Sociology 699F: Huber

Sociology 699F: Gender & Social Change

Huber, 1990

Huber, Joan. 1990. "Macro-Micro Links in Gender Stratification." American Sociological Review 55(February): 1-10. See web page: JSTOR

First, infant mortality declined....
Second, the spread of mass education redirected wealth flows within the family....
Third, ... fertility began its long decline ...
Fourth, about 1910 the introduction of safe methods of artificial feeding wiped out the survival advantages of breastfed babies. For the first time in human history, a mother could work away from her baby without endangering its life.
Fifth, ...an increase in the demand for women workers induced a steady rise in women's labor force participation in this century, helping to launch a new women's movement. (p.5, emphasis added).

The men's movement emerged during the nineteenth century. Male workers, erstwhile peasants, serfs, and slaves, began to fight collectively for what they saw as their fair share. The current wave of the women's movement similarly emerged when women workers, erstwhile housewives, began to struggle for what they had come to see as their fair market share. into the wage labor force. (p.3)
Increases in economic demand trigger social movements by producing a demand for labor that cannot be met in the usual ways. (Chafetz, 1984; Chafetz and Dworkin 1986). (p.5).
Women's increased productivity has eroded legal and customary restraints on their behavior. For example, marriage as an institution has declined since 1960.
The sex wage gap may nearly close for younger workers by century's end (Smith and Ward 1985). (p.6) [Ha! So much for economists' forecasts!]

Third, ... fertility began its long decline ... (p.5)
The major fertility-related expectation that restricts women is that of childrearing, which lowers occupational aspirations.
The more that voters become concerned about low fertility, the better it will be for women. (p.8)

The only way to develop an adequate theory [of gender stratification] is to compare the impact of ecological conditions and subsistence technologies on social organization and individual behavior over time. (p.2)
Only a theory that takes both preindustrial and industrial technology into account can put into context concrete problems that U.S. society faces today and demonstrate how these problems are reflected in individual lives. (p.2)

Continuing trends in education, employment, and fertility churn the microlevel relentlessly, leaving in their wake vast discrepancies in thought, feeling, and behavior.
For sociologists, the natural unit of observation has been the individual. Thus, the analysis must move from the individual level of observation to the system level where the problem of interest usually lies (Coleman 1987: 153). (p.2)
Macrotrends are internalized as personal problems. The causal sequence is clear.

Duncan and Schnore's (1959) POET model (population, organization, ecology, and technology) included the variables with the most power to explain stratification comparatively and historically. (p.2-3)
Lenski as a macro theory... (p.3)

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Last updated February 1, 2003

comments to: Reeve Vanneman. reeve@cwmills.umd.edu