Deck 13: Gendered Economies: Does Gender Shape Economic Lives

Question 1

Economic activity is generally counted using:

A) Household savings
B) A system of gross import and export accounting
C) A system of national and international accounts, such as Gross Domestic Product
D) A system of monetary measures, such as Gross Productive Capacity
E) Consumer debt

Answer 1

A system of national and international accounts, such as Gross Domestic Product

Question 2

A conventional definition of "work" includes:

A) Raising children
B) Household chores
C) Cooking
D) Volunteering
E) Paid employment outside the home

Answer 2

Paid employment outside the home

Question 3

The home is almost universally constructed as a ___________ domain.

A) Feminine
B) Masculine
C) Economic
D) Productive
E) Employment

Answer 3

Feminine

Question 4

Domestic work is seldom counted as "economically important" because:

A) Raising a family is a natural expectation for men and women
B) Such work contributes to our well-being and is thus not "economic"
C) It is generally unpaid, with no money changing hands
D) Household chores cannot be considered "productive"
E) Time spent on such work is generally insignificant

Question 5

On average, across the world's largest and wealthiest countries, around _____ of working minutes everyday are spent on unpaid tasks.

A) 85%
B) 64%
C) 43%
D) 20%
E) 5%

Question 6

The "replacement cost" approach is one way of calculating:

A) A national account of unpaid versus paid labor
B) The potential economic impact of net immigration
C) The potential worth of paid labor, using a nation's employment statistics
D) The potential worth of unpaid labor, using unemployment statistics
E) The potential worth of unpaid labor, using a nation's average hourly wage for unregistered informal activities

Question 7

Participation in the labor force is defined as the:

A) Total population of working-age men
B) Total population of working-age men and women
C) Number of people in the waged workforce, either employed, self-employed, or looking for work, as a percentage of the total population of working age
D) Number of people performing unpaid domestic work, who are either unemployed or looking for work, as a percentage of the total population of working age
E) Number of people actively searching for paid employment as a percentage of the total population of unemployed people

Question 8

A person's identity is multi-faceted in which sense?

A) Gender
B) Sexuality
C) Ethnic origin
D) Occupation
E) All of the above

Question 9

Femininity and masculinity refer to the:

A) Norms of behavior culturally constructed for men and women
B) Norms of behavior naturally attributed with men and women
C) Sexual characteristics attributed to men and women
D) The roles of men and women in the workforce
E) The natural aptitudes of men and women

Question 10

Patriarchy refers to the relationship and set of power relations between:

A) Parents and children
B) Men and women
C) Employers and employees
D) Capitalists and workers
E) Paid and unpaid laborers

Question 11

There has been substantial debate over whether patriarchy is:

A) An effective means for women's emancipation
B) An unavoidable consequence of unionization
C) An unavoidable set of relations between parents and children
D) A suitable model for sustainable development in the developing world
E) An entirely separate system of domination and control from capitalism

Question 12

A common expression referring to the systemic boundaries that hinder a women's upward mobility in the workforce:

A) "Glass ceiling"
B) "Upper limit"
C) "Brick wall"
D) "Gatekeeping"
E) "Gender selectivity"

Question 13

Where women do work that is similar to men's, it is often seen as:

A) Unskilled
B) De-professionalized
C) Secondary to the "breadwinner" role of a male spouse
D) All of the above
E) None of the above

Question 14

In the contemporary global economy, women in the developing world appear to be especially favored as employees by international investors, but being "favored" does not necessarily mean they are "valued." What does this statement mean?

A) Their contribution to national economic growth is negligible
B) Women in the developing world are satisfied with lower wages
C) Their work is unpaid and thus not calculated in Gross Domestic Product
D) Women in the developing world value their families more than their jobs
E) Their work is generally lowly paid and they are treated as unskilled

Question 15

In some newly industrializing countries, women's participation in the labor force is more recently due to the rapid development of ___________ sectors, which draw young rural women into assembly factories.

A) Tertiary
B) Peripheral
C) Export-orientated
D) Exogenous
E) Indigenous

Question 16

The ___________ is the spatial division of labor that occurs when the process of production is no er confined to national economies.

A) Imperialism
B) Global Division of Productive Labor
C) International Labor Codes
D) New International Division of Labor
E) Global Economic Crisis

Question 17

In many industrial estates around the world, where clothing, toys, electrical appliances, and computers are assembled, at least ________ of the workforce is female.

A) 99%
B) 75%
C) 40%
D) 35%
E) 10%

Question 18

Young and single women in the developing world are more likely to perform factory work due to:

A) Their higher tolerance for boring, repetitive work
B) Selective hiring practices by factory owners who aim to encourage gender equality, rural industrialization, and economic development
C) The availability of childcare options and generous parental leaves
D) Their manual dexterity and natural aptitude for precision work
E) Selective hiring practices by factory owners who seek to recreate patriarchal power structures as a disciplining mechanism in their workforce

Question 19

Which of the following provides an argument for the emancipatory potential of industrial employment for women in the developing world?

