Womens roles in the work force have increased, however, womens positions in the household have not changed greatly (Lennon & Rosenfield, 1994). While paid work research has focused significantly on the qualities of roles, household work research has not (Janzen & Hellsten, 2007). As the few existing instruments that do measure the quality of household work roles lack psychometric evidence (Janzen & Hellsten, 2007), a new instrument assessing all aspects of the quality of household work roles and possessing evidence of validity and reliability is required. The first step in the instrument development process is the identification and definition of relevant constructs. Thus, the main purpose of the study was to identify household work themes. Four focus groups of triple role women were performed with a total of 20 participants. A snowball sampling technique was used to recruit participants. Thematic analysis of the transcripts identified eight themes: No End Result, Scheduling, Time Constraints, Psychological Strain, Equality in Work, Value, Money, and Reward. The results found women to enjoy certain aspects of household work, but that they lead busy and hectic lifestyles. The themes created in the study were placed into a table of specifications this is to guide future instrument development research in which items can be included for each of these eight themes.

This thesis focuses on Chinese immigrant women’s experiences of household work and leisure in Canada. Socialist feminist perspective is used for an analysis of in-depth conversations with ten Chinese immigrant women with children. Results show that Chinese immigrant women experienced a significant increase of household work and a dramatic decrease on leisure pursuits after immigration and/or the birth of their children, implying that gender inequalities are reproduced and reinforced. Chinese immigrant women encounter and negotiate forms of tension resulted from the striking difference of being in China and being in Canada, their change in social status and their changed gender status. This thesis may contribute background knowledge for the practitioners in recreational programs and social works specialized in immigrant settlement services. Future research could be the motives for immigration, the actual experiences of immigration; a comparative study between Chinese immigrant women and women of other ethnicities is also suggested.

Womens roles in the work force have increased, however, womens positions in the household have not changed greatly (Lennon & Rosenfield, 1994). While paid work research has focused significantly on the qualities of roles, household work research has not (Janzen & Hellsten, 2007). As the few existing instruments that do measure the quality of household work roles lack psychometric evidence (Janzen & Hellsten, 2007), a new instrument assessing all aspects of the quality of household work roles and possessing evidence of validity and reliability is required. The first step in the instrument development process is the identification and definition of relevant constructs. Thus, the main purpose of the study was to identify household work themes. Four focus groups of triple role women were performed with a total of 20 participants. A snowball sampling technique was used to recruit participants. Thematic analysis of the transcripts identified eight themes: No End Result, Scheduling, Time Constraints, Psychological Strain, Equality in Work, Value, Money, and Reward. The results found women to enjoy certain aspects of household work, but that they lead busy and hectic lifestyles. The themes created in the study were placed into a table of specifications this is to guide future instrument development research in which items can be included for each of these eight themes.

This thesis focuses on Chinese immigrant women’s experiences of household work and leisure in Canada. Socialist feminist perspective is used for an analysis of in-depth conversations with ten Chinese immigrant women with children. Results show that Chinese immigrant women experienced a significant increase of household work and a dramatic decrease on leisure pursuits after immigration and/or the birth of their children, implying that gender inequalities are reproduced and reinforced. Chinese immigrant women encounter and negotiate forms of tension resulted from the striking difference of being in China and being in Canada, their change in social status and their changed gender status. This thesis may contribute background knowledge for the practitioners in recreational programs and social works specialized in immigrant settlement services. Future research could be the motives for immigration, the actual experiences of immigration; a comparative study between Chinese immigrant women and women of other ethnicities is also suggested.

Sexual violence and in particular sexual harassment is an unfortunate reality in the lives of millions of Mexican women. We encounter this problem in all areas of our life: on the streets, within our families, and at work. Interestingly, some women's experiences of sexual harassment are less visible than others. This is the case of women in the occupation of paid household work. In Mexico, the fact that women household workers are sexually harassed or raped by their male employers has been silenced and at best kept as an open secret. In addition, researchers who have studied the lives of household workers barely mention it. Consequently, this master's thesis answers the following research questions: (1) Are women domestic workers vulnerable to sexual harassment? Why? and, (2) What are the social and cultural factors responsible for such vulnerabilities? I engage with these research questions by exploring the life histories of 11 women from Monterrey, Nuevo León and who have at least 5 years of working experience in the occupation, through in-depth interviews. Based on what the women shared with me I offer a collection of individual life stories followed by a feminist informed analysis of their experiences. Each story is unique and presents their views and perceptions of sexual harassment in the occupation and elsewhere. The analysis is divided in five mayor themes, which emerged in all of the interviews and explain the problematic. Although they enter the occupation knowing there are potential risks, one of which is sexual harassment, they are unable to change occupations due to limited work options. I argue that their social positionalities stemming from their gender, race, and class puts these women in a vulnerable position vis-a-vis their employers. As working class women, some from indigenous backgrounds, their employers engage in different types of discrimination, all of which construct women household workers as the other and their bodies as rapeable. At last, women blame themselves and others who have been targets of sexual harassment while freeing men from any type of accountability. / text

