Maureen Baker
Biographic Data
| ID | 3792702 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Maureen Baker |
| GIVEN NAMES | Maureen |
| FAMILY NAME | Baker |
| SIGNATURE | BAKER M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Auckland |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 107 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Making it on the breadline – improving food security on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, Central Australia
This co-designed study demonstrates the effectiveness of community-led approaches, confirming that it is possible to improve food security and diet in remote Aboriginal communities. However, sustained action and monitoring, dedicated resources and employment of local people are critical for success. Results also highlight that low incomes are a major barrier to food security
Families, Labour and Love: Family Diversity in a Changing World
We think of our family life as very personal, but in fact it is shaped by influences well beyond our control. Families, Labour and Love identifies the ways in which family and personal life in three 'settler' societies - Australia, New Zealand and Canada - has been shaped by colonisation, immigration, globalisation, demographic changes, law and policy.Baker shows that these three countries, each a former colony, developed similar family trends an…
Women graduates and the workplace: Continuing Challenges for Academic Women
This article discusses the persistence of a gender gap among university-based academics, despite the development of equity policies and ‘family-friendly’ initiatives. Over four decades of research are reviewed from the liberal states of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA and the UK, including my own qualitative interviews in Canada in 1973 and in New Zealand in 2008. The paper summarizes some of the structural, relational and interpretive factor…
Transiting through cohabitation to marriage: Emerging commitment and diminishing ambiguity
This article extends discussions about the meaning of cohabitation for cohabitants by drawing on our qualitative interviews from New Zealand with long-term heterosexual and same-sex cohabitants. We show that for this particular group of cohabitants, living together was a dynamic and fluid phenomenon that was largely characterised by a shift from an ambiguous and contingent commitment to a more mutual commitment. The emergence of mutual commitment…
A 'brave thing to do' or a normative practice? Marriage after long-term cohabitation
For decades, sociologists have debated whether widespread cohabitation among opposite-sex and same-sex couples indicates the transformation of relationships or simply a new pathway to marriage. If it is the latter, what does this transition mean to couples who decide to marry? Using an interpretive framework, the article investigates why cohabiting couples legalise their relationships when there seem to be few legal or social advantages, and how …
Tying the Knot: The Impact of Formalization after Long-Term Cohabitation’
Tying the knot: The impact of formalization after long-term cohabitation
Most couples in English-speaking countries now cohabit before marriage, and some marry after living together for years, buying a house and having children. Although marriage offers few additional legal rights, especially for different-sex couples, it seems to have retained its symbolic value. Based on interviews with participants in different-sex and same-sex relationships in New Zealand, we explore whether or not getting married was perceived to…
Second-Class Marriage? Civil Union in New Zealand
Since April 2005, both same-sex and oppositesex couples have been permitted to enter into civil unions in New Zealand, yet legal marriage is still reserved for heterosexuals. This paper explores the social differences between the two types of 'marriage' by drawing on official statistics and qualitative interviews with celebrants and long-term cohabitants who have legalized their unions or plan to do so in the near future. Using an interpretive fr…
Gendering ‘Child’ Poverty: Cross-National Lessons for Canada in a Deepening Recession
As the world slides deeper into recession, ‘child poverty’ rates will undoubtedly increase with rising unemployment, household debt and marriage breakdown. This comparative paper focuses on the gendered aspects of child poverty, showing that Canada has higher rates of maternal employment than some other liberal welfare states but also higher poverty rates for mother-led families, a larger gender gap in pay, and lower levels of social spending on …
Motherhood, employment and the “child penalty”
Choices or Constraints? Family Responsibilities, Gender and Academic Career
Previous research has found that high levels of education and job commitment tend to generate dissimilar patterns of family formation and household responsibility for men and women. Using university-based academics as examples of highly educated professionals with strong career commitment, this paper investigates their family circumstances through a survey of previous research and qualitative interviews in New Zealand. Although more women are now…
Career confidence and gendered expectations of academic promotion
This article discusses expectations of career progression, based on interviews with New Zealand-based university academics. In these interviews, most women said they did not expect to reach the professoriate before retirement while most men said they planned for and anticipated this promotion. The article attempts to explain gendered patterns of career confidence and progression by discussing academic practices and the backgrounds and experiences…
Working their Way Out of Poverty? Gendered Employment in Three Welfare States
