families and households Flashcards
Distinguish between instrumental and expressive roles.
Instrumental role:
- husband
- breadwinner
- geared towards achieving success at work so he can provide financially
Expressive role:
- wife
- full time housewife
- primary socialisation of children
- meets the emotional needs of the family
State three features of symmetrical families.
- Women go to work
- Men help with housework and childcare
- Both spend leisure time together
What are joint and segregated conjugal roles and who distinguished between them?
BOTT said that
- segregated conjugal roles are where the wife and husband have separate roles; the female homemaker and the male breadwinner. Spend leisure time separately.
- joint conjugal roles are where the couple share tasks such as housework and childcare and spend their leisure time together.
State two critcisms of Parsons’ instrumental and expressive roles theory.
- Young and Wilmott argue that men are doing more domestic tasks and women are becoming wage earners.
- Feminists reject Parson’s view that the division of labour is natural and argue that it only benefits men.
What changes have led to the rise of the symmetrical nuclear family?
- changes in women’s position eg married women working
- geographical mobility aka more couples living away from the communities in which they grew up
- new technology and labour saving devices
- higher standards of living
What is the feminist view of housework?
Feminists reject the march of progress view and argue that little has changed: inequality remains due to the patriarchal society.
Oakley says that Young and Wilmott’s claims about the symmetrical family are exaggerated. Her study found that i only 15% of husbands had a high level of participation in housework and only 25% had a high level of participation in childcare. This isn’t enough to argue that the family is becoming symmetrical.
What is the march of progress view?
The idea that men are becoming more involved in housework and childcare just as women are becoming more involved in paid work.
GERSHUNY: time studies showed that women who work full time do less domestic work than other women
What do feminists think about whether couples are becoming more equal?
- Women working ≠ greater equality in the division of labour
- The British social attitudes survey shows that women overall did twice as much housework and caring for the family than men
- ALLAN: women’s tasks are less intrinsically satisfying
How does taking responsibility for children work in couples?
- BOULTON: although fathers perform specific childcare tasks, it’s usually the mother who takes responsibility for the child’s security and well-being
+ FERRI & SMITH: fathers take responsibility for childcare in less than 4% of homes - HOCHSCHILD: women have to perform emotion work where they manage the emotions and feelings of family members.
- DUNCOMBE & MARSDEN: women have a triple shift of housework, paid work and emotion work.
How does taking responsibility for quality time work in couples?
- SOUTHERTON: mother’s have to coordinate, schedule amd manage the family’s quality time but changed have led to people’s time being more fragmented. While men have uninterrupted blocks of leisure time, women’s leisure time is interrupted by childcare.
What is the cultural explanation for the gender division of labour and what are some examples?
- The idea that the DOL is determined by patriarchal norms
- Evidence:
- GERSHUNY: couples whose parents had a more equal relationship are more likely to share housework equally.
- MAN YEE KAN: younger men are doing more domestic work.
What is the material explanation for the gender division of labour and what are some examples?
- The idea that women earning less than men makes it economically rational for women to do more housework and men do the paid work.
- Evidence:
- KAN: for every £10,000 more a woman earns per year she does 2 less hours of housework per week.
- RAMOS: where the woman is the full time breadwinner and the man is unemployed, he does as much domestic labour as she does.
x CROMPTON: in 7/8 households, men earn more than women s there can’t be a more equal DOL of it depends on economic equality between the sexes.
What is money management like for couples?
PAHL AND VOGLER identify two types of control over family income:
- The allowance system
Men give their wives an allowance to budget family needs.
- Pooling
Both partners have equal access to income and joint responsibility for expenditure
What is decision making like for couples?
EDGELL’s study found
- Very important decisions were made by the man alone
- Important decisions were made jointly
- Less important decisions were made by the wife alone
This is because men earn more
x LAURIE AND GERSHUNY: by 1995, 70% of couples said they had an equal say in decisions
What is the personal life perspective on money?
- Focuses on the meanings couples give to who controls the money
- WEEKS ET AL found that the typical pattern was to pool some money for household spending but have separate accounts for personal spending; co-independence
- Personal life theorists say we should look at the personal meanings of the actors involved
What is the modern western notion of childhood?
- Childhood is a special time of life and children are seen as physically and psychologically immature and not ready to run their own lives.
- PILCHER: childhood is a distinct life stage and children occupy a separate status from adults.
- Childhood is seen as a golden age of joy and innocence but this means children are seen as vulnerable and in need of protection from the outside world.
- WAGG: childhood is a social construct which isn’t natural and should be distinguished from biological immaturity.
What are cross cultural differences in childhood?
- BENEDICT: children in non industrial societies are treated differently than their modern western counterparts in three ways:
1. They take responsibility at an early age
2. Less value is placed on children showing obedience to adult authority
3. Children’s sexual behaviour is viewed differently - Benedict says there is less of a dividing line between the behaviour expected of adults and children, which supports the idea that childhood is a social construct.
What is the globalisation of western childhood?
- Western notions of what childhood should be are being imposed on the rest of the world. These notions include:
- childhood as a separate life stage
- childhood being based in the nuclear family and school
- parents having innocent, dependent and vulnerable children
- For example, campaigns regarding concerns about street kids in developing countries reflect western views even though such activity may be the norm for the culture.
What are historical differences in childhood?
- ARIES: in the middle ages childhood didn’t exist and children would enter into wider society and paid work from an early age.
x POLLOCK: rather than saying childhood didn’t exist, the middle ages simply had a different notion of childhood from that of today. - Works of art from the era depict children as dresses the same as adults, working and playing together.
- SHORTER: high death rates encouraged indifference and neglect such as referring to babies as ‘it’.
What is the modern cult of childhood?
ARIES: elements of the modern notion of childhood began to emerge from the 13th century onwards:
- schools became specialised in educating the young
- growing distinction between children’s and adult’s clothing
- handbooks on child rearing made available
Aries says these changes reflect the modern ‘cult of childhood’ where we have come from an era where childhood wasn’t seen as special to an era where society is obsessed with childhood.