A) Low wages, sometimes below subsistence levels, push these women to effectively combine household work and paid employment on the side
B) Often-dangerous working conditions and harsh factory discipline encourage effective collective action among female co-workers
C) Income gives women a greater social role and respect within the household, and greater control in terms of delaying marriage and childbirth
D) All of the above
E) None of the above

Question 20

It is now recognized that femininity is actually being used in the workplace ___________, and thus women's access to the labor market is no er necessarily considered to be the litmus test for gender equality.

A) As a form of devaluation
B) As a factor in new hires and promotions
C) As a means for promoting women's rights
D) All of the above
E) None of the above

Question 21

The "gendering" of jobs refers to how:

A) Certain jobs become labeled as skilled and unskilled
B) Certain jobs become labeled as masculine or feminine
C) Certain employers become labeled as masculine or feminine
D) The feminization of certain segments of the labor market
E) The feminization of skilled labor

Question 22

___________ refers to the process by which a labor market is divided up into different parts.

A) Segmentation
B) Structuration
C) Austerity
D) Amalgamation
E) Augmentation

Question 23

Which of the following does not represent a characteristic by which the labor force is differentiated?

A) Gender
B) Ethnicity
C) Immigration status
D) Blood type
E) Sexuality

Question 24

The purpose of labor market segmentation theory is to explain:

A) Endowments of human capital
B) The feminization of certain labor markets
C) The labor market outcomes of recent immigrants
D) The geographical contexts of self-employment
E) Patterns of over- or under-representation

Question 25

In general, men tend to be regarded as the head of a household and assumed to be the main breadwinner because:

A) Women are typically only working in order to earn "extra" money for the household
B) Women's earnings are always secondary
C) Women have less need than men to derive satisfaction, professional self-esteem, or identity from their work
D) All of the above
E) None of the above

Question 26

Employers may locate in particular neighborhoods in order to access specific pools of labor, and may deliberately recruit through existing employees in order to ensure a locally resident workforce. Where concentrations of female employment in the suburbs of large cities exist, these have been referred to as ___________.

A) "Pink collar ghettoes"
B) Export Processing Zones
C) Economic growth zones
D) "Women's collectives"
E) "Suburban ghettoes"

Question 27

"Home-work integration" is an emerging trend whereby:

A) Self-employed men and women agree to share household labor equally
B) Employers permit extended parental leaves for low-income workers
C) Advanced communications technologies enable working from home for some jobs, permitting a balance of unpaid household labor with participation in the labor market without a commute
D) Advanced transportation linkages make it possible to work farther from home for some types of employment, accelerating upward mobility in the labor force while minimizing commutes
E) Employers subsidize on-site childcare so young mothers can bring their children to the workplace

Question 28

The phenomenon termed ___________ has been used to highlight the integration of household work and entrepreneurial work within the same space and time for mothers.

A) "Feminization"
B) "Breadwinner"
C) "Mumpreneurship"
D) "Pink Collar Ghettoes"
E) "Teleworker"

Question 29

Businesses operating within a system of monetary exchange are perhaps the most common form of female entrepreneurship in the developed world, but in rural areas of developing countries the picture might be quite different. There, women may be supporting their family's ___________ through activities that do not involve buying or selling, but rather gathering, harvesting, and foraging.

A) Honor
B) Wants
C) Household savings
D) Status
E) Livelihood

Question 30

Women from the poorest rural areas of the global south who sustain their families' through "non-economic" gathering and foraging of natural resources are susceptible to:

A) Environmental degradation
B) Commodification of natural resources
C) Privatization of public land
D) All of the above
E) None of the above

Question 31

Which of the following represents one example of a feminist ethical commitment?

A) Profit maximization
B) Growth
C) Competition
D) Exploitation
E) Cooperation

Question 32

___________ is a term describing how heterosexuality is taken to be the normal orientation, and states that sexual and marital relations are only fitting between a man and a woman.

A) Heteronormativity
B) Homonormativity
C) Masculinity
D) Femininity
E) Gender performativity

Question 33

For some feminists, the big picture of an all-powerful capitalist system is a very ___________ way of thinking about the world.

A) Diverse
B) Alternative
C) Masculine
D) Liberating
E) Participatory

Question 34

Physical differences between the sexes are sometimes argued to explain why men and women are better suited for different kinds of work-e.g., women have more "nimble" hands and are thus better suited to work in an electronics factory. Present three examples of careers that challenge this argument to discuss its limits.

Question 35

Estimate what proportion of your own life is spent on paid versus unpaid labor. How does your relationship with other household members influence this proportion-i.e., do others in your household "work for you"? In what ways?

Question 36

One way of calculating the worth of unpaid domestic work is through a "replacement cost" approach. What factors does such an approach take into account, and how is it calculated? Discuss two drawbacks to such accounting.