changes to roles and relationships within families and households

Question 1

How are roles and relationships between partners changing?

Answer 1

• a number of sociologists have observed significant changes in conjugal roles, the roles of men and women within marriage over the last 50 years
• in, particular, it has been argued that there has been a shift from segregated conjugal roles, where husbands and wives perforated separate kinds of work and often had separate leisure activities as well, to joint conjugal roles, where husband and wives both perform paid work, share the unpaid work in the home and have shared leisure and social activities
• more recently, sociologists have begun to explore other kinds of intimate relationships such as cohabitation couples and same sex couples, in order to discover how roles are organised in these relationships

Question 2

Why do feminists disagree that roles and relationships in the family have significantly changed?

Answer 2

-feminists have pointed to the extent to which heterosexual relationships are still patriarchal, with men continuing to play a more dominant role and traditional female responsibilities such as housework and childcare still being assigned to women

Question 3

What is the functionalist view on gender roles in families?

Answer 3

• parsons (1955) suggested that a division between the roles of women and men is necessary as it ensures each partner specialises in the role they are suites
• for example: the expressive role is performed by the woman and the instrumental role is performed by the man
• Parsons suggests that to some extent these roles are based in biology as since women bear children and nurse them as babies it is natural that they should play a bigger role in their socialisation
• parsons does see humans as a product of their socialisation but also suggests that socialising males and females into different roles simply trains them to fulfil the role they are naturally suited to

Question 4

How has Parsons view been criticised?

Answer 4

-critics would point to evidence that gender roles are socially constructed and would question the idea that men and women roles in families are biologically determined

Question 5

What did young and willmott (1973) say about the symmetry of gender roles?

Answer 5

-young and Wilmot argued that from the late 19th century, a new form family that they called the symmetrical family has emerged in British upper class and spread to the lower classes from 1950s onwards

Question 6

Which characteristics did Young and Willmott (1973) propose the symmetrical family has?

Answer 6

• conjugal roles are joint: the roles of husband and wife are more symmetrical, because both paid work and unpaid domestic tasks are shared by both parents
• the family is nuclear: the focus of the family is on the relationship between husband, wife and children, and extended family ties have weakened
• the family is privatized: husbands and wives so spend more time in the privacy of their own home together, rather than with other extended family members or in community activities
• this means that husbands are more involved in domestic life and more likely to share responsibilities with wives and spend more time with their children

Question 7

What did the postmodernist Giddings (1992) say about the democratisation of gender roles?

Answer 7

• Giddens has argued that there has been a transformation of intimate relationships, meaning that women no longer need to accept male dominance as they have a much wider range of choices in societies like the UK
• Giddens argues that this has led to a democratisation of family life, with men in particular becoming more willing to reveal their emotions and engage with women and children in an intimate way

Question 8

What do feminists say about the division of gender roles in families?

Answer 8

• feminists argue that women still carry the main responsibility for maintaining family relationships and looking after members emotional needs
• feminists also argue that the family has a dark side that is ignored by functionality and in the idea of the symmetrical family
• this dark side that is ignored by functionalists and in the idea of the symmetrical family
• the dark side can be seen at its most extreme in the form of domestic violence and child abuse, which feminists argue are most commonly committed by men
• feminists also argue that families are patriarchal in more mundane ways
• for example, women still perform most of the work in many families, and men often still control areas such as decision-making and finances

Question 9

What do Marxists say about the division of gender roles in families?

Answer 9

• Marxists have done little detailed research on gender roles and relationships in families but see these as shaped by the needs of capitalism
• for Marxists, really fulfilling personal relationships are impossible in a capitalist society because of materialism, consumption and the need for workers to earn a living through wage labour
• Marxists argue that the unpaid labour such as housework and childcare performed by family members, especially women, benefits the capitalist class as much as family members, for example, by ensuring that workers are fit to return to work each day

Question 10

What do postmodernists say about the division of gender roles in families?

Answer 10

• postmodernist point to the much more diverse nature of families and relationships in the 21st century
• this means, for example that sociologists cannot state that families are either symmetrical or patriarchal
• postmodernists would point to the extent to which family members now create their own family practices, such as negotiating what roles work best for them in their own circumstances
• roles and relationships may also change over time
• postmodernists would also argue that conventional sociological research has focused too much on roles and relationships in traditional nuclear families and point out that these cannot be generalised to other types of families

Question 11

What do feminists say about the division of labour in families?

Answer 11

• feminists have pointed to the way in which work is gendered
• women increasingly participate in paid employment but often earn less than men and may work part-time in order to allow them in time for family responsibilities
• similarly in the home it is women who undertake the majority of the daily unpaid domestic tasks and men undertake more occasional tasks like gardening

Question 12

What does survey research say about the domestic division of labour?