The patterns of paid and unpaid work adopted by migrants families with dependent children are more or less similar to that of prevailing working pattern of men and women of Australian born couples. A case study with 28 couple families, 14 husbands and 14 wives who migrated from Nepal under "skill" or "professional" category and the literature review on paid and unpaid work of couple families with dependent children show that in both families the trend of change of working pattern in paid and unpaid work is similar. With the increased participation of married women in the paid labour force, men increased participation in household work. There is increased household work for both husbands and wives, but women tend to do more household "inside" and childcare work than men. In the mean time, men tend to do more work in the "masculine" sphere of "outside" work in house maintenance, repair and car care. The only factor that differentiates working pattern of migrant families with Australian born families is the experience of migration and the category that they migrated. The change of working practice of paid and unpaid work of migrant families are affected by the change of family type from extended family to two generational family and their education and previous work experience that they brought along with them. Professional migrants who migrated family as a "unit" migrated spouse and dependent children together and they made their own decision to migrate, unlike other categories of migrants who migrated from political or economic pressure. One of the important experiences of migrant families is that there are new opportunity, new lifestyle, new intimacy and companionship and new sharing of work between husbands and wives after migration. At the same time, there are losses of extended family relatives, close friends and cultural event which affects their day to day lives. There are Australian based friends who provided support in the initial period of migration but these families do not provide regular assistance or support which family relatives provided in Nepal.

Background This thesis explores the relationship between individuals’ subjective experiences and the welfare state setting. The research questions in focus deal with the outcomes of women’s and men’s increasing dual roles in work and family in contemporary welfare states. The studies analyse women’s and men’s subjective experiences of combining work and family, and their perceptions of fairness in the division of household work. Methods The thesis applies a comparative perspective where the unit of analysis is country and/or family policy model. A broad perspective with the aim to capture general patterns across a broad range of welfare states is combined with a narrower case-oriented approach. Multilevel analysis is used to analyse patterns at national as well as individual levels in the same model. Latent Class Analysis is used to capture patterns of latent dimensions with regard to the central concept of subject experiences. Results The results indicate that the introduction of policies aiming to promote dual roles among women and men and the articulation of gender equality can matter for individuals’ subjective experiences of work-family conflict. In dual-earner countries, the probability that a high level of conflict is counterbalanced by feelings of life satisfaction is higher than in other policy models. A class asymmetry is found when it comes to effects of policy on men’s and women’s levels of work-family conflict and work-family satisfaction; women in the working class and the salaried class are more similar when it comes to experiences of work-family conflict and satisfaction in Sweden than in Germany and the UK. The analysis also shows that perceptions of fairness in the division of housework are moderated by the institutional and normative context. The politicisation of gender equality increases the correspondence between actual share of housework performed and the perceptions of fairness in the division of housework. The effect of politicisation is more important for men’s perceptions than for women’s. Conclusion The thesis contributes to a deepened understanding of the relationship between policy and work-family conflict and the integration of the perspectives of role conflict and role expansion; knowledge about the ways in which both class and gender relations are structured concerning the patterns of work-family conflict and satisfaction in different policy contexts; and new knowledge about the relationship between policy and men’s – and not only women’s – perceptions of fairness in the division of household work.

