Blog 12

According to the YWCA Employment fact sheet, women earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. African American and Latina women earn even less compared to man, 68 cents and 56 cents respectively. Even more shocking is that 60% of minimum wage workers and 60% of low wage workers are women. Sex segregation in jobs continues to exist despite laws prohibiting sex discrimination because “women and people of color tend to be concentrated in lower paid clerical, service, and retail occupations” (YWCA). Being part of the “secondary labor market,” these jobs are “characterized by low wages, few benefits, and little occupational mobility” (YWCA).

Gender socialization aids in the formation of occupational segregation because when women or men envision having a career that does not fit into their gendered roles in society, they are often discouraged from following that career goal. If a man wants to pursue a career that is seen by society as being a feminine job, their masculinity is questioned and they may be teased about their sexuality. Women seeking traditionally “male” jobs often have their intelligence and stamina challenged.

Women gain many advantages by entering into a non-traditional career. For example, non-traditional jobs usually pay 20-30% more than jobs traditionally held by women (YWCA). Therefore, non-traditional jobs can be a pathway out of poverty for the many minimum-wage and low-income women. Non-traditional jobs also offer short training programs, apprenticeships, and on-the-job training, enabling trainees to work and gain firsthand experience at the same time. Succeeding in a non-traditional job, not only allows for the individual to receive more attention, but also opens the door to others.

Men are not loosing anything by women entering into male dominated careers. According the YWCA, the percentage of women employed in non-traditional occupations has been and continues to decline. Additionally, a large percentage of young women continue to remain in traditionally female roles of attending schools for cosmetology and healthcare. Finally, according to the YWCA, women make up an extremely small percentage of the high paying construction and trade occupations. Not only do women make up, at the very most, 5% of the workers, it was also found that men were 9 times more likely as women to be employed in trade work, and 4 times more likely than women to be in protective service occupations (YWCA).

Blog #10

Welfare reform forced many single mothers into the work force, all the while dismissing import child care needs. Mothers were happy to be off of welfare and were encouraged by being economically self-sufficient. The mothers in the study all echoed the same struggles, finding quality child care and working with the agencies. Through the Work Experience Program (WEP), mothers participated in training and internships for long periods of time before finding a full-time job. During WEP, the mothers are supposed to receive child care benefits and many continue to use other public assistance programs. As was often found with the mothers in Chaundry’s study, the payments were often late getting to the provider or there was a systematic problem with the payments, in both cases causing conflict between the provider and mother. Some of these conflicts resulted in the termination of care and mothers having to quit the program to look for other child care arrangements and to take care of their children for a period of time. Many mothers used kin care as the primary care for their children most often in the beginning of the child’s life when the mother had to return to work. Kin care was also used most often by young mothers that did not know very much about the system and relied on their personal networks for care. Over time, the mothers began to view kin care as the non-preferred type of care and only turned to it in times of greatest need. Once their personal networks were exhausted in regards to child care, the mothers turned to their personal networks for getting assistance from agencies. The mothers began to prefer agency based care to kin care.

The mothers in Chaundry’s study had to develop survival strategies from the very beginning of work entry after welfare reform. At the time of their initial entrance into welfare-to-work, mothers based their work around child care. They often stopped working when care arrangements broke down or when child care could not be arranged. Over time, mothers began to base their child care around their work. They realized the importance of maintaining a job and being able to be economically self-sufficient. This often resulted in mothers strategically making child care arrangements around their work.

In many of the cases in Chaundry’s study, the mothers were unable to get their preferred arrangement and settled for a second best option. Although the mothers settled for the option that was available and not the most desirable, they did not settle, they continued to search and wait for their ideal arrangement. Some mothers gave up spots or kept their children in a specific care arrangement longer than they normally would because they liked that specific type of care and wanted to keep their child there longer.

The child care options available to mothers is limited in the hours they provide care. Many mothers expressed frustration over having to be at work before the center opened or worked after it was closed and how they would make the necessary arrangements. In Julia’s case, Sonia, the provider, agreed to watch Jacqueline longer than the normal care hours to accommodate Julia’s work schedule. Center care does not provide much flexibility in their hours of care while family day care often can and will.

