division of domestic labour and power relationships

• functionalist view: Parsons (1955)


  instrumental role - male role, male goes out to earn money in order to support the family, breadwinner

  expressive role - female role, women stay at home and is a housewife/does all the domestic labour
• criticisms of functionalist view

  old fashioned roles of men and women - out of date, written in the 1950s

  ignores exploitation of women - women are restricted, imbalance of power, conflicts in relationships

  ignores harmful effects of family
• feminist view - Elizabeth Bott (1957)


  distinguishes two types of conjugal roles (the roles carried out by men and women in the home):

  • segregated conjugal roles
  • joint conjugal roles
• segregated conjugal roles

  couples have separate roles: a male breadwinner and a female homemaker/carer

  their leisure activities tend to be separate

  e.g. men go to pubs, women stay at home, men go to work, women take on emotional burden
• joint conjugal roles

  couples share tasks such as housework and childcare tasks and spend their leisure time together

  e.g. romantically involved, develop friendships, go out together (shopping, holidays etc)
• joint conjugal roles reflects most households in the UK today due to:

  • changes in women's position
  • geographical mobility
  • new technology
  • higher standards of living
• domestic labour

  different roles and responsibilities that need to be completed within the household
• domestic division of labour

  the division of roles, responsibilities and work tasks within a household
• why is domestic labour not often regarded as real in the same way as paid employment

  • gender inequalities
  • stereotypes - they aren't doing it for an employee, they're doing it for their family
  • power imbalances
• March of Progress view - Young and Willmott (1973)


  there is now a new man and a symmetrical family
• Young and Willmott symmetrical family


  strong bonds between married/cohabiting couples - less male dominated, much more of an equally balanced partnership (share household chores, childcare, decision making, in paid employment)

  change in the domestic division of labour from segregated conjugal roles to joint conjugal role

  72% of men did housework other than washing up during the week

  more common in young, more isolated, more affluent couples

  only interviewed in London and heterosexual couples
• Young and Willmott New Man


  women taking on more of a traditional 'men's work' and men doing more 'women's work' - there is shared leisure and decision making

  'New Man' - more caring, sharing, gentle, emotional and sensitive in his attitudes to women's, children, his own emotional needs and committed to doing his fair share of housework and childcare
• Jonathan Gershuny (1994)


  women that worked full-time did less domestic work than other women

  leads to a more equal division of labour in the home
• Oriel Sullivan (2000)

  data collected in 1975, 1987 and 1997 - trend towards women doing a smaller share of the domestic women and men doing more
• what has caused changes in gender roles - women economically active

  increased women's independence and authority in the family, reduces time spent of housework

  men increase contribution to domestic work (non-routine tasks), women still dot he bulk of caring activities and routine chores - men have been encouraged to help more with housework as they recognise women can't be expected to do 2 jobs at once
• what has caused changes in gender roles - gender identity

  men and women have more choice in how they see themselves and their roles, couples are free to choose roles based on personal choice, less constrained by traditional roles, weakens traditional gender divisions in housework and childcare
• what has caused changes in gender roles - living standards

  central heating, TV's, computers and the internet etc has encouraged couples to become more home-centred
• what has caused changes in gender roles - technology and commercialisation of housework

  taken away time consuming aspects of housework, now easier and requires less skill, encourages men to do more

  commercialisation of housework - whole host of consumer goods and services to help reduce burden of housework compared to previous generations (fridges, freezers, washing machines, dryers, vacuum cleaners, takeaways, home deliveries of groceries ready made meals etc
• what has caused changes in gender roles - geographical mobility and decline of close knit extended family

  less pressure from kin on newly married/cohabiting couples to keep traditional roles, easier to adopt new roles

  no separate male and female networks, increases dependency on each other
• dual burden according to feminists

  women take on the unpaid work and paid work
• triple burden according to feminists

  women take on the unpaid work, paid work and emotional burden
• evidence and arguments of a dual or triple burden

  15% of husbands had high levels of participation in housework - low level

  25% high level in childcare (but only in the more pleasurable aspects)

  men take on the more pleasurable household tasks

  Knudsen and Waerness (2008) - 34 countries, no modern country in the world where men do housework more than or as much as women

  women perform 2/3 of all domestic work in the world

  Bryan and Sevilla Sanz (2008) - women do a significantly higher proportion of work than men after work (full-time workers), men do approx. 95 min and women do 160 min
• evidence and arguments of a dual or triple burden

  2008 Mumsnet.com survey found 75% of mothers do most of the cooking for their children compared to 7% of fathers

  2009 surveys, cleaning firm Vileda, 4/10 british men still thought housework was a women's job, 1/5 men did absolutely no cleaning in the house

