Dual roles and triple shift

• As more women have undertaken paid work, researchers have studied the role strain they experience trying to do it well while still shouldering most of the domestic responsibilities. This is the dual role or double shift. Marxist feminists describe them as being exploited by men at work and at home.
• Boulton found that in over 80% of the families she studied, wives took the main responsibility for children, taking time off work when their offspring were ill or, otherwise, feeling guilty. She viewed this as more crucial than the number of hours spent on particular tasks by men and women.
• Allan found men willing to do enjoyable tasks such as taking children to the park and irregular jobs such as repairs, leaving women to do daily mundane chores, suggesting a power imbalance.
• By 1996 Ferri and Smith still found it very rare for men to take primary responsibility for children or look after them when they were ill, even where the mother had paid work outside the home and the father did not.
• Gershuny compared hours spent by partners on domestic work in 1974 and 1987. There was a small increase in men's share of cleaning and cooking where women worked full time, but, taking paid and domestic work together, these women still did over twice as many hours as their male partners.
• Finch and Graham identified an additional responsibility of women - emotional support and day-to-day organisation of the lives of other family members and kin. Together with paid work and domestic tasks (childcare and housework), this creates a triple shift.