Work-Family Dynamics: Competing Logics of Regulation, Economy and Morals, eds. Berit Brandth, Sigtona Halrynjo and Elin Kvande. London and New York: Routledge, 2017
It's not just what you know, it's who you know: technical knowledge, rainmaking, and gender among finance executives
Research in the Sociology of Work, 2001
This qualitative analysis of interviews with over 100 executives studies the boundaries excluding... more This qualitative analysis of interviews with over 100 executives studies the boundaries excluding most women from the most lucrative and powerful jobs in the financial services industry. This chapter examines the roles of technical knowledge and social capital in the highest levels ...
Gender, Race, Local Labor Markets and Occupational Devaluation
Sociological Focus, 1996
Demands and Devotion: Cultural Meanings of Work and Overload Among Women Researchers and Professionals in Science and Technology Industries
How do cultural meanings influence how people experience work-life demands? Much research, especi... more How do cultural meanings influence how people experience work-life demands? Much research, especially quantitative research, on the effects of structural work and family conditions does not account for employees’ cultural beliefs about the meaning of work in their lives. This article uses unique survey data to investigate the effects of employee embrace of elements of the “work devotion schema”—a cultural model that valorizes intense career commitment and organizational dedication—on their sense of “overload,” an experience that includes feeling exhausted and overloaded by all one's roles, net of actual hours on the paid job and family responsibilities. We argue that by cognitively, morally, and emotionally framing work as a valued end, the work devotion schema reduces feelings of overload. Using a case of senior women researchers and professional service providers in science and technology industries, we find that those who embrace work devotion feel less overloaded than those who reject it, net of work and family conditions. However, this effect is curtailed for mothers of young and school-aged children. We end by discussing implications for flexibility stigma and gender inequality.
Recognizing chilliness: How schemas of inequality shape views of culture and climate in work environments
Why are some people more likely than others to recognize hostile or unfair interactions in local ... more Why are some people more likely than others to recognize hostile or unfair interactions in local environments such as their workplaces? We argue that awareness of chilly climates is not simply a tally of instances of discrimination but an interpretive process framed by cultural schemas of inequality, deeply held cultural accounts of broad ascriptive group differences. We contend that schemas of inequality frame the way individuals interpret their day-today work environments, sharpening or distorting their ability to recognize unfair circumstances therein. To investigate the relationship between these cultural schemas and recognition of chilliness, we analyze survey data from a theoretically useful case of academic science and engineering (STEM) faculty. When accounting for patterns of under-representation in STEM generally , roughly half of respondents rely on meritocratic schemas, while half use schemas emphasizing structural barriers. Yet even net of demographics and personal experiences of marginalization at work, those using meritocratic schemas are less likely than those using structural schemas to recognize chilly departmental climates and chilly professional cultures. Our focus pivots analytical attention beyond individuals' experiences of disadvantage toward the cultural schemas that shape whether co-workers, both dominant and non-dominant, recognize chilly interactions in their work environments that disadvantage women and minorities.
Paid to Party: Working Time and Emotion in Direct Home Sales . By Jamie L. Mullaney and Janet Hinson Shope . New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2011. Pp. xii+193. $72.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper)
American Journal of Sociology, 2014
Moral Dimensions of the Work–Family Nexus
Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research, 2010
Transformations in family and work life in the USA have led to widespread feelings of conflict be... more Transformations in family and work life in the USA have led to widespread feelings of conflict between these two domains. The workfamily literature, hamstrung by assumptions of narrow rational action and structural determinism, has largely overlooked the moral ...
Work Without End?: Scheduling Flexibility and Work-to-Family Conflict Among Stockbrokers
Work and Occupations, 2009
ABSTRACT The common finding in the work–family literature that workplace scheduling flexibility r... more ABSTRACT The common finding in the work–family literature that workplace scheduling flexibility reduces work‐to‐family conflict may not be generalizable to service occupations with intense client demands. This qualitative analysis of stockbrokers finds that brokers in firms granting scheduling flexibility experience more work‐to‐family conflict than those in the firm with scheduling rigidity. Although brokers in the latter firm lose autonomy from their employer (and earning potential), bureaucratic rigidity buffers them from client pressures that intrude on family life. This finding should be tested in other occupations requiring extensive client interactions in a 24‐hour economy.
CULTURAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF FAMILY SCHEMAS: The Case of Women Finance Executives
Gender & Society, 2001
... They experienced a fundamental contradiction between an independent career and the role of wi... more ... They experienced a fundamental contradiction between an independent career and the role of wife prescribed by the family ... Whether or not the relationship survived, second-cohort women'sfinance careers undermined the meaningfulness of the family devotion schema in their ...
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2008
By 2008, the much publicized cultural turn in sociology is old news.1 How far are we from the p... more By 2008, the much publicized cultural turn in sociology is old news.1 How far are we from the point where we made our initial turn toward culture? Some say we are in the midst of it (Friedland and Mohr 2004), while others believe we are in fact moving beyond it (Bonnell and Hunt ...
Working Difference: Women’s Working Lives in Hungary and Austria, 1945–1995 by Eva Fodor:Working Difference: Women's Working Lives in Hungary and Austria, 1945–1995
American Journal of Sociology, 2004
Book Review Masculinity and the British Organization Man Since 1945 by Michael Roper
American Journal of Sociology, 1995
Managing Our Margins: Women Entrepreneurs in Suburbia by Kimberly A. Reed:Managing Our Margins: Women Entrepreneurs in Suburbia
Americans often rely on meritocratic ideologies rather than structural factors to explain unequal... more Americans often rely on meritocratic ideologies rather than structural factors to explain unequal labor market outcomes, but we know little about how such beliefs are contingent upon individuals' social locations. Taking advantage of unique survey data, this article examines how gender inequality in professional advancement is explained among successful women professionals in science, technology, and allied fields—an employment arena potentially characterized simultaneously by potent meritocratic ideologies and persistent gendered barriers. Using multinomial logistic regressions comparing structural and meritocratic frames for explaining the paucity of women at high levels, we show how respondents in different career and family circumstances use these conflicting perceptual lenses. We find that married women, those with business education, and those in the top levels of their organizations are more likely to account for gender inequality by invoking deficiencies in women's human capital or motivation, whereas mothers, primary breadwinners, sellers of professional services, and those working in unsupportive organizations are more likely to invoke structural explanations. This research has implications for social action. Successful women's beliefs about gender inequality may influence whether they help remove structural obstacles for other women, or whether, through adherence to the meritocratic ideology, they help reconstruct the glass ceilings they have cracked.
This paper attempts to integrate, elaborate, and test hypotheses about the determinants of church... more This paper attempts to integrate, elaborate, and test hypotheses about the determinants of church membership among young adults. In particular, focus is on the extent to which participation in religious organizations is affected by age, family formation and attitudes toward marriage ...
Stability and transformation in gender, work, and family: insights from the second shift for the next quarter century
Community, Work & Family, 2015
Organizational Commitment and Constraints on Work-Family Policy Use: Corporate Flexibility Policies in a Global Firm
This study compares work-family policy use among low wage, predominately female call center worke... more This study compares work-family policy use among low wage, predominately female call center workers and their more highly paid managers. Both formal policies and the informal work-family arrangements that employees negotiate with their supervisors were examined. Consistent with the work devotion perspective, it was found that formal work-family policies are more widely used among hourly workers than managers, and those with better performance evaluations are less likely than their otherwise similar coworkers to use formal work-family policies. The ability to negotiate informal work-family arrangements and use them as a supplement to formal policies is also important to workers in this study, especially women with children and those providing care to people with special needs. Access to informal arrangements may be limited to the high performers, however. Overall, this research suggests that the work devotion framework, which derives from studies of elite workers, may be more broadly applicable than previously assumed.
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Papers by Mary Blair-Loy