Answer 12

• there has been considerable quantitative research in recent years that as tried to measure the extent of women’s and men’s participation in domestic labour do considerably more hours of unpaid work than men
• the 2012 British social attitudes survey suggested than men spend and average of 8 hours a week doing domestic labour, while women spend an average of 13 hours
• such estimates have been criticised, as they rely on respondents to surveys accurately reporting how much time they spend on household tasks
• some studies have suggested that men tend to overestimate their own participation while women tend to underestimate

Question 13

What does time budget research say about the domestic division of labour?

Answer 13

• Gershuny (1999) compared data collected in this way in the 1970s and in 1997
• he found that in 1997 women still did more than 60% of domestic work but there had been a gradual increase in menus participation
• however, women had increased their participation in paid work over the period, meaning that their overall time spent on all work had increased slightly
• Gershuny suggested that there has been a process of lagged adaptation whereby women’s roles have changed more quickly than men’s
• women have entered the workforce in large numbers but men taking a bigger share of housework and childcare, giving some support to Young Willmott’s view that families will slowly become more symmetrical

Question 14

What did Hakim (2010) say about the domestic division of labour?

Answer 14

• Hakim (2010) criticised feminists for constantly complaining that men are not doing their fair share of domestic work
• she analysed data from time budget studies across Europe and argued that the reality is that most men already do more than their fair share
• Hakim argued we need to add all types of work together in comparing what men and women do
• she states that on average, women and men across Europe do the same total number of productive work hours, once paid jobs and unpaid household work are added together - roughly eight hours a day
• men do substantially more hours of paid work
• women’s time is divided more evenly between paid and unpaid work
• she also found that the pattern of equality in total productive work hours is found among couples aged 20-40 and those aged 40-60 so is reasonably constant across the lifecycle

Question 15

How does social class impact the domestic division of labour?

Answer 15

• studies based on national statistics tend to be based on large samples and can track changes overtime
• they therefore have the merit of both repetitiveness and reliability
• however, statistical averages tend to conceal wide variations in how roles and relationships are organised in contemporary families and households

Question 16

How does ethnicity impact the domestic division of labour?

Answer 16

• an analysis of secondary data by Kan (2008) suggests that middle class women do less housework than their working class counterparts
• she suggested that every £10,000 increase in a woman annual income reduces the time she spends on chores every week by nearly two hours and educated women tend to do less housework than women who left school at 16
• this is mainly explained by the fact that well off women can afford to employ others to do their housework for them, rather than because middle class men contribute more to domestic work

Question 17

How does sexuality impact the domestic division of labour?

Answer 17

• Berthoud’s (2001) study of ethnicity and family life suggests that south Asian families are far more likely to adopt more traditional gender roles than whites
• on the other hand, a high proportion of African Caribbean families are headed by lone mothers, meaning that in these households, mothers often combine paid work with complete responsibility for housework and childcare, though in some cases with support from extended members

Question 18

How does sexuality impact the domestic division of labour?

Answer 18

• studies of gay and lesbian couples suggest that they are far more likely to have shared roles and responsibilities, often consciously rejecting the heterosexual norms of traditional nuclear families
• weeks et al (1999) found that same sex couples saw issues such as the division of domestic labour as a matter for discussion and negotiation rather than making assumptions about who does what based on tradition
• Dunne (1997) carried out a study of 37 lesbian couples and similarly found that in most cases housework and childcare were equally shared, though in some cases one partner was only employed part time and couples had agreed that she should therefore undertake more of the domestic work

Question 19

What does Duncombe and Marsden (1995) say about the triple shift?

Answer 19

• Duncombe and Marsden (1995) argued that simply studying activities such as housework and childcare does not fully measure the contribution made by partners to the work undertaken in families and personal relationships
• Duncombe and Marsden suggested that in addition to these practical tasks members of households carry out emotion work
• Duncombe and Marsden interviewed 40 established white couples both separately and together and found that many of the women felt that it was their emotion work that kept their relationship together
• this might include organising events where the couples experience intimacy or simply expressing care
• women were also frequently dissatisfied with the limit contribution men made in terms of sustaining their relationships through emotion work and often engaged in a kind of acting in order to give an illusion of happily family life
• most of the men denied there was any problem and felt their contribution to the family lay their paid jobs and ability to earn money
• Duncombe and Marsden’s study suggests that emotion work can be seen as a further dimension to the unequal nature of couple relationships highlighted by feminists
• while many feminists argue that in taking up paid employment women have taken on a dual burden
• Duncombe and Marsden suggested that many women in fact med up performing a triple shift
• having finished their spirit of paid woke, women come home to complete the housework and then have to underwater emotion work as well

Question 20

What do sociologists say about power in family relationships?

