Domestic Davison Of labour

• Measuring the domestic division of labour: problems

  Liberal Fem-Ann Oakley Willmott’s and Young evidence for ‘jointness’ is weak

  72% men claimed to help their partners in some way other than washing up at least once a week.
• Oakleys Findings

  •Sample of 40 women•Critics Willmott and Young – the symmetrical family is an ‘over exaggeration’••15% of husbands participate in housework•25% participated in childcare
• Eval Of Free Domestic Labour

  Disadvantages:

  •No limit to working hours•No pay or benefits (pensions, sick pay, holidays)•Financial dependence on others – makes true equality difficult.•No legal rights at work•Solitary activity with no work colleagues – lonely.•Often monotonous, unfulfilling work (cleaning & tidying).•Tiring after doing a day’s paid work.•If done after work, leaves little time for extra activities which could help promotion prospects.•
• Eval Of Free Domestic Labour

  Advantages:

  •Emotionally fulfilling (child care)•Decide your own hours - flexible•Benefits of pleasant living environment•Save money on childcare etc.
• Domestic Divison Of Labour

  roles that men and women play in relation to housework, childcare and paid work
• Parsons Argument Saying That Roles In The Family Are Important

  •Provides the best socialisation for children – children will be well brought up, productive members of society.•Allows the man to work, helping him provide for his family and contribute to the economy. •Proving the correct role models
• Criticism Of Parson

  •Since Parsons work, men have begun to take on a bigger share of household tasks and childcare.••He also ignores the existence of gay couples and how domestic division of labour works if you are of the same sex.

  •Feminists reject the assumption that these gender roles are ‘natural’
• Elizabeth Bott

  Elizabeth Bott studied the everyday jobs taken up by husbands and wives within the household.  This studied 128 working class couples in 1957 and found out they had segregated AND combined conjugal roles .

  BOTT distinguished between 2 types of conjugal roles:

  1.Segregated - separate roles like Parsons had described but also that they spent their leisure time apart also.2.Joint -where couples share household tasks and spend leisure time together.
• Wilmott and Young  identified a pattern of segregated conjugal roles in their study of traditional working class extended families in Bethnal Green, East London in the 1950s. 

  They found:

  Clear separation of home and work. The workplace was defined as the husband's sphere and the home as the wife's. The husband was relatively uninvolved in child rearing or domestic work
• Willmot And Young Findings

  •Men and women spent leisure time separately: men spending time with workmates in pubs and working men’s clubs, and women socialising with female family members.•This type of family was extended in form, with the mother/daughter link being extremely important in traditional working class.
• Willmott And Young Findings

  •Family members (particularly if w/c) likely to live near extended kin.
• Young and Willmott (argued that the modern family was becoming more symmetrical


  –More equal relationship between partners.–The sharing of housework, childcare, paid work and decision making.Strong bonds between partners, often with shared leisure time
• They found this was more likely to be the case for younger couples, those who were more socially and geographically isolated and the more affluent.
• Eval

  •Feminist argue that Housework (Oakley) and childcare remain predominantly women's work.•Men more involved in childcare than before  but its more enjoyable activities, women do routine activities.•Women still do majority of household task even when have paid employment as well.•The research is now outdated•Only focuses on Nuclear and Extended family.