Answer to Question 1
Juggling work and home is an equal opportunity challenge. The majority of both working mothers and working fathers report that it is somewhat or very difficult to balance the responsibilities of their job and their family. The term second shift is used to describe the double burdenwork outside the home followed by childcare and houseworkthat many women face and that few men share equitably. This issue has become increasingly important as greater proportions of mothers work outside the home.
There is an economic cost to this second shift. Households do benefit from the free labor of women, but women pay what has been called the mommy tax: the lower salaries women receive over their lifetime because they have children. Mothers earn less than men and other women over their lifetime because having children causes them to lose job experience, trade higher wages for following the mommy track (an unofficial career track that firms use for women who want to divide their attention between work and family), and are discriminated against by employers. This mommy taxranges from 5 to 13 percent of lifetime wages for the first child alone. Having two children lowers earnings 1019 percent. There is no denying that motherhood and the labor market are intertwined. While the mommy tax is not unique to the United States, cross-national comparisons show the mommy tax to be greater in the United States compared with what women face in countries that have expansive publicly financed child care systems.
Family and work continue to present challenges to women and men in the twenty-firstcentury.
Answer to Question 2
The complexity of the relative influence of race, income, and wealth was apparent in the controversy surrounding the publication of sociologist William J. Wilson's The Declining Significance of Race (1980 2012). Pointing to the increasing affluence of African Americans, Wilson concluded, class has become more important than race in determining black life-chances in the modern industrial period. The policy implications of his conclusion are that programs must be developed to confront class subordination rather than ethnic and racial discrimination. Wilson did not deny the legacy of discrimination reflected in the disproportionate number of African Americans who are poor, less educated, and living in inadequate and overcrowded housing. However, he pointed to compelling evidence that young Blacks were competing successfully with young Whites.
Early critics of Wilson commented that focusing attention on this small, educated elite ignores vast numbers of African Americans relegated to the lower class. Wilson himself was not guilty of such an oversimplification and indeed expressed concern over the plight of lower-class, inner-city African Americans as they seemingly fall even further behind. He pointed out that the poor are socially isolated and have shrinking economic opportunities. However, it is easy for many people to conclude superficially that because educated Blacks are entering the middle class, race has ceased to be of concern.
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