  72% of married men claimed to be helping out in the home in ways other than washing up at least once a week - hardly convincing evidence for symmetr/equality
• evidence and arguments of a dual or triple burden

  Rapoport (1976) - business couples, wives still expected to take major responsibility dealing with childcare arrangements, sick children and housework - Harkness (2005) found this to still be true, working mothers put twice as many hours into housework, mothers working full-time in dual-earner couples faced long working hours with burden of unpaid housework and childcare responsibilities
• opposition for a dual or triple burden

  Sullivan (2000) - collected data in 1975,1987 and 1997, trend towards women doing a smaller share of the domestic work and men doing more

  Jonathon Gershuny (1994) - women that worked full-time did less domestic work than other women

  the British Social Attitudes Survey (2013) - fall in the number of people who think it's the man's job to earn money and the women's job to look after the home and family, 1984 45% of men and 41% of women agreed with this view, by 2012 only 13% of men and 12% of women agreed
• cultural explanation of gender divisions in labour

  division of labour is determined by patriarchal norms and values that shape the gender roles in our culture - women perform more domestic labour as that's what society expects them to do and socialised them to do
• cultural explanation of gender divisions in labour

  Gurshuny (1994) - couples whose parents had a more equal relationship are more likely to share housework equally themselves

  Man Yee Kan (2001) - younger men do more domestic work, Future Foundation (2000), most men claimed to do more housework than their father, most women claimed to do less housework than their mum

  The British Social Attitudes Survey (2013) - less than 10% of under-35s agreed with traditional division of labour against 30% of over-65s
• material explanations of gender division of labour

  women generally earn less than men so it's economically rational for women to do more of the housework and childcare while men spend more of their time earning money

  Kan - every £10,000 a year more a women earns, she does two hours less housework per week
• material explanations of gender division of labour

  Sara Arber and Jay Ginn (1995) - better paid, middle class women were more able to buy labour-saving devices; ready meals, domestic help and childcare

  Xavier Ramos (2003) - where the women is the full-time breadwinner and the man is unemployed, he does as much domestic labour as she does

  Sullivan - working full-time rather than part-time make the biggest difference in terms of how much domestic labour each partner does
• Irene Hardill (1997)


  Study of 30 dual career professional couples

  the important decisions were either taken by the man alone or jointly

  the man's career took priority when deciding whether to move house for a new job
• Stephen Edgell (1980)


  studied professional couples and found that:

  • very important decisions were either taken by the husband or jointly but the husband had the final say
  • important decisions (such as holidays) were taken jointly but rarely by the women alone
  • less important decisions were taken by the wife
• Laurie and Gershuny (2000)


  by 1995 70% of couples said they had an equal say in decisions

  women who were well qualified, high earning professionals were more likely to have a say
• Jan Pahl and Carolyn Vogler (1993)


  feminist sociologists identified 2 main types of control over family income:

  • pooling - where both partners have access to income and joint responsibility for expenditure
  • allowance system where men give their wives an allowance from which to budget for the family, the man keeps the excess for himself
  • pooling is on the increase according to Pahl and Vogler
  • (2007) even with pooling men tend to have more power over major financial decisions
• Elaine Kempson (1994)


  women in low income families often denied their own needs to make ends meet, will eat less or skip meals to support the family
• Michelle Barrett and Mary McIntosh (1991)


  men gain far more from women's domestic support than they give in financial support

  financial support often comes with strings attached

  men make the decisions on spending
• domestic abuse

  any incident or series of incidents of physical, financial, psychological or sexual abuse by a previous or current partner - can be household members and other relatives
• statistics of domestic abuse

  99% of all incident against women are committed by men

  1 incident of DV is reported to the police every minute

  on average, 2 women a week are killed by a current or former male partner

  2015 8.8% of men (1.4 million men) and 20.1% of women (3.3 million women) said they have experienced non sexual abuse since the age of 4

  every 3 victims of DV, 2 will be women and 1 will be male

  nearly 1 in 4 women have been assaulted by a partner at some time in their life + 1 in 8 repeatedly so

  Yearshire, on average a women suffers 35 assaults before making a report
• impact of family life on career and job prospects

  fear that a women might become pregnant can limit promotion prospects

  women are seen as unreliable workers as they are more likely to take time off if a child is unwell

  women are seen as less committed to their careers after they have children compared to men, due to their roles at home
• impact of triple shift on women - Green (1996)

  women tend to see their free/leisure time as time when they are away from both paid work and family commitments

  where as men consider any time away from paid work as free time
• impact of triple shift on women - Bernard (1982)


  men were more satisfied with their marriage than their wives, who expressed feelings of emotional loneliness