Chaundry found that the stereotypical idea that the welfare recipients are poor because they are lazy or stupid is far from the truth. The mothers in this study explained their struggles to go to school, work, provide for their children, and receive the benefits they needed. Poor working mothers often have to work long hours and do not have very much to show for it. Many mothers must resort to having multiple jobs in the hope that they can make ends meet. Single mothers are forced to take on the responsibility of providing for their children and often sacrifice a large amount of the day with them because they need to work. With their mothers working long hours at multiple jobs, the children are being moved from provider to provider decreasing their sense of stability. Chaundry, along with other information, suggest that there should be increased and overlapped funding for child care. He suggests that there should be an overlap program between family care and center care. Chaundry also argues that policy should acknowledge single mothers in today’s work force. In the radio broadcast, Robert Rector argues that there needs to be behavioral changes to decrease the number of children born out of wedlock. In the same broadcast, Professor Adair emphasizes the need for higher education for low-income individuals in order to break the cycle.

Blog #9

According to NCCP, 26% of child immigrants are poor. In Sara’s story, she was originally from Ecuador and moved to United States when she found out she was pregnant. She lived with her mother for a while but when they did not get along, she moved back to Ecuador to live with her daughter’s father and his family. She decided that she wanted to have her daughter grow up in the United States and have more opportunities so she came back. Sara left her daughter with a neighbor in her mother’s building who ultimately asked Sara to sign custody over to her. Scared and not knowing much about the legal system, Sara and her daughter left and became homeless. Over time, Sara learned about the system and began school and enrolled her daughter in a center. The NCCP says that 20% of children under 6 live in poor families and 18% older than 6. This can be attributed to the fact that it is difficult for working mothers to get child care support, especially in the early years. Mothers are often working minimum wage jobs with irregular hours, leaving them strategically planning child care arrangements. Sometimes when child care falls through, mothers have no other choice but to quit their job to either take care of their child or to arrange other child care. Another issue that children face is that they do not have healthcare. Most low-income mothers work for companies that do not provide healthcare benefits to their employees or their families. Additionally, mothers are often working sporadic jobs, some part-time and some full-time, and work multiple jobs at once. Another issue is the length of time poor working mothers usually stay at a job continuously, sometimes they are forced to quit to take care of a child and for other reasons and are therefore, unable to receive benefits.

Blog #8

There are many problems that “urban poverty” creates for poor working mothers. For example, many mothers are afraid for their children’s safety because of where they live. Jessica, from the video “7 Days at Minimum Wage,” said that she will not allow her children to play outside because she is afraid they will get shot or killed. She also said that while she refuses to live in Section 8 housing, she lives in an apartment that has holes that need to be fixed and lives where drugs are being sold next door. When people in general are afraid to spend time outdoors where they live, it begins to sever community ties and any meaningful exchanges that were once had. The deterioration of inner cities and middle class citizens moving away creates many of these problems. Along with the middle class moving out comes the deterioration in real estate and an increase in abandoned buildings. According to William Julius Wilson, the deterioration of inner cities is caused by the decline in the labor markets and “brain drain,” meaning that more men are going to jail leaving mothers to care for their children alone. “Urban poverty” also makes it very difficult to get out of poverty regardless of how hard you work or how much education you have. Jessica says that she has been working at minimum wage her whole life and currently only makes a little more than minimum wage. She is upset by the fact that every educational step she completes, she finds herself in the same position as before. She wants her children to focus on staying out of trouble and getting an education and moving out of poverty. Jessica can see the vicious cycle of working low-income jobs and having children and not being able to get out, and does not want her children stuck in it. These problems differ from that of poor women working in mixed income neighborhoods because their children have other examples to look to.

