This paper concerns the role of gender in the economy,
how the conceptual tools of economic sociology help us understand
gender in the economy, and how gender studies provide a lens from
which to reconsider the boundaries and claims of economic sociology.
The authors start with a discussion of what topics economic sociology
covers, arguing that subtle gender bias may have caused us to
focus on formal organizations and exclude household behavior—and
much of the paid care sector—from economic sociology.
If they take a broader view of what the “economy”
is, it includes households, the organizations in which people
work for pay and from which they purchase goods and services,
and the markets in which any of these are embedded. They then
discuss the conceptual tool kit usually associated with economic
sociology: 1) social networks, 2) culture, norms, and institutions,
and 3) critiques of neoclassical economics. They appreciate these
tools, but express disappointment that economic sociologists have
not taken a more integrative view. They prefer to integrate what
is valuable from the rational-choice perspective of economists’
analysis of market phenomena with considerations of networks and
institutions, rather than rejecting the economic view whole cloth.
They are equally disappointed that economists have taken so little
interest in sociologists’ insights.
They apply their integrative view of economic sociology
to explain gender differentiation and inequality in paid employment
and the household. They consider occupational sex segregation
and the sex gap in pay. In the household, they consider couples’
division of labor, power dynamics, and exits from marriages. They
also consider the “care sector” that crosscuts the
family, paid employment, and the state. They focus on employment
and household activities because most gender patterns are rooted
in these two venues; most of us spend most of our time on the
job and at home.
Paula England, Sociology and
Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University Nancy Folbre, Economics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
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