Doctoral Dissertation Research: Gender Differences in Experiencing Unemployment

本论文探讨失业如何塑造家庭和劳动力中的性别不平等。关于失业的定性研究几乎完全集中在男子身上。即使将妇女包括在抽样范围内，研究也没有分析失业对男女家庭可能具有的不同意义和后果，因为男女在家庭中扮演不同的性别角色。通过将失业概念化为一种以不同的方式影响男性和女性的事件，本文试图填补这一空白。首先，男性和女性是如何将意义灌输给他们的失业的？其次，如果失业对男性和女性有不同的意义，那么在失业期间，他们如何应对家庭中的情感和性别分工？第三，失业对男性和女性劳动力取向的长期影响是什么？失业是否影响女性退出劳动力队伍的决定？这些问题将回答与50名失业的大学教育，已婚，异性恋的个人（25名男性和25名女性）谁是双职工夫妇与孩子的一部分，和家庭观察与失业受访者的配偶和子女的子集进行深入访谈的数据。受访者是从大费城地区的招聘会、专业网络活动和教堂招募的。这项研究的见解将有助于组织和政策制定者减轻失业时期的打击，并找到更容易恢复就业的方法。

This dissertation investigates how unemployment shapes gendered inequalities in the family and the labor-force. Qualitative studies of unemployment have focused almost exclusively on men. Even when women have been included in the sample, studies have not analyzed how unemployment likely has different meanings and consequences for the families of men and women because of the different gender roles men and women occupy at home. By conceptualizing unemployment as an event that impacts both men and women in qualitatively different ways, this dissertation seeks to fill this gap. First, how do men and women imbue meaning to their unemployment? Second, if unemployment holds different meanings for men and women, how do they contend with emotional and gendered divisions of labor in the home during unemployment? Third, what are the long-term implications of unemployment for men and women's orientations to the labor force, and does unemployment shape women's decisions to drop out of the labor force? These questions will be answered with data from in-depth interviews with 50 unemployed college-educated, married, heterosexual individuals (25 men and 25 women) who are part of dual-earner couples with children, and family observations with a subset of spouses and children of unemployed respondents. Respondents are recruited from job fairs, professional networking events and churches in the Greater Philadelphia Area. Insights from this study will help organizations and policy makers soften the blow of periods of unemployment and find ways to make transitions back to employment easier.