Blog #7

Julia spent fourteen months in the shelter system before Jacqueline was born and they moved into a permanent residence. When Julia went to school, Jacqueline’s father watched her and her sister. This arrangement lasted only the semester and ended because they broke up. She was still relying on public assistance during her summer break and was the primary care provider for her children but she was struggling. Julia had been cut off from receiving food stamps because she did not receive a notice about finger-imaging while she was in the shelters. When the next semester started, Julia’s oldest daughter, Izzy, moved in with her and watched the younger kids for almost five months. Izzy and Julia ended up taking jobs at the Burger Joint, trying to work their schedules around taking care of the children. Julia quit after five or six weeks because she did not want her PA to get cut off. When Julia applied for ACD, she was put at the end of the long waiting list because her case was not high priority. Her case was not a high priority case because she was neither working nor attending school. When she was called into the Work Experience Program, she received child care benefits and put Jacqueline into family day care arrangement that did not last very long. The arrangement ended because the WEP continuously messed up her checks or paid the provider late, making it so Julia always owed the provider money. Julia had to take a month off of work to get it sorted out. When she went back to work, she turned to her cousin to watch Jacqueline, but this arrangement was also short lived because the welfare agency lost all Julia’s file. After missing more than a month of work trying to sort everything out with welfare and almost losing both jobs, Julia turned to Becky from the CWP who helped her get ACD. Julia put Jacqueline into family care with Sonia and it turned out to be the most stable and long lasting arrangement. Sonia was flexible with Julia’s work hours and agreed to keep Jacqueline longer than hours than normal. Julia was still receiving PA and knew once she was required to make ACD copayments she would not be able to pay Sonia to keep Jacqueline the extra hours and she would have to have her mother watch her while she was at work. Minimum wage jobs make it difficult for poor working mothers to find and maintain child care because of the systematic barriers. It is difficult for them to work with the system either because they don’t understand it or are unaware of the benefits they could receive. Mothers have to either come up with a strategy to find work that works around child care or child care that works around work. Often times, mothers work odd hours or different hours so they are always having to change their care arrangements, sometimes they are even forced to leave their jobs and take care of their children.

Blog # 6

Chaundry explains that there are several types of child care used by low-income mothers. There is home-based care or individualized child care, which includes kin care, informal care by neighbors or strangers, and father care. The next type of care is family child care, or daycare, in a licensed care givers home. Mothers also use center care, including Head Start programs, Pre-K and preschool programs, and group daycare. Finally, some mothers used specialized care or special needs care. Most mothers used kin care as the primary care arrangement for their children when they were infants even though it was not always preferred. Harriett used kin care for her son because she thought it was important to “establish an ongoing relationship across generations and preserved a family’s identity” (p. 43). Like many mothers, she also chose kin care because she believed that babies need to be in the care of a loving family member, whom she trusted, and she can be sure her child will not be neglected. In many cases though, kin care was not the ideal care arrangement for the mothers because it was often inconsistent and the mothers thought the children should be in a more structured environment and be exposed to other children. Kin care was less expensive than formal care settings, making it the only option available for mothers just starting out. Many mothers chose family day care because, as Annette explains, it is more structured and more educational for children. Not all family day care is structured and educational, sometimes it was more like babysitting and the mothers worried about what went on while they were working. Center care provides the socializing and learning skills for children as they get older. Many mothers prefer to have their children in center care by ages two or three to get them ready for school. Mothers, like Dona, noticed developmental improvements when their children entered center care. Most mothers were unable to get their child into a center as early as they would have liked. The centers were full with long waiting lists, forcing mothers to make other arrangements while waiting for an opening. A lot of the children in the study had developmental issues, the most common was speech delay. The mothers of children with speech delay encountered many obstacles before getting their child into a special needs program. Mothers are often forced to choose less desirable arrangements either because of systematic issues, monetary issues, and most common, availability.

Blog #5

Chaundry argues that “we are asking the lest fortunate to strive and work harder, we are deeply discounting our public responsibility for the children born into the poor families and disadvantaged communities” (p. 14) because the focus of welfare reform was getting people working, while discounting the need for support and opportunities for child care. Chaundry argues that the welfare reforms put child care and working in separate spheres, forcing mothers to choose low-quality care because there were no other options available. Rather than increasing support and opportunities available to the working poor to help communities as a whole, welfare reform brought very little new support and cut off other support to working families. With welfare reform, the public is putting an emphasis on work and economic self-sufficiency for the poor, and therefore, it is our public responsibility to offer support and equal opportunities for the children of poor and low-income families. The videos identifying the working poor support Chaundry’s perspective that it is a public issue, not a private one. Most people in the video identified the working poor as people working for minimum wage. One man said that the working poor are the people that are working but still cannot make ends meet because housing, healthcare, and child care is too expensive. The video, “Living with a Hole in Your Pocket,” asks the question, “why doesn’t working work?” The most significant reason is barriers that the working poor face. The quirks and catch 22s of the system make it impossible for the working poor to make it out of poverty. It becomes a vicious cycle for these families. The video states that the quirks in the system have gotten worse and are making it a very public issue. The apparent increase in systematic barriers must be publicly addressed in order for the working poor to break the cycle and move out of poverty.