Governments increasingly view earning and saving as the main solutions to low-income and debt, but is it feasible to expect all parents to work their way out of poverty? This paper compares gendered patterns of income, and state support for earning and caring in three similar welfare states: Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Relying on recent OECD statistics and national studies, the paper examines employment patterns, poverty rates and state su…
Restructuring reproduction: International and national pressures
In 1968, the United Nations began viewing family planning as a human rights issue, relaxing the previous focus on population control. By the 1990s, UN documents empowered women in reproductive matters and urged governments to ensure women's access to a wider range of family planning services. However, after decades of widespread contraceptive usage, below-replacement fertility rates are once again worrying some governments in developed countries.…
Restructuring Family Policies: Convergences and Divergences
Recent years have seen significant changes in the social policies of many liberal welfare-states; this is especially true of social programs for families with children. Increasingly, governments are making family policy trade-offs, reducing support for some families but improving it for others. Why are such trade-offs occurring, and how do governments differ in their approach to family social policy? This study addresses these questions by examin…
Medically Assisted Conception: Revolutionizing Family or Perpetuating a Nuclear and Gendered Model
New reproductive technologies have the potential to radicalize family life, as they could blur kinship lines, separate biological and social parenthood, and encourage couples to create 'designer babies'. On the other hand, these technologies could help more married couples create socially-acceptable nuclear families and reduce unwanted childless marriages. This article uses the 'stories' from qualitative interviews with couples seeking fertility …
Families, Labour and Love: Family Diversity in a Changing World
1 The personal and social world of families..2 Cultural variations in families..3 Early family life in settler societies..4 Conceptualising families..5 Intimacy, cohabitation and the quality of marriage..6 Childhood, reproduction and childcare..7 Families and paid/unpaid work..8 Separation, divorce and remarriage..9 State regulation of family life..10 The future of family life..Glossary ..References
When flexibility meets rigidity: Sole Mothers' Experiences in the Transition From Welfare to Work
This article examines the dynamics of flexibility experienced by sole mothers involved in a welfare-to-work program, and the strategies they use to retain their identities as caregivers and family providers. Based on individual interviews with 120 work-tested sole mothers on social benefits in New Zealand, we make three arguments. First, despite the constraints experienced by these mothers, welfare rules permit considerable flexibility in fulfill…
Child Poverty, Maternal Health and Social Benefits
This article begins with a discussion of the relations among family poverty, poor health and employment. It argues that some lone mothers are unable to keep their children out of poverty because poor health interferes with finding or maintaining employment. These issues are discussed with reference to the international literature, and also in the light of the results of a New Zealand research project that examines the self-reported health status …
Changing Politics of Canadian Social Policy
No one is content with the state of health and social programs in Canada today. The Right thinks that there is too much government involvement, and the Left thinks there is not enough. In Changing Politics of Canadian Social Policy James Rice and Michael Prince track the history of the welfare state from its establishment in the 1940s, through its development in the mid 1970s, to the period of deficit crisis and restraint that followed in the lat…
Poverty, Social Assistance, and the Empl: Restructuring Welfare States
Why do some welfare states provide income support for mothers to care for their school-aged children at home while others expect mothers to find employment when their youngest child is six months old? This study, a fundamental contribution to the social policy and social welfare theory, compares recent efforts to restructure social programmes for low-income mothers in four countries: Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. While th…
Poverty, Ideology and Employability: Canadian and Australian Policies for Low‐income Mothers
A similar trend is apparent in Australian and Canadian programs to enhance work incentives and program effectiveness, but the Canadian provinces are increasingly insisting that low‐income mothers with school‐age children enter the workforce rather than accept social benefits to care for their children at home. There is no Canadian counterpart to the Sole Parent Pension or Parenting Allowance, although the provinces pay higher rates of social assi…
Parental Benefit Policies and the Gendered Division of Labor
From a feminist perspective, I examine three policy responses to pregnant workers, with program details from Canada, Sweden, and the United States. How countries chose their program model, the interest groups that supported each type of program, and the implications of these policy options for the gendered division of labor are discussed. Neither labor force participation rates nor family roles are altered substantially by choice of model, but st…
Social Assistance and the Employability of Mothers: Two Models from Cross-National Research
Maureen Baker, Social Assistance and the Employability of Mothers: Two Models from Cross-National Research, The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Autumn, 1996), pp. 483-503
