The Domestic Divison of Labour

• Family is an association of people who are related to one another by blood or marriage
• After the post-industrial revolution, the division of labour increased.
• Bott distinguished the roles between conjugal roles within couples; separated and joint roles
• Joint roles share the housework task and childcare, lesiure time spent together
• Segregated roles couples have separate roles leisure activites tend to be different
• Parsons believed men took on the instrumental role whereas women took on the expressive role in the family
• Willmott and Young conducted research proving families are becoming more symmetrical through their 1970's study of the symmetrical family & March of Progress View - Family life gradually improved becoming more equal & democratic
• Willmot & Young identified conjugal roles in w/c families in Bethnal Green. Men = breadwinners, women = homemakers
• Boulton found fewer than 20% of men had major involvement in childcare
• Warde & Heatherington found men only complete ‘female‘ when women weren’t at home to do it.
• Gershuny et al (2006) found that fathers spend less time with children than mothers but this is increasing overtime.
• Men traditionally have the instrumental role, whereas the women has the expressive role
• Has the domestic division in labour been exaggerated?

  No - With more women going to full-time work creates more symmetrical families, women in work 16-64: 1971 = 53%, 2013: 64%.

  Yes - Bayfield - Dual career couples still have women doing the majority of the household work

  • Rapaport & Rapaport - Dual career parents still have women regarded to as 'wives & mothers' - still an expectation
  • Hoschild - With Dual Career couples, women still do 3 hours of household work, whereas men only do 17 minutes