Mercado de trabalho e relações de gênero: associação entre a presença de filhos e as condições de acesso ao trabalho das mulheres

Abstract

This work aims to analyze womens situation in the Brazilian metropolitan labor market through a multidimensional approach. The goal is to emphasize differences between women with and without children. As a counterpoint, men are also analyzed, although with less emphasis. The study encompass adults aged 25 to 49 heads of the family or spouses of the head, residing in the regions covered by the 2013 survey Pesquisa de Emprego e Desemprego. Specifically, this research aims to assess whether women with and without children differ in terms of labor market participation, precarious work, "preference" for flexible jobs, wages, stability and risk of unemployment. The main hypothesis is that the having children are associated to disadvantages in the paid work. This assumption is based on the persistence of the traditional gender division of labor, especially with regard to care provision (Folbre, 2012). Two debates motivated the development of the study: the promotion of decent work and studies on the motherhood wage penalty. The concept of decent work is used in order to establish a multidimensional framework for assessing how individuals are embedded in the workplace. The motherhood penalty refers to the fact that, on average, mothers earn lower wages than childless women. Taking advantage of the multidimensionality of the concept of decent work, the notion of motherhood penalty has been expanded to other aspects of paid work beyond wage. The results obtained are in accordance with national and international literature. In each dimension, the negative impact of the children is greater when they are younger and in larger quantity, indicating that higher burden of family responsibilities leads to higher penalties in the productive sphere. Through logistic regression models, it was found that, mothers are less likely to participate in the labor market, and are more likely to be in precarious work, to work part-time, and to be a self-employed. Through Heckman selection model, it was found that the presence of children is related to a reduction in the hourly wage of women. Finally, through survival analysis methods, it was found that motherhood is associated with lower job tenure and higher risks of unemployment among employees in the private sector. We conclude that the penalties experienced by mothers in the productive sphere reflect a contradiction in social roles played by women (Meier et. al., 2014). On the one hand, we observe changes on the social role of women and female identity, increasingly focused on paid work; on the other hand, the dimension of care remains primarily as a female attribution, especially care for the children (Folbre, 2012). It follows that a redefinition of gender roles and the valuation of traditionally female work are necessary to accommodate the new female social roles