Canadian Family Policies: Cross-National Comparisons
Motherhood, employment and the “child penalty”
The Double Ghetto: Canadian Women and Their Segregated Work
Career confidence and gendered expectations of academic promotion
This article discusses expectations of career progression, based on interviews with New Zealand-based university academics. In these interviews, most women said they did not expect to reach the professoriate before retirement while most men said they planned for and anticipated this promotion. The article attempts to explain gendered patterns of career confidence and progression by discussing academic practices and the backgrounds and experiences…
Families, Labour and Love: Family Diversity in a Changing World
1 The personal and social world of families..2 Cultural variations in families..3 Early family life in settler societies..4 Conceptualising families..5 Intimacy, cohabitation and the quality of marriage..6 Childhood, reproduction and childcare..7 Families and paid/unpaid work..8 Separation, divorce and remarriage..9 State regulation of family life..10 The future of family life..Glossary ..References
Women graduates and the workplace: Continuing Challenges for Academic Women
This article discusses the persistence of a gender gap among university-based academics, despite the development of equity policies and ‘family-friendly’ initiatives. Over four decades of research are reviewed from the liberal states of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA and the UK, including my own qualitative interviews in Canada in 1973 and in New Zealand in 2008. The paper summarizes some of the structural, relational and interpretive factor…
Tying the knot: The impact of formalization after long-term cohabitation
Most couples in English-speaking countries now cohabit before marriage, and some marry after living together for years, buying a house and having children. Although marriage offers few additional legal rights, especially for different-sex couples, it seems to have retained its symbolic value. Based on interviews with participants in different-sex and same-sex relationships in New Zealand, we explore whether or not getting married was perceived to…
Choices or Constraints? Family Responsibilities, Gender and Academic Career
Previous research has found that high levels of education and job commitment tend to generate dissimilar patterns of family formation and household responsibility for men and women. Using university-based academics as examples of highly educated professionals with strong career commitment, this paper investigates their family circumstances through a survey of previous research and qualitative interviews in New Zealand. Although more women are now…
Parental Benefit Policies and the Gendered Division of Labor
From a feminist perspective, I examine three policy responses to pregnant workers, with program details from Canada, Sweden, and the United States. How countries chose their program model, the interest groups that supported each type of program, and the implications of these policy options for the gendered division of labor are discussed. Neither labor force participation rates nor family roles are altered substantially by choice of model, but st…
Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society
A 'brave thing to do' or a normative practice? Marriage after long-term cohabitation
For decades, sociologists have debated whether widespread cohabitation among opposite-sex and same-sex couples indicates the transformation of relationships or simply a new pathway to marriage. If it is the latter, what does this transition mean to couples who decide to marry? Using an interpretive framework, the article investigates why cohabiting couples legalise their relationships when there seem to be few legal or social advantages, and how …
Canadian Family Policies: Cross-National Comparisons
The Family: Changing Trends in Canada
Restructuring reproduction: International and national pressures
In 1968, the United Nations began viewing family planning as a human rights issue, relaxing the previous focus on population control. By the 1990s, UN documents empowered women in reproductive matters and urged governments to ensure women's access to a wider range of family planning services. However, after decades of widespread contraceptive usage, below-replacement fertility rates are once again worrying some governments in developed countries.…
When flexibility meets rigidity: Sole Mothers' Experiences in the Transition From Welfare to Work
This article examines the dynamics of flexibility experienced by sole mothers involved in a welfare-to-work program, and the strategies they use to retain their identities as caregivers and family providers. Based on individual interviews with 120 work-tested sole mothers on social benefits in New Zealand, we make three arguments. First, despite the constraints experienced by these mothers, welfare rules permit considerable flexibility in fulfill…
Child Poverty, Maternal Health and Social Benefits
This article begins with a discussion of the relations among family poverty, poor health and employment. It argues that some lone mothers are unable to keep their children out of poverty because poor health interferes with finding or maintaining employment. These issues are discussed with reference to the international literature, and also in the light of the results of a New Zealand research project that examines the self-reported health status …
Trade Union Reactions to Women Workers and Their Concerns
Maureen Baker, Mary-Anne Robeson, Trade Union Reactions to Women Workers and Their Concerns, The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Winter, 1981), pp. 19-31
