Michelle Budig | University of Massachusetts Amherst (original) (raw)

Papers by Michelle Budig

Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, 2013

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

American Sociological Review, Oct 1, 2010

Earnings inequality has grown in recent decades in the United States, yet research investigating ... more Earnings inequality has grown in recent decades in the United States, yet research investigating the motherhood wage penalty has not fully considered how the penalty itself, and the mechanisms producing it, may vary among low-wage, middle-wage, and high-wage workers. Pooling data from the 1979 to 2004 waves of the NLSY and using simultaneous quantile regression methods with fixed effects, we test whether the size of the motherhood penalty differs across the distribution of white women's earnings, and whether the mechanisms explaining this penalty vary by earnings level. Results show that having children inflicts the largest penalty on low-wage women, proportionately, although a significant motherhood penalty persists at all earnings levels. We also find that the mechanisms creating the motherhood penalty vary by earnings level. Family resources, work effort, and compensating differentials account for a greater portion of the penalty among low earners. Among highly-paid women, by contrast, the motherhood penalty is significantly smaller and largely explained by lost human capital due to childbearing. Our findings show that estimates of average motherhood penalties obscure the compounded disadvantage mothers face at the bottom of the earnings distribution, as well as differences in the type and strength of mechanisms that produce the penalty.

Gender Amp Society, Nov 1, 2002

We examine the relative pay of occupations involving care, such as teaching, counseling, providin... more We examine the relative pay of occupations involving care, such as teaching, counseling, providing health services, or supervising children. We use panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Care work pays less than other occupations, after controlling for the education and employment experience of the workers, many job characteristics, and (via individual fixed effects) unmeasured, stable characteristics of those who hold the jobs. Both men and women in care work pay this wage penalty.

In this paper, we examine the assumptions guiding welfare state strategies via their reconciliati... more In this paper, we examine the assumptions guiding welfare state strategies via their reconciliation policies and try to understand the consequences of these different strategies. We argue that there are three major strategies that have appeared: 1) the dual earner strategy, focused on encouraging women's labor market participation; 2) the primary caregiver/secondary earner strategy, focused on valuing the care in which women engage; and 3) the earner-carer strategy, focused on helping men and women balance care and work through support for care both inside and outside of the home. We examine differences between men and women on three outcomes-labor force participation rates, wage rates, and poverty rates. We also examine differences among groups of women for the same outcomes, analyzing the effects of motherhood and marital status on labor force participation rates, hourly wage rates, and poverty rates. After analyzing these differences, our study suggests that certain policy strategies-in particular, the strategy taken by the earnercarer strategy-are most effective at increasing gender equity for the widest array of women.

Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis Research and Practice, 2007

International Journal of Sociology

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Contemporary Sociology

This interdisciplinary anthology of condensed and well-chosen articles will be an excellent resou... more This interdisciplinary anthology of condensed and well-chosen articles will be an excellent resource for undergraduate and graduate classes in a broad array of academic disciplines (e.g., Sociology, Economics, Political Science, Social Policy, Business, Labor Studies, and Women's Studies). Moreover, it may serve as an introductory text for professional sociologists, policy makers, and public intellectuals seeking information on women's paid and unpaid roles in the economy, gender and labor market inequality, and the gendered effects of employment policy, globalization, and development. The skilled editing of original articles renders both current and classical studies of women and work as highly accessible, readable, and provocative. Tying together a diverse set of readings in a way that maintains intellectual continuity is a challenge for any editor. Mutari and Figart have met this challenge. The undergraduate reviewer notes that clear and concise theoretical and methodological background is presented so that even a novice can easily understand the larger debates in which these articles are engaged.

We are indebted to the comments and advice offered by Shahra Razavi, Debbie Budlender, Nancy Folb... more We are indebted to the comments and advice offered by Shahra Razavi, Debbie Budlender, Nancy Folbre, Naomi Gerstel, and Jennifer Lundquist. We also thank Karen Mason for editorial assistance.

Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, 2013

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

American Sociological Review, Oct 1, 2010

Earnings inequality has grown in recent decades in the United States, yet research investigating ... more Earnings inequality has grown in recent decades in the United States, yet research investigating the motherhood wage penalty has not fully considered how the penalty itself, and the mechanisms producing it, may vary among low-wage, middle-wage, and high-wage workers. Pooling data from the 1979 to 2004 waves of the NLSY and using simultaneous quantile regression methods with fixed effects, we test whether the size of the motherhood penalty differs across the distribution of white women's earnings, and whether the mechanisms explaining this penalty vary by earnings level. Results show that having children inflicts the largest penalty on low-wage women, proportionately, although a significant motherhood penalty persists at all earnings levels. We also find that the mechanisms creating the motherhood penalty vary by earnings level. Family resources, work effort, and compensating differentials account for a greater portion of the penalty among low earners. Among highly-paid women, by contrast, the motherhood penalty is significantly smaller and largely explained by lost human capital due to childbearing. Our findings show that estimates of average motherhood penalties obscure the compounded disadvantage mothers face at the bottom of the earnings distribution, as well as differences in the type and strength of mechanisms that produce the penalty.

Gender Amp Society, Nov 1, 2002

We examine the relative pay of occupations involving care, such as teaching, counseling, providin... more We examine the relative pay of occupations involving care, such as teaching, counseling, providing health services, or supervising children. We use panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Care work pays less than other occupations, after controlling for the education and employment experience of the workers, many job characteristics, and (via individual fixed effects) unmeasured, stable characteristics of those who hold the jobs. Both men and women in care work pay this wage penalty.

In this paper, we examine the assumptions guiding welfare state strategies via their reconciliati... more In this paper, we examine the assumptions guiding welfare state strategies via their reconciliation policies and try to understand the consequences of these different strategies. We argue that there are three major strategies that have appeared: 1) the dual earner strategy, focused on encouraging women's labor market participation; 2) the primary caregiver/secondary earner strategy, focused on valuing the care in which women engage; and 3) the earner-carer strategy, focused on helping men and women balance care and work through support for care both inside and outside of the home. We examine differences between men and women on three outcomes-labor force participation rates, wage rates, and poverty rates. We also examine differences among groups of women for the same outcomes, analyzing the effects of motherhood and marital status on labor force participation rates, hourly wage rates, and poverty rates. After analyzing these differences, our study suggests that certain policy strategies-in particular, the strategy taken by the earnercarer strategy-are most effective at increasing gender equity for the widest array of women.

Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis Research and Practice, 2007

International Journal of Sociology

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Contemporary Sociology

This interdisciplinary anthology of condensed and well-chosen articles will be an excellent resou... more This interdisciplinary anthology of condensed and well-chosen articles will be an excellent resource for undergraduate and graduate classes in a broad array of academic disciplines (e.g., Sociology, Economics, Political Science, Social Policy, Business, Labor Studies, and Women's Studies). Moreover, it may serve as an introductory text for professional sociologists, policy makers, and public intellectuals seeking information on women's paid and unpaid roles in the economy, gender and labor market inequality, and the gendered effects of employment policy, globalization, and development. The skilled editing of original articles renders both current and classical studies of women and work as highly accessible, readable, and provocative. Tying together a diverse set of readings in a way that maintains intellectual continuity is a challenge for any editor. Mutari and Figart have met this challenge. The undergraduate reviewer notes that clear and concise theoretical and methodological background is presented so that even a novice can easily understand the larger debates in which these articles are engaged.

We are indebted to the comments and advice offered by Shahra Razavi, Debbie Budlender, Nancy Folb... more We are indebted to the comments and advice offered by Shahra Razavi, Debbie Budlender, Nancy Folbre, Naomi Gerstel, and Jennifer Lundquist. We also thank Karen Mason for editorial assistance.

Is the gender gap in pay constant across all jobs, or does the gender composition of the job affe... more Is the gender gap in pay constant across all jobs, or does the gender composition of the job affect male advantage? Using data from the NLSY and a finely detailed measure of the gender composition of jobs, I investigate gender differences in wages and in wage growth. I show how they differ between female-dominated, maledominated, and balanced jobs. Predictions from Kanter's theory of tokenism and the Williams and Acker theory of gendered organizations are tested. Findings indicate that men are advantaged, net of controls, in both pay levels and wage growth in all jobs, regardless of gender composition. Contrary to predictions generated from Kanter's tokenism theory, men do not suffer when they are tokens, in terms of pay. Not only are predictions from Kanter's theory untrue for male tokens, they also do not hold for female tokens when it comes to wages. Rather, consistent with the Williams and Acker theory of gendered organizations, men are no more-and no less-advantaged when women are tokens; in terms of earnings, men are uniformly advantaged in male-dominated, femaledominated, and balanced jobs. Analyses of promotions data indicate that men are also not additionally advantaged whether they are the numerically dominant or minority gender; in fact, male advantage in promotions is the smallest when men are tokens.