Answer 20

• functionalists do not see the division of roles in families as based on inequality
• Parson’s work suggests that men and women play equal and complimentary roles
• feminists, however argue that men actually exercise power in most heterosexual family relationships and that traditionally gendered roles are a major form of social inequality
• the fact that women appear to perform the majority of domestic labour and receive no financial reward and little social status can be seen as one form of power difference

Question 21

What does Pahl (2005) say about family finances and money management?

Answer 21

• Pahl notes a growing individualisation in couples financed especially in younger couples where both partners have paid jobs
• men and women are likely to each have their own bank accounts and take responsibility for paying for different things
• on the face of it this represents a shift towards greater equality especially when compared with the allowance system that Pahl found among some older working class couples in one of her earlier studies
• this involved men controlling the majority of the finances and simply giving their wives and allowance to cover housekeeping

Question 22

What does Pahl (1989) say about family finances and money management?

Answer 22

• Pahl however points out that individualisation finances can put women at a disadvantage if they work part time are not in paid work or are retired a significant proportion of women
• in these cases women are disadvantaged as men earn more and therefore have more spending power
• if couples share the household expenses but women earn less, then men are likely to have more surplus income, giving them greater control of the purse strings of the family
• Pahl’s9 research suggests that women will only enjoy real equality in relation to financial decision making when they also enjoy equality in relation to earnigs

Question 23

What do radical feminists say about the division of gender roles in families?

Answer 23

-they say that the way gender roles are organised in families reflects the patriarchal nature of traditional families and the fact that men still exercise more power than women

Question 24

What does Oakley (1974) say about the division of gender roles in families?

Answer 24

-Oakley argues that the housewife role remained the primary role of married women and showed in her own small scale study that only a minority of men could be classified as having a high level of participation in housework and childcare

Question 25

What do Marxist feminists say about the division of gender roles in families?

Answer 25

-however, would argue that by undertaking unpaid work in the family, women not only look after menus needs but also serve the needs of capitalism

Question 26

What is the domestic division of labour?

Answer 26

-the division of tasks within the home between family members is the domestic division of labour

Question 27

What is time budget research?

Answer 27

a more reliable method of estimation involves time budget diaries, where respondents complete a daily record of how much time they have spent on different activities

Question 28

What did Lader et al (2006) say about time budget research?

Answer 28

• Lader et al found that overall, both men and women were less likely to spend time on housework in 2005 than in 2000
• this may reflect the fact that labour saving devices and convenience foods mean that both sexes need to spend less time on household tasks
• however women continue to spend more time on housework than men

Question 29

What did Harkness (2008) say about the division of domestic labour?

Answer 29

• Harkness shows that British men work longer hours in total than women do when there are children in the home, largely because men often work more overtime to boost family income at this stage, while wives switch to part time jobs, or drop out of employment
• couples with no children at home and both in full time jobs emerge as the only group where women work more hours in total than men, once paid and unpaid work hours are added together

Question 30

How does age and life course impact the division of domestic labour?

Answer 30

• divisions of labour vary between generations
• most research suggests that younger couples are more likely to adopt more equal roles
• however, it also appears that when couples settle down and have children, women start to take on a greater burden of childcare and domestic work

Question 31

What is emotion work?

Answer 31

-emotion work refers to people giving love, understanding, praise and attention etc. all of which are required to maintain successful relationships

Question 32

what do Hardhill et al (1997) say about decision making in marriage?

Answer 32

• Hardhill et al carried out a study of middle class dual career househiolds in Nottingham
• these might be expected to be relatively equalitarian families, as both husbands and wives had well paid jobs
• however, using semi structured interviews the authors discovered that in 19 out of 30 couples the mans career came first, in five the woman’s took precedence and in six neither took precedence
• men also tended to make decisions about where the couple were to live and about cars
• however, both partners usually made joint decisions about buying or renting a house

Question 33

what did hardhill (2002) say about decision making in the family?

Answer 33

• Hardhill points to the contradiction between the rise of individualism and the need for couples to come to joint decisions that are of mutual benefit
• she argues that in dual career families, couples are often both individually pursuing their careers but this may still mean an ineguarian partnership, with the male partner prioritising his career while the female partner has to juggle work and home often by working part time or taking a career break while she has children

Question 34

what did Hakim (2004) say about decision making in the family?

Answer 34

• Hakim argues that many women work part time not because they are forced to by the patriarchal power of men but through choice
• Hakim suggests that based on her own research in Spain and Britain only about 20% of women are work centred
• for other women family is equally or more important than work and so these women may choose to work part-time or take less demanding careers

Question 35

what are the evaluation points of Hardhills study?

Answer 35

-Hardhill et al’s study is only small scale and possibly unrepresentative
+it tends to support feminist arguments that decisions in families favour the interests of men
+there are a minority of households where there appears to be a degree of equality
-critics of this kind of approach have argued that women allow men to progress further in their careers does not necessarily mean that men have more power