Second-Class Marriage? Civil Union in New Zealand
Since April 2005, both same-sex and oppositesex couples have been permitted to enter into civil unions in New Zealand, yet legal marriage is still reserved for heterosexuals. This paper explores the social differences between the two types of 'marriage' by drawing on official statistics and qualitative interviews with celebrants and long-term cohabitants who have legalized their unions or plan to do so in the near future. Using an interpretive fr…
Medically Assisted Conception: Revolutionizing Family or Perpetuating a Nuclear and Gendered Model
New reproductive technologies have the potential to radicalize family life, as they could blur kinship lines, separate biological and social parenthood, and encourage couples to create 'designer babies'. On the other hand, these technologies could help more married couples create socially-acceptable nuclear families and reduce unwanted childless marriages. This article uses the 'stories' from qualitative interviews with couples seeking fertility …
Poverty, Ideology and Employability: Canadian and Australian Policies for Low‐income Mothers
A similar trend is apparent in Australian and Canadian programs to enhance work incentives and program effectiveness, but the Canadian provinces are increasingly insisting that low‐income mothers with school‐age children enter the workforce rather than accept social benefits to care for their children at home. There is no Canadian counterpart to the Sole Parent Pension or Parenting Allowance, although the provinces pay higher rates of social assi…
Social Assistance and the Employability of Mothers: Two Models from Cross-National Research
Maureen Baker, Social Assistance and the Employability of Mothers: Two Models from Cross-National Research, The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Autumn, 1996), pp. 483-503
Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families
The Double-Bind of the Middle Class Male: Men's Liberation and the Male Sex Role
In this paper, we are arguing that middle-class Anglo-Saxon men who are interesting in accepting the ideology of the nascent men's liberation movement are placed in a double-bind situation. Although they may personally believe in equality between the sexes, egalitarian marriages, and the desirability of developing their potential outside of the work environment, other people- wives, employers, friends - may not necessarily support these changes. …
The Double Ghetto: Canadian Women and Their Segregated Work
The Double-Bind of the Middle Class Male: Men's Liberation and the Male Sex Role
In this paper, we are arguing that middle-class Anglo-Saxon men who are interesting in accepting the ideology of the nascent men's liberation movement are placed in a double-bind situation. Although they may personally believe in equality between the sexes, egalitarian marriages, and the desirability of developing their potential outside of the work environment, other people- wives, employers, friends - may not necessarily support these changes. …
Trade Union Reactions to Women Workers and Their Concerns
Maureen Baker, Mary-Anne Robeson, Trade Union Reactions to Women Workers and Their Concerns, The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Winter, 1981), pp. 19-31
His and Her Divorce Research: New Theoretical Directions in Canadian and American Research
Through a comparison of Canadian and American research on separation and divorce, we have noted a rift developing in Canadian family studies that is less apparent in American research. While American social scientists have to some extent adopted a more critical view of the family and incorporated aspects of a feminist perspective into their research, Canadian authors are still focusing on correlates with high divorce rates. In Canada, segregation…
The Family: Changing Trends in Canada
Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society
Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families
Of Human Bonding: Parent-Child Relations across the Life Course
Eliminating Child Poverty: How Does Canada Compare
Social Assistance and the Employability of Mothers: Two Models from Cross-National Research
Maureen Baker, Social Assistance and the Employability of Mothers: Two Models from Cross-National Research, The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Autumn, 1996), pp. 483-503
Canadian Family Policies: Cross-National Comparisons
Parental Benefit Policies and the Gendered Division of Labor
From a feminist perspective, I examine three policy responses to pregnant workers, with program details from Canada, Sweden, and the United States. How countries chose their program model, the interest groups that supported each type of program, and the implications of these policy options for the gendered division of labor are discussed. Neither labor force participation rates nor family roles are altered substantially by choice of model, but st…
Poverty, Ideology and Employability: Canadian and Australian Policies for Low‐income Mothers
A similar trend is apparent in Australian and Canadian programs to enhance work incentives and program effectiveness, but the Canadian provinces are increasingly insisting that low‐income mothers with school‐age children enter the workforce rather than accept social benefits to care for their children at home. There is no Canadian counterpart to the Sole Parent Pension or Parenting Allowance, although the provinces pay higher rates of social assi…
Poverty, Social Assistance, and the Empl: Restructuring Welfare States
Why do some welfare states provide income support for mothers to care for their school-aged children at home while others expect mothers to find employment when their youngest child is six months old? This study, a fundamental contribution to the social policy and social welfare theory, compares recent efforts to restructure social programmes for low-income mothers in four countries: Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. While th…
