This diversity of female lifestyle choices produces a polarization of female employment profiles over the lifecycle, and is a major cause of rising income inequality between households in modern societies as illustrated by income differences between dual-career childless couples and one-earner couples with several children to support.Ĭurrently, female social stratification differs from male social stratification, because women have two avenues for achieving higher social status and class position through the labor market or the marriage market. This heterogeneity of women's lifestyle preferences, and thus employment profiles, cuts across social classes, education levels, and income levels. Instead, couples choose between three family models, corresponding to women's three lifestyle preferences:Ī minority of work-centered women who adopt the male profile of continuous full-time employment and are financially self- supporting Ī minority of home-centered women who are dependent on their spouses after marriage andĪ majority of adaptive women who are secondary earners within their households rather than careerists, and have varied employment patterns. The feminist assumption that dual-earner and dual-career families would become universal after equal opportunities policies took effect has been proven wrong, in majority of the countries. Similarly, women's position in the family is studied independently of their position in the class structure, and depends on their education as much as their earning power and occupational status. Occupational segregation and the pay gap develop and change independently within labor markets due to variations in female employment, anti-discrimination policies and other social policies including family-friendly policies that have been counter-productive in their effects. Empirical research has shown that the sex segregation of occupations, and the pay gap between men and women, cut across social classes in ways that vary from one society to another, and vary across time. Now scholars study women's position in society, and in the labor force, separately from class analysis. Scientific Method in Sociological Researchįeminists debated whether wives should be allocated to classes on the basis of their husband's occupation or the wife's occupation.Sociological Perspectives on Health and Illness.India's Development Report Card vis-a-vis MDG.HIV/AIDS and Mobility in South Asia- UNDP Report 2010.UN Summit on Non- UN Report on Domestic Violence.UN Summit on Non- Communicable Diseases.