RESUMO
The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the home as a work environment, but the focus has centered on the experiences of paid workers. Stay-at-home mothers (SAHMs), for whom the home was already a workplace, have received little attention. This article explores how pandemic-induced lockdowns impacted SAHMs' working conditions and their experiences of childrearing. Combining a Marxist-feminist conceptualization of domestic labor with a labor process framework, we performed a qualitative content analysis of vignettes SAHMs shared about their day-to-day domestic labor in an online mothering community. Our findings show that, under lockdown conditions, the primacy given to partners' paid work combined with children's increased demands for care and attention reduced SAHMs work autonomy and exacerbated gender inequalities in the home. Combining labor process theory with literature on motherwork illuminates the home as a gendered work environment and enhances understanding of how changing conditions of domestic labor can intensify gender inequalities (and workers' awareness of them) that typically remain "hidden in the household."
RESUMO
The children of immigrants obtain high levels of post-secondary attainment in Canada, but their ability to translate these educational credentials into good jobs varies among ethno-racial groups. To understand the social processes behind these unequal outcomes, we conducted in-depth interviews with 27 second-generation immigrant youth living in the province of Ontario. Motivated by the desire for intergenerational upward mobility and trusting in the widespread misrecognition of Canada as an education-based meritocracy, these young people pursued higher education as a means to gain entry into white-collar occupations. Despite their ambitions, the second-generation youth in this study did not have access to the 'career relevant' capital needed to mobilize their educational credentials in the white-collar labour market. And although they engaged in various forms of meta-work to help them acquire 'career-relevant' capital, the challenges they faced were not only the result of differential access to capital, but they also had to do with the way their capital was recognized in the labour market. The findings presented here emphasize the importance of considering how the intersection of multiple overlapping processes of social differentiation (i.e., immigrant status, class position, and ethno-racial background) shape second-generation youth's access to and recognition of 'career-relevant' capital in their school-to-work transitions.
Les enfants d'immigrants atteignent des niveaux élevés d'études postsecondaires au Canada, mais leur capacité à transformer ces titres de compétences en bons emplois varie selon les groupes ethno-raciaux. Pour comprendre les processus sociaux à l'origine de ces résultats inégaux, nous avons mené des entretiens approfondis avec 27 jeunes immigrants de deuxième génération vivant dans la province de l'Ontario. Motivés par le désir de mobilité ascendante intergénérationnelle et confiants dans la méconnaissance répandue du Canada en tant que méritocratie fondée sur l'éducation, ces jeunes ont poursuivi des études supérieures comme moyen d'accéder à des professions de cols blancs. Malgré leurs ambitions, les jeunes de la deuxième génération étudiée n'ont pas eu accès au capital " carrière " nécessaire pour mobiliser leurs diplômes sur le marché du travail des cols blancs. Et bien qu'ils se soient engagés dans diverses formes de méta-travail pour les aider à acquérir du capital, les défis auxquels ils ont été confrontés n'étaient pas seulement le résultat d'un accès différentiel au capital, mais ils étaient également liés à la manière dont leur capital était reconnu sur le marché du travail. Les résultats présentés ici soulignent l'importance de considérer comment l'intersection de multiples processus de différenciation sociale qui se chevauchent (c.-à-d. le statut d'immigrant, la position de classe et l'origine ethno-raciale) façonne l'accès des jeunes de la deuxième génération au capital " pertinent pour la carrière " et la reconnaissance de ce capital lors de leur transition de l'école au travail.
