Stand by your man: The Collective Emotional Labor of Job-searching

• In Event: 220 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 23. Work and Family Commitments

Abstract

For unemployed college-educated Americans, job-searching requires emotional labor. By neglecting a gendered analysis of job-searching, previous research has conceptualized emotional labor demanded in the job-search as being overly individual. Analyzing over 50 interviews with unemployed men and their wives, as well as family observations with a subset of participants, I show how men’s emotional labor in the job-search rests heavily on the emotion work of their wives. As “cheerleaders” wives aim to encourage and motivate their husbands to persevere in the job search. By “walking on eggshells” wives take great care in how they inquire about their husbands’ job search. As “saleswomen” they attempt to convince their husbands of their professional worth when husbands feel discouraged. Some wives eschew these intensive forms of emotion work. By demonstrating how wives emotionally enable husbands’ job-search, these findings highlight how the uncertainty of our economic and employment landscape has repercussions for shaping new forms of gender inequality at home.

Author

• Aliya Hamid Rao, University of Pennsylvania