Race and Gender Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Race and Gender - Essay Example In families where mothers work outside, most of the fathers have dominated childcare (changing the infants’ diapers and bathing the infants); indeed, results showed that such infants achieved average social skills and enjoyed the external stimulation from their fathers, as they were as skillful and loving as the infants’ mothers were (Blau et al 2006). There is a preference of equalitarian marriage where both spouses share work responsibilities, home making and child rearing (Lewis & Sussman, 1986). Other family members including the offspring’s have also been involved in different tasks within the family. For example, in the African rural settings, the male children could look after the livestock owned by the family, and other communities allowed their females to build houses for the male counterparts for example the plain and highland nilots. Policies affecting paid work and family Different family members are concerned with different tasks and certain policies both traditional and corporate affect their performance. Maternity policies apply to the expectant mothers both the young and adult mothers (Blau et al 2006). Such a policy ensures that, for example, in the corporate sector, the expectant mother is subjected to a maternity leave for a defined period before and after childbirth. This ensures that the mother does not strain in terms of performing certain family duties. This is also evident in the traditional society setting as the family members perform family tasks while the expectant mothers have maximum rest. The social policy has a number of parental leaves that are usually granted to either the mother, father or both members. The... The report stresses that nonstandard employment defines poorly paid, insecure, and unprotected type of employment, which in essence cannot support any given household because of poor pay. This type of employment entails part time, temporal, on-call work and both the worker and employer face different advantages and disadvantages. Workers with scarce expertise or skills may benefit as they are given managerial and overseer posts in the employment. The female gender benefits from the part-time nature of the work and they can balance between the work and their family care. In general, the employees are not fixed to the employers timetables throughout as it provides flexibility to other chores. This paper makes a conclusion that structured flexibility provides opportunities for some groups that would be excluded, such as expectant females. The employer can perform the desired work at their own convenience because they only offer the opportunity when it arises, and this reduces the costs incurred. The author declares that the worker faces job insecurity, as there is no guarantee for full time employment, and hence financial instability of the workers. Incomes from the nonstandard jobs are low, resulting into low living standards of the workers. Discrimination and abuse occurs due to gender, for the women who work as house helps, they are usually subjected to sexual harassment by their employers, the workers health is not guaranteed as they work at their own risks, workers are not subject to benefits such as pensions, health care and medical coverage.