Linking Life Courses, Work, and the Family: Theorizing a Not So Visible Nexus between Women and Men [*]

Abstract: Is there a theoretical link between the gendering of life courses, worklife, and family participation? Is the "primary group" family to be considered part of the social structure? Is it passively exposed to its influences without any autonomy, is it rather an exclave from it, or is it an indispensable focus for understanding the social positioning of women and men? Most sociological analyses of social stratification, with their primary orientation on occupation, view the family -- if they consider it at all -- as hardly more than an alternative sampling unit, or at best as a rather secondary individual status variable ("marital status"). Conversely, family sociology pays more attention to social stratification, but here again, only few theoretical attempts focus the relationship between family and stratification. Life course research, if it is not practiced as an extension of the status attainment paradigm, has a bias similar to that of stratification research: the family is largely approached as a women's (problem) area, irrelevant to men's trajectories. In order to overcome the epistemological limitations imposed by the traditional separation of these fields of inquiry, our contribution offers an institution-oriented attempt at linking the dynamics of life courses, family, work participation and gender. Not only interacting individuals are doing gender, but also institutions. Resume: Y a-t-il une relation entre la sexuation des parcours de vie, la vie professionnelle, et la participation familiale? La famille, groupe primaire par excellence, fait-elle partie de la structure sociale? Est-elle soumise passivement, sans autonomie aux influences de cette dermiere, en est-elle plutot un exclave, ou est-elle au contraire un carrefourc indispensable a la comprehension du positionnement social des femmes et des hommes? La majorite des analyses de la stratification sociale, orientees prioritairement sur I' activite professionnelle, ne conferet a la famille - pour autant qu'elles la considerent -- guere plus qu'un statut d' unite d' echantillonnage alternative, ou eventuellement celui d'un statut individuel plutot secondaire ("statut marital"). De son cote la sociologie de la famille est plus attentive aux relations entre famille et stratification sociale, mais la encore, les tentatives de theoriser leur rapport sont rares. Les etudes des parcours de vie, quand elles ne se limitent pas au p aradigme de l'acquisition de statut, sont biaisees d'une maniere semblable aux analyses de la stratification: elles considerent la famille avant tout comme domaine feminin, sans incidences du cote masculin. Afin de depasser les limites epistemologiques inherentes aux separations conventionnelles entre ces domaines de recherche, notre contribution propose une approche focalisee sur le niveau institutionnel des connexions entre parcours de vie, famile, participation professionnelle et genre. Il n'y a pas que les acteurs individuels qui pratiquent le "doing gender", les institutions font de meme. I. Sociology: Looking at the "in-between" Most sociologists would agree that sociology is mainly about social relationships and their forms, and that such relationships exist not only between individuals, but also between social systems, sectors, groups, etc. Sociology's most general explanatory strategy could even be described as trying to find the reasons for the actors' social behaviour not within them, but "around" them: in the social relations and institutional arrangements that frame their practical situations. However, this postulate encounters often decisive limitations, largely because of the social organization of sociology itself. Most sociologists are specialists of more or less traditionally defined areas: of the family, of international inequalities, of deviance, of the economy, of gender, of organizations, etc. Sociology can explain this state of affairs, but hardly justify it. [1] Typically, adult members of actual societies are members of a multitude of social fields, with different logics and structures. …