roles on women’s and men’s

health. The paid worker role is associated

with health benefits for both women and

men. The effect of the paid worker role on

women’s and men’s health is largely due

to its influence on resources and demands.

To the extent that women’s employment

increases women’s economic resources and

detracts from men’s economic resources,

women benefit and men suffer. To the

extent that women’s employment increases

men’s participation in household chores and

decreases women’s, women benefit and men

suffer. This presents a challenge for couples

in which wives and husbands both work

outside the home.

Having multiple roles, such as the roles

of paid worker, spouse, and parent, has the

potential to provide resources that can be

used to buffer strains arising from any one

role. This is referred to as therole expansion

hypothesis. However, multiple roles also can

lead to role strain or role conflict, which

is known as therole scarcity hypothesis.

That is, stress from one role can exacerbate

problems in another role. Taken collectively,

more evidence supports the role expansion

hypothesis than the role scarcity hypothesis.

More roles seem to be associated with better

health for women and men, but this does not

mean role strains do not occur. Women, in

particular, face difficulties combining work

and family roles when children are at home.

These women do not necessarily suffer,

however, when they have resources to cope

with the increased demands—resources in

terms of a high income or a husband who

shares household responsibilities.

One reason it is difficult to compare

the effect of paid work on health for

men and women is that men and women

have different employment experiences.

One aspect of the paid worker role with

consequences for women’s well-being is

discrimination. I distinguished between

access and treatment discrimination: Access

discrimination reflects the differential

opportunities women and men have to

hold certain jobs; once hired, treatment

discrimination occurs in the form of the

glass ceiling and pay disparity. Women

make less money than men even when

characteristics of women and men such as

education and experience are taken into

consideration. However, the wage gap is

closing. Factors that contribute to the wage

gap include sex segregation of occupations

and parenthood. Women with children earn

less than women without children, and both

concrete and abstract explanations account

for this difference. Interestingly, women

are not as dissatisfied with pay disparity

as we would expect. Although women

believe other women suffer discrimination,

a majority of women deny any personal

discrimination; this phenomenon is referred

to as thedenial of personal disadvantage. One

theory of why women deny disadvantage

involves social comparison theory: Women

compare themselves to other women rather

than to men.

Another aspect of work that has

consequences for well-being is sexual

harassment. Women are more likely to be

harassed than men, and sexual harassment

is associated with an array of adverse

outcomes. There are a variety of forms

of sexual harassment. Women are more

likely than men to label a given behavior as

harassment, but both women and men agree

on the more severe forms of harassment.

Both person factors and situational factors

combine to produce sexual harassment.

M12_HELG0185_04_SE_C12.indd 484 6/21/11 9:16 AM