Changing Politics of Canadian Social Policy
No one is content with the state of health and social programs in Canada today. The Right thinks that there is too much government involvement, and the Left thinks there is not enough. In Changing Politics of Canadian Social Policy James Rice and Michael Prince track the history of the welfare state from its establishment in the 1940s, through its development in the mid 1970s, to the period of deficit crisis and restraint that followed in the lat…
When flexibility meets rigidity: Sole Mothers' Experiences in the Transition From Welfare to Work
This article examines the dynamics of flexibility experienced by sole mothers involved in a welfare-to-work program, and the strategies they use to retain their identities as caregivers and family providers. Based on individual interviews with 120 work-tested sole mothers on social benefits in New Zealand, we make three arguments. First, despite the constraints experienced by these mothers, welfare rules permit considerable flexibility in fulfill…
Child Poverty, Maternal Health and Social Benefits
This article begins with a discussion of the relations among family poverty, poor health and employment. It argues that some lone mothers are unable to keep their children out of poverty because poor health interferes with finding or maintaining employment. These issues are discussed with reference to the international literature, and also in the light of the results of a New Zealand research project that examines the self-reported health status …
Families, Labour and Love: Family Diversity in a Changing World
1 The personal and social world of families..2 Cultural variations in families..3 Early family life in settler societies..4 Conceptualising families..5 Intimacy, cohabitation and the quality of marriage..6 Childhood, reproduction and childcare..7 Families and paid/unpaid work..8 Separation, divorce and remarriage..9 State regulation of family life..10 The future of family life..Glossary ..References
Medically Assisted Conception: Revolutionizing Family or Perpetuating a Nuclear and Gendered Model
New reproductive technologies have the potential to radicalize family life, as they could blur kinship lines, separate biological and social parenthood, and encourage couples to create 'designer babies'. On the other hand, these technologies could help more married couples create socially-acceptable nuclear families and reduce unwanted childless marriages. This article uses the 'stories' from qualitative interviews with couples seeking fertility …
Restructuring Family Policies: Convergences and Divergences
Recent years have seen significant changes in the social policies of many liberal welfare-states; this is especially true of social programs for families with children. Increasingly, governments are making family policy trade-offs, reducing support for some families but improving it for others. Why are such trade-offs occurring, and how do governments differ in their approach to family social policy? This study addresses these questions by examin…
Restructuring reproduction: International and national pressures
In 1968, the United Nations began viewing family planning as a human rights issue, relaxing the previous focus on population control. By the 1990s, UN documents empowered women in reproductive matters and urged governments to ensure women's access to a wider range of family planning services. However, after decades of widespread contraceptive usage, below-replacement fertility rates are once again worrying some governments in developed countries.…
Working their Way Out of Poverty? Gendered Employment in Three Welfare States
Governments increasingly view earning and saving as the main solutions to low-income and debt, but is it feasible to expect all parents to work their way out of poverty? This paper compares gendered patterns of income, and state support for earning and caring in three similar welfare states: Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Relying on recent OECD statistics and national studies, the paper examines employment patterns, poverty rates and state su…
Gendering ‘Child’ Poverty: Cross-National Lessons for Canada in a Deepening Recession
As the world slides deeper into recession, ‘child poverty’ rates will undoubtedly increase with rising unemployment, household debt and marriage breakdown. This comparative paper focuses on the gendered aspects of child poverty, showing that Canada has higher rates of maternal employment than some other liberal welfare states but also higher poverty rates for mother-led families, a larger gender gap in pay, and lower levels of social spending on …
Motherhood, employment and the “child penalty”
Choices or Constraints? Family Responsibilities, Gender and Academic Career
Previous research has found that high levels of education and job commitment tend to generate dissimilar patterns of family formation and household responsibility for men and women. Using university-based academics as examples of highly educated professionals with strong career commitment, this paper investigates their family circumstances through a survey of previous research and qualitative interviews in New Zealand. Although more women are now…
Sociology (27 works) · Political science (22 works) · Economics (17 works) · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics (16 works) · Gender Studies (15 works) · Law (12 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Economic growth (10 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (10 works) · Labour economics (9 works)