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Gender disparities start at home

Challenging Race/Ethnicity and Gender Identities in Institutional Cultures

Andrew Cherlin, Johns Hopkins University; Fran Goldscheider, MPRC

The Gender Earnings Gap in the Gig Economy: Evidence from over a Million Rideshare Drivers

Children seem to present a barrier to the gender revolution in that parents are more likely to divide paid and domestic work along traditional gender lines than childless couples are. However, the extent to which this is so varies between countries and over time. We used data on 35 countries from the 2012 International Social Survey Programme to identify the contexts in which parents and non-parents differ the most in their division of labour. In Central/South America, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Asia, and South Africa, labour sharing configurations did not vary as much with the presence of children as in Australia, Western Europe, North America, and Northern Europe. Our multilevel models helped explain this pattern by showing that children seem to present a greater barrier to the gender revolution in richer and, surprisingly, more gender equal countries. However, the relationship between children and couples’ division of labour can be thought of as curvilinear, first increasing as societies progress, but then weakening if societies respond with policies that promote men’s involvement at home. In particular, having a portion of parental leave reserved for fathers reduces the extent to which children are associated with traditional labour sharing in the domestic sphere.

Background: While alcohol consumption is pervasive in the country of Georgia, the extent of alcohol consumption among pregnant women is yet to be examined. The goal of this study is to examine prevalence and correlates of alcohol consumption during pregnancy in Georgia. Methods: Using data from the World Health Organization’s Stepwise approach to noncommunicable disease risk factor surveillance in Georgia, this study examined prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of alcohol use among pregnant women in Georgia. The study sample of reproductive age (18-45) women was drawn from the STEPS, which is a large and nationally representative survey of adults with a 95% participation rate. Frequencies, multivariate analyses and related statistics were computed to describe and study associations among the target population and the odds of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Results: Only 66 individuals in the sample were pregnant. About 13% of pregnant women consumed alcohol in the past 30 days and nearly 70% of them engaged in binge drinking on at least one occasion. Pregnant women who were young, married, homemakers, living in two-member households and in the lowest bracket of monthly income had the highest likelihood of consuming alcohol and binge drinking. The study results were statistically significant (p< .05). Conclusions: This study reveals the magnitude of alcohol consumption and binge drinking among reproductive age women in Georgia. This study also shows prevalence and correlates of alcohol consumption during pregnancy in Georgia. The results identify characteristics of women who are most likely to use alcohol during pregnancy. Given that, alcohol use is a modifiable behavioral risk factor, the findings in this study provide the foundation for evidence-based prevention strategies that target pregnant and reproductive age women.

Black sexual and gender minorities (SGM) are at greater risk for HIV compared to their White, cisgender, heterosexual counterparts. Linkage to culturally sensitive health care is, therefore, pivotal for HIV prevention and treatment of Black SGM. Unfortunately, social and structural challenges undermine Black SGM individuals' abilities to obtain adequate health care services, indicating a need to understand Black SGM perceptions of health care. To address this gap, we interviewed Black men who have sex with men and transwomen about their experiences with health care providers. Participants discussed needs and concerns, including provider SGM identity diversity and education; assumptions, judgment, stigma, and discrimination; and ability to establish a personal bond, trust, and familiarity. Black SGM indicated that providers often did not meet their needs in different ways regarding their SGM identities. Findings suggest a need for provider cultural sensitivity education programs that address the needs of Black SGM in health care.

The use of solid cooking fuels—wood, straw, crop residue, and cow-dung cakes—is associated with higher levels of environmental pollution and health burden. However, even in an era when incomes have grown and poverty has declined, the proportion of Indian households using clean cooking fuels such as kerosene or Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) has increased only slightly. Even among the wealthiest quintile, only about 40 percent of the households rely solely on clean fuel. Since the chores of cooking and collection of fuel remain primarily the domain of women, we argue that intra-household gender inequalities play an important role in shaping the household decision to invest in clean fuel. Analyses using data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), a panel survey of over 41,000 households conducted in two waves in 2004-05 and 2011–12, respectively, show that women's access to salaried work and control over household expenditure decisions is associated with the use of clean fuel.

Maternal postpartum depression has been shown to be one of the main predictors of externalizing and internalizing behaviors in toddlers and adolescents. Research suggests that presence of such behaviors can be observed as early as infancy. The current study uses longitudinal data from 247 mothers to examine the relationship between postpartum depressive symptoms at 8 weeks and the infant's externalizing and internalizing behaviors at 12 months. In unadjusted linear regression models, there were associations between postpartum depressive symptoms and infant externalizing behaviors (β=0.082, SE=0.032, p=0.012) and internalizing behaviors (β=0.111, SE=0.037, p=0.003). After controlling for potential confounding factors, including maternal age, race, education, home ownership, smoking status in the postpartum period, marital status, parenting stress, and happiness from becoming a parent, the associations between postpartum depressive symptoms and infant externalizing (β=0.051, SE=0.034, p=0.138) and internalizing behaviors (β=0.077, SE=0.040, p=0.057) were reduced and became non-significant. Furthermore, in these models the total amount of variance explained was 17.2% (p<0.0001) for externalizing behaviors and 10.5% (p<0.01) for internalizing behaviors; the only significant predictor of externalizing behaviors was maternal age (β=-0.074, SE=0.030, p=0.014), and of internalizing behaviors was white non-Hispanic ethnicity (β=-1.33, SE=0.378, p=0.0005). A combined effect of the confounding factors seems to explain the finding of no significant independent association between postpartum depressive symptoms and infant externalizing and internalizing behaviors.

With a rapid economic achievement, education and socio-economic status of Korean women has also considerably improved. 40.0% of total women held bachelor’s degrees in 2015, which was only 1.6% in 1970. College entrance rate of women was estimated at 32.4% in 1990 but increased to 73.5% in 2017, even higher than men (66.3%). As more women are educated and employed conflicting with traditional gender role and values, one of strategies to deal with housework or childcare is outsourcing. According to the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (2015), 25% of married couples with children received help from their parents for housework or childcare, and it increased to 53% for dual earning couples. Choi (2016) explains that married couples depend on their parents and babysitters for young children, while they depend on nursery and kindergarten as children get older. Then how much does outsourcing reduce a demand for housework and childcare? Will it change the contribution to domestic work between couple? Despite the prevalence of domestic outsourcing in Korea, none of previous studies have investigated its relationship with couple’s time worked at home. In this paper, we examine how paid or unpaid helper is associated with time spent on housework or childcare by wife and husband respectively, using panel data for nine years with individual fixed effects. We also examine how the outsourcing is associated with husband’s relative contribution to domestic work compared to wife, by types of housework.