Family and households - Couples Flashcards
What is a household?
A household is a person living alone or a group of people living together, not necessarily related.
What is a family?
A family is a group of people related by marriage, blood or adoption.
How was the Victorian family in the 19th century?
In the 19th century, the Victorian family was very patriarchal:
- women themselves were seen as property
- upon marrying a woman’s property became her husband’s
- access to divorce was unequal
What is meant by the domestic division of labour?
The domestic division of labour refers to the roles men and women play in relation to paid work, childcare and housework.
What is meant by the instrumental role and expressive role?
Men undertake the instrumental role meaning being the breadwinner going out to work and bringing money and providing for the family’s needs.
Women undertake the expressive role meaning staying at home, looking after the children, doing the housework. e.g. cooking and cleaning
What is parson’s view on the domestic division of labour?
The division of labour between spouses is due to biology. This is as men are physically stronger so more like to take on more manual tasks which is why the should be the breadwinner.
Whereas wives are suited to having children, they are biologically more nurturing and caring so should do most of the housework and child work and looking after the husband after a stressful day.
How has parson’s idea on the division of labour between spouse ben criticised?
Parson’s idea is criticised as in postmodern society, women are doing more paid work; arguably the old system benefits men much more than women, as they do most of the unpaid domestic work, which may b repetitive and boring. This meant women were financially dependant on husbands.
What two types of conjugal roles did Bott identify?
Bott identified segregated and joint conjugal roles.
Describe segregated conjugal roles.
Traditional nuclear family of men having their role of breadwinner, women have their role as homemaker.
Describe joint conjugal roles.
Couples share tasks such as housework and childcare, whilst spending their leisure time together.
How is leisure time spent in couples with segregated conjugal roles?
Men usually spent leisure time with fellow male colleagues and go to the pub together and have drinks. Whereas women often spent leisure time with female kins.
How is leisure time spent in couples with joint conjugal roles?
They may take their kids out for the weekend, have a nice meal, go to the cinema together.
What did Willmott and Young find about the symmetrical family?
Willmott and Young researched WC families in Bethnal Green in the late 1950s.
They found it was very traditional, but things were changing.
They take a march of progress view of history and the family’s place within it.
They found women were working more, men doing more around the house,
Couples had become more privatised- spending leisure time together.
What did Yillmott and Young argue was the cause of the family becoming more symmetrical?
Change in women’s positions- going out to work spending less time in the home.
Geographical mobility- families were smaller so more likely to move around and find jobs.
New technology- labour saving devices made housework faster e.g. hoover, fridge-freezer. men more interested in doing housework as its quicker shorter and simple.
Higher standard of living- there was more money coming in and people had more disposable income and can use it to buy labour saving devices.
These make the family more symmetrical as men and women doing similar things.
How does Ann Oakely criticise Willmott and Young’s march of progress view with the husbands she studied?
Oakley argued husbands interviewed only helped 1x a week- hardly symmetrical.
She argued there’s some evidence of increased involvement of husbands in housework.
Many of the fathers thought they were ‘good fathers’ because they played with children in evening and at weekends, but this tend to free up time for wives to do more housework.
What is the feminist view of housework?
Oakley argued domestic labour was sex typed. Men tended to do the DIY and gardening. While women did the cooking and cleaning.
Women continue to do more housework than men. And of the domestic labour men do it tends to involve the pleasant aspects of childcare e.g. taking them to the park getting ice cream.
Men tend to get an extra half hour more free time than women.
What has the impact of paid work made couples become more equal?
Since the 1970s its become the norm for women to work and bring in a second income.
The vast majority of married cohabitating women work now vs 1970s.
What did Yee-Kan (2001) find?
Better paid younger, more educated women do less housework per week.
What did Gershuny (1994) find?
Women in full time jobs did less housework. The longer they had a full time job, the more domestic work their husbands did.
Couples whose partners have a more equal relationship were more likely to have a more equal relationships themselves.
How does Gershuny explain in 2 ways how the family is becoming more symmetrical?
- A gradual change in society’s values (e.g. equal opportunities for women)
- change in parental models (e.g. children’s voices are heard more and they are at the heart of the family)
However he agreed with Oakely that domestic labour was sex-typed.
What is Crompton’s 1997 view on the domestic division of labour?
Crompton argued that changes in the domestic division of labour were connected to economic factors.
Women earn more so men do more at home.
But pay is unequal women’s pay is 3/4 of men’s pay.
As long as pay is unequal the domestic division of labour will be unequal.
What did the British Social Attitude Survey (2013) find about the roles of men and women in the family?
There was a fall in the number of people who think its a man’s job to be a breadwinner and women’s job to be a homemaker.
