Exhibits for Conversation Essay

1. Women's Roles in the South Korean Labor Market

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3487187?seq=9

In their paper titled "South Korean Labor Market Discrimination Against Women: Estimating Its Cost," Elizabeth Monk-Turner and Charlie G. Turner examine the role of women in the South Korean labor market and the economic implications of a sexually segregated labor market. This exhibit adds to the Kessler-Harris essay by explaining how equality in the labor market could benefit the South Korean economy. The Turners explain that if women were to be treated as equals in the work force, the Korean economy could realize its full potential. Kessler-Harris never went into detail about the benefits come about in an equal labor force. The Turner's analysis could be used as an argument to convince a government to impose equality labor laws in the labor market.

2. Black Labor Market

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=14231

One of the underlying assumptions that Kessler-Harris, Glenn, and Parrenas made in their essays was that the labor market in which women participated in operated under the definition of a "market economy." In other words, all exchanges between buyers and sellers are free from outside intervention. This exhibit reminds us that the labor market does not operate under a "market economy" since external forces shape the market economy. In this case, the external force is the black market. Thus, one is led to ask whether the black market follows the same types of stratification as outlined by the aforementioned essayists. Are women sexually segregated in the black labor market, and if so, do class, race, and globalization play a role in shaping these stratifications?

3. When Men Clean

http://newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=611

This article explains some of the benefits that men may incur if they take up more of their share of domestic labor, such as better behaved children and "wives who find them more sexually attractive." It would be interesting to further explore how the relationship between a husband and wife would change if the man took up more of the household chores than the wife. Ehrenreich only considers the typical case of females doing most of the housework. Even if men did more housework, would families still hire domestic workers to clean their houses?