The patterns of paid and unpaid work adopted by migrants families with dependent children are more or less similar to that of prevailing working pattern of men and women of Australian born couples. A case study with 28 couple families, 14 husbands and 14 wives who migrated from Nepal under "skill" or "professional" category and the literature review on paid and unpaid work of couple families with dependent children show that in both families the trend of change of working pattern in paid and unpaid work is similar. With the increased participation of married women in the paid labour force, men increased participation in household work. There is increased household work for both husbands and wives, but women tend to do more household "inside" and childcare work than men. In the mean time, men tend to do more work in the "masculine" sphere of "outside" work in house maintenance, repair and car care. The only factor that differentiates working pattern of migrant families with Australian born families is the experience of migration and the category that they migrated. The change of working practice of paid and unpaid work of migrant families are affected by the change of family type from extended family to two generational family and their education and previous work experience that they brought along with them. Professional migrants who migrated family as a "unit" migrated spouse and dependent children together and they made their own decision to migrate, unlike other categories of migrants who migrated from political or economic pressure. One of the important experiences of migrant families is that there are new opportunity, new lifestyle, new intimacy and companionship and new sharing of work between husbands and wives after migration. At the same time, there are losses of extended family relatives, close friends and cultural event which affects their day to day lives. There are Australian based friends who provided support in the initial period of migration but these families do not provide regular assistance or support which family relatives provided in Nepal.

In recent years, the traditional nuclear family, as defined by social role theory with mother at home and father in the workplace, is no longer the norm. Nearly three out of every four women with children under the age of 18 are part of the workforce. Mothers are frequently juggling multiple roles as well as most of the responsibilities that are inherent in these roles. The current project examined diurnal ambulatory blood pressure influences associated with the responsibility of having a greater number of roles. We investigate differences between a self-reported healthy population of 112 married stay-at-home and 112 married employed mothers, all of whom have children under the age of 18 currently living in the home. Using a mixed multilevel model analysis, we found that the perception of equity in the division of childcare responsibilities between mothers and their husbands significantly contributed to lower systolic ambulatory blood pressure. We also found that married couples in relationships containing high positivity and low negativity had lower systolic ambulatory blood pressure than those which contained simultaneously high positivity and negativity. Additionally, there was a crossover interaction between these variables such that effect of relationship quality on both systolic and diastolic ambulatory blood pressure was moderated by the perception of equity in the division of childcare responsibilities between spouses. Lastly, we found that there were no ambulatory blood pressure differences between the employed and SAH mother conditions. These findings have applicable implications regarding dynamics and processes within marital relationships. These results demonstrate important social and relational influences on mothers' cardiovascular health.

Economists have rejected the popular view that time use is primarily influenced by local customs and law, and instead argue that it is determined by optimal choices of economic agents and the market mechanism. However the analysis of time allocation has been focused on the labor-leisure choice problem which posits a worker who wants more leisure because of his preference for leisure over work. Thus going beyond the standard model, these essays add to the theory of the economics of time use. First I examine why married men earn more. I explore the possibility that differences in household work by marital status can explain the observed male marital wages advantage. Depending on the type and timing of household work, I segregate it into flexible and inflexible household work, using the American Time Use Survey. Empirical results provide strong support for the productivity difference between married and never married men. Household work has significant negative and differential effects on wages. The effects are not only driven by total time spent on household work, but also by types and timing of household work. The result shows that inflexible household work has a stronger negative effect on wages than flexible household work. Second I study how taxes affect time and goods allocation in home production. I claim that an increase in sales taxes encourages households to substitute away from the market goods input in favor of untaxed non-market time input. I explore the substitution response by relating household market purchases and time use. The theory part shows that the size of elasticity of substitution between market goods input and time input is crucial for understanding the government's optimal tax policy. Then I show that it is optimal to impose lower taxes on goods used in the production of commodities with a higher elasticity of substitution. In the empirical part, I estimate sizes of elasticities of substitution of goods for time with the combined survey of Mexican household consumption expenditures and time allocation for 2002. I find that the elasticity of substitution for 'Eating' is lowest. Finally wage compensation for climate is examined. Using the Merged Outgoing Rotation Group File from 2002 to 2007, I find that the North-South wage differential in construction and extraction occupations is much higher than in any other occupations. I claim that this is because weather affects wage determination. If individuals are to locate in both desirable and undesirable locations, undesirable locations must offer higher wages. Using the O*NET database, I obtain information on how often an occupation requires exposure to weather conditions. Estimation results of the wage equation show that wage compensation for living in bad weather amounts to 11.9 percent of hourly wages evaluated at sample means. The difference in wage compensation for working in bad weather between the most exposed (outdoorness index = 5) and least exposed (outdoorness index = 0) occupations is estimated to be 9.6 percent of hourly wages evaluated at sample means. In addition, I find that the occupational injury risk is related to weather conditions in the case of construction and extraction occupations. / text