1.3 decision making and childcare

Question 1

What did Edgell (1980) argue about decision making?

Answer 1

• women had the responsibility when making unimportant decisions BUT men were more likely to have the last say in important decisions e.g. moving house

Question 2

What did Pahl (2008) say about decision making?

Answer 2

• there is growing individualisation in couple’s finances
• each partner has some independence in financial matters
• this was common in young couples without children

Question 3

What did Dunne argue about lesbian couples and decision making?

Answer 3

they were more likely than heterosexual women to:
- describe the relationship as equal
- not conform to ‘gender scripts’
- give equal importance to both parents’ career

Question 4

What did Mary Boulton (1983) argue about childcare?

Answer 4

• although men help with particular tasks, it is their wives who retain primary responsibility for children

Question 5

What do Braun, Vincent and Ball (2011) argue about fathers and childcare?

Answer 5

they identified two types of fathers:
- active fathers = highly involved fathers
- background fathers = didn’t spend much time with children and had a strong provider ideology

The active fathers were very self-conscious of ‘moral panics’ linking lone men and children to paedophilia

Question 6

What did Duncombe and Marsden (1995) argue?

Answer 6

• many long term relationships were held together by women, who were putting in the emotional work necessary to keep their relationship alive
• women seemed to be more involved in childcare, including older children
• some forms of domestic work cannot be measured in conventional surveys
• research was based on interviews with 40 couples who had been married for 15 years and they found that many women expressed dissatisfaction with their partner’s emotional input into the relationship and the family

Question 7

What did Volger distinguish?

Answer 7

5 money management systems:
1. female whole wage system = women manage all the money and men are given an allowance for personal spending
2. male whole wage system = men manage all the money or mange all apart from a housekeeping allowance they give to their partner
3. the joint pooling system = all money is pooled and in theory managed equally
4. the partial pooling system = some money is pooled but each partner keeps some money which is not pooled
5. the independent management system = in which no money is pooled

overall, 54% of couples used joint pooling and 73% joint or partial pooling

Question 8

What did Tina Miller (2011) say about fathers and childcare?

Answer 8

• the new father is viewed as someone who does not conform to traditional masculine roles in parenting
• rather than ‘doing gender’ in a conventional way, new fathers act in ways in which involve ‘undoing gender’ by engaging in parenting practices which challenge and change traditional ideas about masculinity, femininity and parenting
• found that men wanted to be ‘hands on’ and emotionally close to their children