work/family conflict

Examples of work/family conflict in the following topics:

• Role Conflict

  • Role conflict describes the conflict between or among the roles corresponding to two or more statuses held by one individual.
  • An example of someone experiencing role conflict by way of work/family conflict is the professional who is also a parent and must decide whether to work an extra hour at the office or attend a meeting at his child's school.
  • Role conflict describes a conflict between or among the roles corresponding to two or more statuses fulfilled by one individual.
  • The most obvious example of role conflict is work/family conflict, or the conflict one feels when pulled between familial and professional obligations.
  • She likely has to work long hours at the hospital and may even be on call several nights a week, taking her away from her children.

• The Conflict Perspective

  • The conflict perspective views the family as a vehicle to maintain patriarchy (gender inequality) and social inequality in society.
  • The Conflict perspective refers to the inequalities that exist in all societies globally.
  • According to conflict theorists, the family works toward the continuance of social inequality within a society by maintaining and reinforcing the status quo.
  • Conflict theorists have also seen the family as a social arrangement benefiting men more than women, allowing men to maintain a position of power.
  • According to conflict theorists, the family works toward the continuance of social inequality within a society by maintaining and reinforcing the status quo.

• The Conflict Perspective: Class Conflict and Scarce Resources

  • Conflict theorists argue that stratification is dysfunctional and harmful in society.
  • For example, the Walton family, the owners of Wal-Mart, receives enormous tax breaks.
  • Whether the benefits of these tax breaks have made their way down to ordinary people through better business practices or better working conditions for Wal-Mart employees is questionable.
  • Conflict theorists would argue that they haven't, but rather have been used by the Walton family to solidify the patterns of stratification that keep the family rich.
  • They argue that if people really want to succeed, they can do so through hard work.

• The Conflict Perspective

  • Conflict theory suggests that men, as the dominant gender, subordinate women in order to maintain power and privilege in society.
  • While certain gender roles may have been appropriate in a hunter-gatherer society, conflict theorists argue that the only reason these roles persist is because the dominant group naturally works to maintain their power and status.
  • According to conflict theory, social problems are created when dominant groups exploit or oppress subordinate groups.
  • Friedrich Engels, a German sociologist, studied family structure and gender roles from a Marxist perspective.
  • Contemporary conflict theorists suggest that when women become wage earners, they gain power in the family structure and create more democratic arrangements in the home, although they may still carry the majority of the domestic burden.

• Explaining Poverty: The Sociological Debate

  • Those at the top are given power and rewards because of high abilities, and the high rewards exist to provide incentive for qualified people to do the most important work in high status occupations.
  • The conflict-theory approach offers a critique of structural-functionalism.
  • But, according to conflict theorists, in reality the system does not work so easily or perfectly and there are barriers to qualified people ascending the hierarchy.
  • For example, many wealthy families pay low wages to nannies to care for their children, gardeners to tend to their yards, and maids to clean their homes.
  • The job of a surgeon is highly regarded and well compensated but requires years of training, long work hours, and high stress.

• Dominant Perspectives

  • But, in real life, the system does not work so easily or perfectly.
  • Conflict theorists argue that stratification is dysfunctional and harmful in society.
  • As mentioned previously, the Walton family receives enormous tax breaks.
  • In contrast, the Walton family has given less than 1% of their wealth to charity.
  • They argue that if people really want to succeed, they can do so through hard work.

• Culture Wars

  • In American usage, "culture war" refers to the claim that there is a conflict between those conservative and liberal values.
  • Bush) believed in the importance of religion and traditional family values.
  • A culture war is a struggle between two sets of conflicting cultural values.
  • Members of the religious right often criticized academics and artists, and their works, in a struggle against what they considered indecent, subversive, and blasphemous.
  • They often accused their political opponents of undermining tradition, Western civilization and family values.

• The Conflict Perspective

  • Thinking about education in this way helps illustrate why both functionalist and conflict theories are helpful in understanding how society works.
  • In his 1982 book Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley, John Gaventa used conflict theory to explain why coal miners in Appalachia accepted such low pay and poor working conditions.
  • In his work, he believes social structures are created because of conflict between differing interests.
  • Sociologists who work from the conflict perspective study the distribution of resources, power, and inequality.
  • According to the conflict perspective, society is constantly in conflict over resources, and that conflict drives social change.

• Gender Roles in the U.S.

  • Much scholarly work on gender roles addresses the debate over the environmental or biological causes for the development of gender roles.
  • One main thread in discussions about gender roles in the United States has been the historical evolution from a single-income family, or a family unit in which one spouse (typically the father) is responsible for the family income, to a dual-income family, or a family unit in which both spouses generate income.
  • Family structures vary across cultures and history, and the term nuclear family refers to a family unit of two parents and their children.
  • Further, in the case of conflict, the man would have the final say.
  • However, in most contexts, women are still expected to be the primary homemakers, even if they are contributing to household income by working outside the home.

• Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

  • These associations are marked by what Tönnies called "unity of will. " He saw the family as the most perfect expression of Gemeinschaft; however, he also expected that Gemeinschaft could be based on shared place and shared belief as well as kinship, and included globally dispersed religious communities as possible examples of Gemeinschaft.
  • Gemeinschaften ("communities") are broadly characterized by a moderate division of labor, strong personal relationships, strong families, and relatively simple social institutions.
  • A modern business is a good example of Gesellschaft: the workers, managers, and owners may have very little in terms of shared orientations or beliefs, or they may not care deeply for the product they are making, but it is in all their self interest to come to work to make money, and, therefore, the business continues.
  • Unlike Gemeinschaften ("communities"), Gesellschaften ("societies") emphasize secondary relationships rather than familial or community ties, and there is generally less individual loyalty to the larger community.
  • Such societies are, therefore, potentially more susceptible to class conflict, as well as racial and ethnic conflicts.