March of progress

• Most women today are in paid work

  The march of progress view argues this is leading to a more equal division of domestic labour
• Sullivan (2000) found women now do less domestic work, men do more traditional women's tasks, and more couples have an equal division of labour
• • Feminists do not believe women working has led to greater equality
  • Women now carry a dual burden of paid work and domestic work
  • British Social Attitudes (2013) shows women do twice as much and couples still divide household tasks along traditional gender lines
  • There has been little change since the 1990s
• Des and Ward (2007) found that only 1% of fathers took the main responsibility for caring for a sick child
• • Braun et al (2011) found most fathers were 'background fathers'
  • They held a 'provider ideology': their role was breadwinner not primary carer
• • Women generally take responsibility for managing the family's quality time
  • In late modernity, the 24/7 society and flexible working mean people's time is more fragmented and de-routinised
  • Working mothers find themselves juggling competing demands on their time
• Duncombe and Marsden (1995) found that women were required to carry a 'triple shift': emotion work, domestic labour and paid work
• Cultural/ideological explanation


  • Patriarchal cultural norms shape gender roles
  • Women perform more domestic labour because this is what society expects and has socialised them to do
• Material/economic explanation


  Women earn less than men, so it is economically rational for them to do more domestic labour while men spend more time earning
• Gender scripts


  • Heterosexuals were socialised into gender scripts that set out different masculine and feminine roles and gender identities
  • Lesbians did not link household tasks to gender scripts, so they were more open to negotiation and thus more equal
• Women going to work

  Leads to a more equal division of home labour
• March of progress


  Sees men being more involved in childcare & housework, and women involved in paid work outside the house
• Women going into work hasn't made the division of labour more equal
• There's no evidence of the 'New Man'- instead women have a dual burden of paid work and domestic work
• Gershuny (1994)


  Women working full-time means a symmetrical division of labour. His study found these women did less domestic work than other women
• Sullivan (2000)


  Analysed nationally representative data collected in 1975/87/97, and found a trend towards women doing a lesser share of domestic work due to men doing more. It also shows an increase in symmetrical couples
• The British Social Attitudes Survey shows men in 2012 did an average of 8hrs housework a week, women did 13. Men spent 10hrs caring for a member, women spent 23. Women do 2x as much as men, and 60% felt the division is unjust and has them do more than their fair share
• The British Social Attitudes Survey also found couples still divide tasks by traditional gender roles, like women do more laundry and men do small repairs- patterns remain the same as 1994
• Allan (1985)


  Women's tasks like washing are less intrinsically fascinating, survey doesn't measure the qualitative differences in men/women's tasks
• The impact of paid work

  March of progress view
• Women going into paid work

  Has led to a more equal division of labour
• The British Social Attitudes Survey (2013) shows a fall in the number of people who believe in instrumental and expressive roles (45% men:41% women agreed in 1984, 13% men:12% women agreed in 2012)
• This shows that trends and attitudes indicate that women going into paid work has led to a more equal division of labour
• Southerton (2011)


  Organising family quality time' is usually left to be the mum's responsibility. This is more difficult with changes in modern society like the 24/7 society and flexible working patterns. People's time is more fragmented so quality time is affected, and working mothers end up juggling demands of work, personal leisure and family, as well as organising the quality time
• Southerton argues that even though studies show men/women having mostly equal leisure time, men are more likely to have blocks' of uninterrupted time, and women will have theirs interrupted by childcare and have to multitask
• Duncombe & Marsden


  Women have a 'triple shift'- they're responsible for housework, paid work and the emotional work of meeting member's needs
• The survey only tells use quantifiable tasks and who does them, ignoring who takes responsibility for making sure tasks are done
• Boulton (1963)


  Dads may help with childcare tasks but it's the mum who takes responsibility for their security/wellbeing
• Ferri & Smith (1996)


  Dads responsible for childcare in less than 4% of families
• Dex & Ward (2007)


  Although dads were highly involved in their 3 year old's life like playing (78%), only 1% took care of them when they were sick
• Braun et al (2011)


  3/70 families had the dad as the main carer, the rest had provider ideologies where they see roles as Parsons describes them