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Differentiating between the Living Standards of Husbands and Wives in Two-Wage-Earner Families, 1968 and 1979

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Roberta M. Spalter-Roth
Roberta M. Spalter-Roth
Affiliation:
Doctoral candidate in the Sociology Department, The American University, Washington D.C. 20016
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Abstract

This paper applies a feminist analysis to the measurement of living standards during the 1970s. It suggests that widely made assumptions of homogeneous pooling and redistribution of income, labor, and expenditures within families mask inequalities and uneven changes in the living standards of wage-working husbands and wives. Two waves of the Panel Study of Income dynamics are used to create two rough indicators, that is, reproduction pay and surplus, to test for inequalities and uneven changes in 1968 and again in 1979. In general, the findings show differential living standards between husbands and wives when assumptions of homogeneous pooling and redistribution are not made. The paper concludes that the suggested rough indicators are useful for the measurement of living standards.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , March 1983 , pp. 231 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1983

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References

Roberta M. Spalter-Roth is a doctoral candidate in the Sociology Department, The American University, Washington, D.C. 20016. This research is funded in part by the Business and Professional Women's Foundation. The author is indebted to her feminist theory group for the insights and information that resulted in this paper. These are captured in a brief article, “None Dare Call it Patriarchy: A Critique of the New Immiseration,” The Washington Area Marxist Feminist Theory Study Group, Socialist Review, 121 (Jan.-Feb. 1982). A longer version of this paper is available from the author.Google Scholar

1 Space limitations prevent a complete citation of this literature. An example of a Marxist approach is: Currie, Elliot, Dunn, Robert, and Fogarty, David, “The New Immiseration, Stagflation, Inequality and the Working Class,”, Socialist Review, 10 (11 12. 1980), 7–31;Google Scholaran example of a non-Marxist approach using PSID data is: Hill, Martha S.,Google Scholar“Trends in the Economic Situation of U. S. Families and Children: 1970–1980,” work in progress, Survey Research Center, University of Michigan (12. 1981), pp.1–69;Google Scholar an example of an approach that looks at the relation between working wives and family expenditures is: Vickery, Clair, “Women's Economic Contribution to the Family,” in The Subtle Revolution: Women at Work, ed. Smith, Ralph E. (Washington, D.C., 1979), pp. 159–200.Google Scholar

2 Again, space limitations prevent citation of many important works on this theme. A pathbreaking article is: Hartmann, Heidi I., “The Family as the Locus of Gender, Class and Political Struggle: The Example of Housework,” Signs: A Journal of Woment in Culture and Society, 6 (Spring 1981), 366–94.Google Scholar

3 For a discussion of the Studies' purposes, methodology, and articles utilizing its findings see: Morgan, James N. et al. , Five thousand American Families: Patterns of Economic Progress, 3 volumes, Survey Research Center, Insitute for Social Research, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1974).Google Scholar

4 It should be noted that because some faulty data were recorded on the 1969 tape, the Ns presented for this year are undercounted by 76 families that met the sample criteria. While the findings presented for 1968 are from the uncorrected tape, subsequent tests revealed only very minor changes between the results of the two tapes.Google Scholar

5 In this labeling I am following Howe, Louise Kapp, Pink Collar Workers (New York, 1977), who demonstrates the differential occupations of male and female service workers. The sex-based division of labor within broad occupational categories is not limited to service work. The grouping of husbands and wives into the three broad categories in this study obfuscates the essential division within occupations. Unfirtunately, the limited sample size rules out the use of a more detailed occupational breakdown.Google Scholar

6 Clothing estimates were adapted from Tables 1 and 2 in: Courtless, Joan C., “Clothing and Textiles: Supplies, Prices and Outlook for 1982,” Family Economics Review, n. v. (Spring 1982), 3–9.Google Scholar

7 Despite the lack of representativeness of this study's sample, these findings are supported by data from the 1980 Current Population Survey, unpublished Table 11, “Employment States and Occupation of Husband, by Employment Status and Occupation of Wife.”Google Scholar