Gender Roles, Domestic Labour And Power In The Family Booklet Sociologists Flashcards
Young and Willmott
Symmetrical family
Found that symmetrical families were more common among younger couples who are geographically isolated and more affluent
Bott
Decline of close-knit extended family and greater geographical social mobility
Conjugal roles and social networks - lack of separate friends means they are more likely to adopt new roles
Gershunny and Gershunny
increased number of women in paid employment
As wives moved into paid employment they did less housework and men did a bit more.
Saw this as making slow progress in reducing gender inequalities
Kan et al
Increased number of women in paid employment
Whilst men increased their contribution to domestic tasks it has been in traditionally masculine defined tasks e.g. DIY.
Women still do the bulk of routine chores e.g. cooking and cleaning.
Silver and Schor
Commercialisation of housework
Commercialisation has taken away some of the drudgery and time-consuming aspects of housework.
Housework is easier and less skilled which could encourage men to do a bit more
Knudsen and Wearness
Criticism of the view that modern marriages and cohabiting relationships are more equal
Comparative study of men and women’s housework in 34 countries found that there were no moder countries in the world where men do more or as much housework as women.
Women perform 2/3 of all domestic work in the world which sows traditional segregated roles still remain in many cases.
Rapaport and Rapaport
Inequalities in the domestic division of labour
Suggests in professions wives are still expected to take major responsibility for dealing with childcare arrangements, sick children and housework.
Harkness
Inequalities of domestic division of labour
Found that although 3/4 of households are dual income women are still doing the majority of domestic tasks
Ferri and Smith
Inequalities in the domestic division of labour
Fathers took responsibility for childcare in fewer than 4% of families
Oakley
Who benefits from domestic labour
Argues Young and Willmotts evidence for joint news in the symmetrical family is unconvincing
Boulton
Who benefits from domestic labour?
Surveys may exaggerate how much childcare men really do
Delphy and Leonard
Emotional side of family life and women’s
See emotional work as an important dimension of women’s work in the home
Duncombe and marsden
Emotional side of the family
Many long term relationships held together by women putting in the emotional work to keep their relationships alive.
Women also seem to be more involved in emotional aspects of childcare e.g. talking to, listening.
This may involve acting as the family mediator liaising between family members when there are rows.
Taylor Gooby
The emotional side of family life
While public attitudes increasingly assume a high degree of gender equality in paid work this doesn’t apply to home and family life
Edgell
Decision making
Women had sole responsibility for only relatively unimportant areas such as home decoration, children’s clothes, food and other domestic spending.
Laurie and Gershunny
Decision making
Found that in 1995 70% of couples said they had an equal say in decisions
Pahl
Decision making
Growing individualisation in couples finances is more likely in young couples, those without children and those where women are in full time work.
In these cases nearly 1/2 men and women maintained some financial independence dropping to 1/3 when women worked part time.
Pahl
The meaning of money
Though a couples decision to keep their money separate may appear to lead to more equality and independence in decision making it may actually increase financial inequality between partners.
As long as women earn less than men and are responsible for the cost of the children and childcare individualisation in money management can be a route to a greater inequality
Smart
The personal life perspective
Some gay people attached no importance to who controlled the money and were perfectly happy to leave this to their partners.
They didnt see the control of money as meaning either equality or inequality in the relationship which suggests this may be because they dont enter relationships with the same ‘historical gendered, getrosexual baggage of cultural meaning around money.’
Weeks et al
The personal life perspective
Found that typical pattern was pooling some money for household spending together with separate accounts for personal spending reflecting co-independence where there is sharing but where each partner remains control over some money and maintains a sense of independence
Compton and Lyonette
Explaining gender division of labour
Identifies 2 different explanations for unequal division of labour:
1. Cultural or ideological explanation of inequality.
2. Material or economic explanation of inequality.
Gershunny
Cultural/ ideological explanation of inequality in the division of labour
Couples whose parents had a more equal relationship are more likely to share housework equally themselves.
Social values are greatly adapting to the fact women now work full time and establishing a new norm that men should do more domestic work.
Man Yee Kan
Cultural/ ideological explanations of inequality in the division of labour
Most men claimed to do more work than their father and women less than their mother suggesting a generational shift.
