Couples Flashcards
Who believes that the roles of men and women are different but equal?
Parsons 1955 (functionalist)
What is the expressive role?
The role played by women in the family involves caring, nurturing, and supporting children and their husbands.
What is the instrumental role?
The role played by men in the family involves providing economic support for the family.
What are Parsons reasons why men play the instrumental role & women play the expressive role?
- Women’s biology meant that they were naturally better at caring for children.
- Women were primarily responsible for carrying out the family’s two essential functions – primary socialisation and the stabilisation of adult personalities
Sociologist behind the Joint and Segregated Conjugal Roles
Elizabeth Bott 1957
Segregated conjugal roles
A clear division and separation between the male and female roles e.g. one personal being the economic provider and the other doing most of the domestic work.
Joint conjugal roles
The couple share tasks such as housework and childcare and spend their leisure time together.
What did Bott find about social class’s influence on the joint and segregated conjugal roles in her in-depth study of 20 families in London?
Middle-class couples are more likely to have joint roles due to an increased number of educated women working.
Working-class couples are more likely to be segregated.
What did Bott find about social networks’ influence on the joint and segregated conjugal roles in her in-depth study of 20 families in London?
Close-knit families are more likely to be segregated due to having friends/family of the same sex to spend leisure time with or help with housework & childcare.
Loose-knit is more likely to be joint.
Who created the idea of the Symmetrical family and the March of Progress theory?
Willmott and Young 1973
What is the symmetrical family?
A family in which both husband and wife are in employment and both do some housework and provide childcare
What is the March of Progress theory?
A theory which sees the family developing in a progressive way and responding to wider changes in society.
Evidence for March of Progress Theory
• Wide scale social survey 1928 interviewed in greater London
• Roles of husbands and wives becoming increasingly similar and more equal
• 72% of households, men contributed to the housework
• Couples increasingly made important decisions together
5 Reasons for the rise in the symmetrical family
• Increased employment for women
• Increased geographical mobility
• Reduction in number of children in family
• Labour-saving devices / new technology
• Higher standard of living
Who is the sociologist behind the Sociology of Housework?
Oakley 1974 (liberal feminist)
What did Oakley do & find?
• Conducted in-depth interviews with 40 housewives with children in two different areas of London, one middle class and one working class.
• Oakley’s finding contradicted those of Willmott and Young. She found that only 15% of husbands had a high level of participation in housework and only 25% a high level of participation in childcare.
• Many housewives found domestic work boring, unfulfilling, frustrating and highly pressured.
What did Ward & Hetherton find in 1993?
Domestic tasks were divided amongst traditional gender stereotypes
• E.g. wives being 30 times more likely to have been the last person to do the
washing, while husbands were four times more likely to have been the last person to wash the car.
Who came up with the idea of Triple Shift 1995?
Duncombe & Marsden
What is the Triple Shift
Women are required to perform a ‘triple shift’ of housework, paid work and emotional work. Emotional work includes managing the emotions and feelings of family members, such as sorting out arguments between siblings. (The term emotional work was originally used by Hochschild in the 1970s)
What did Ferri & Smith (1996) find?
Fathers took responsibility for childcare in less than 4% of households.
What did Sullivan find in 2000?
Her analysis of data collected in 1975, 1987 and 1997 found a trend towards women doing a smaller share of domestic work and men doing more.
What did Dex & Ward find in 2007
Whilst there was an increase in involvement with children from fathers (78% played with children), only 1% took responsibility for caring for their children when ill.
What did Southerton find in 2011?
Women take responsibility for organising their family’s quality time.
Women’s time is often interrupted with childcare, whereas men take uninterrupted blocks of leisure time.
What did the British Social Attitudes Survey 2022 find?
• There has been a change in attitudes towards domestic work, however this has not been met with a change in behaviour
• 63% of women said that they did more than their fair share of housework, with less than 30% of household tasks being equally shared.
• 32% of men admitted to doing less than they should around the home.
The cultural/ideological explanation of the gender division of labour?
The division of labour is caused by patriarchal norms & values which shape the gender roles.
Women perform more domestic labour because that is what society
expects them to do, and society has socialised them to do it from an early age.
Gershuny’s (1994) evidence to support the Cultural explanation…
Couples whose parents had a more equal relationship are more likely to share housework equally themselves.
This suggests parental role models are important. He argues that social values are gradually adapting to the fact that women are now working, establishing a new norm that men should do more domestic work.
British Social Attitudes Survey (2013) supporting evidence for the cultural explanation…
• less than 10% of under 35s agreed with a traditional division of labour,
compared with 30% of the over 65s.
• This shows that there have been changes in norms, attitudes and
values which reflect the changes in the gender socialisation of the younger generation into more equal relationships.
Dunne (1999) evidence for the cultural explanation
Studied 37 lesbian couples with children, finding they share household and childcare responsibilities equally, prioritize each other’s careers, and avoid gender stereotypes, fostering more equitable relationships compared to heterosexual couples.
What is the economic or material explanation for the gender division of labour?
Differences in income often lead to traditional gender roles, where the higher earner takes on work responsibilities while the other handles housework and childcare, driven by economic rationality.
Kan (2001) evidence for the economic explanation…
For every £10,000 a year more a woman earns, she does two hours less housework per week.
Xavier-Ramos (2003) evidence for the economic explanation?
Where the woman is the full-time breadwinner and the man is unemployed, the man does as much domestic labour as the woman.
Arber and Ginn (1995) evidence for the economic explanation?
Found that middle class women in higher paid jobs were more likely to pay for products and services which reduced the amount of domestic labour that they had to do in the home. For example cleaners, ready meals and nannies.
Dunne (1999) evidence for the economic explanation
When one partner did much more paid work than the other, the time that each partner spent on domestic tasks was likely to be unequal.
Edgell’s (1980) Evidence of inequality in financial decision-making
Very important decisions such as a change of job use were either taken by the husband alone or taken jointly but with the husband having the final say.
• Important decisions such as where to go on holiday were usually taken jointly.
• Less important decisions such as buying children’s clothes or food purchases
were usually made by the wife.
Men are more likely to make the final decisions because that they earn more. Women’s economic dependence on men makes them have less say in decision making.
Barett and McIntosh (1991) Evidence of inequality in financial decision-making:
Men gain fair more from women’s domestic work than they give back in financial
support.
• The financial support that men give to their wives is unpredictable and can come
with certain demands.
• Men usually make the decisions about spending on important items.
Husband-controlled pooling
money was shared but the husband had the dominant role in deciding how it was spent. most common
Wife-controlled pooling
money was shared but the wife had the dominant role in deciding how it was spent. Second most common
Husband control
the husband was usually the one with the main or only wage and he gave his wife housekeeping money
Wife control
the responsibility for managing money was with the wife. This was more common in poorer households where the responsibility for managing the money was more of a burden than a privilege
Jan Phal’s study 1993
Based on interviews with 102 couples with at least one child under 16.The study found four main patterns of money management:
Husband controlled pooling = 39/102 couples
Wife-controlled pooling = 27/102 couples
Husband control = 22/102 couples
Wife control = 14/102 couples
Pahl’s evidense for increasing equality in financial decision making
Growing financial individualization in couples, particularly among younger, childless couples with working women. Despite increasing autonomy, women’s lower earnings—around 15% less than men—limit their financial independence, reinforcing economic dependence on higher-earning male partners.
Weeks (2001) evidence for increasing equality in financial decision-making:
• many cohabiting couples pooled money for household spending, but also had
their own separate accounts for personal spending, as they wanted to maintain their independence.
Smart 2007 Evidence of increasing equality in financial decision-making:
Same-sex couples didn’t perceive one partner controlling finances as inequality; they welcomed it. The freedom stems from the absence of historical and gendered meanings associated with money.
Cultural explanation for inequality in financial decision making
Patriarchal norms that exist in our culture mean that men are seen as decision-makers, more powerful and the main earners who therefore have the right to spend their money as they see fit.
Economic/material explanation for inequality in financial decision making
Inequalities in decision making over finances reflect the differences in earnings between the couple. It makes logical sense for whoever earns more money to have more of a say in how that money is spent.
What is domestic abuse / violence?
Any form of abuse between a partner, former partner or family member
What are the different forms that domestic violence can take?
Emotional, financial, psyical, psychological, sexual
What are the 2 main sources of statistics on DV?
Police recorded crime
Victim surveys (Crime Survey for England and Wales)
Why don’t victims report domestic abuse to the poloice?
Fear of reprisal
Mistrust in the police
Think it is a private, rather than criminal matter
Home many women experience DV in their lifetime.
1 in 4
A domestic abuse call is made to the police every ()
30 seconds.
How many DV cases are reported to the police
Less than 24%
Dobash & Dobash (1979) on the Radical Feminist perspective of Domestic Violence
Their research involved in-depth interviews with domestic violence victims, revealing historical acceptance of such violence in the 19th century within a structural and cultural context of patriarchy. Domestic violence is seen as a form of patriarchal control, and historically, the patriarchal nature of the police force often overlooked its severity.
Wilkinson & Pickett (2010) on the Materialist explanation perspective of Domestic Violence
Economic and material factors contribute to varying domestic violence risks among different groups. Social inequality, including low income, insecure housing, and low status, creates stress that heightens the risk. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) identified increased risk in deprived areas, low-income individuals, those facing financial difficulties, and those with long-term illness or disability.
