The domestic division of labour

Question 1

How does Parsons show that there is a clear division of labour between spouses?

Answer 1

1. Husband has the instrumental role
   - Emphasises success at work in order to get financial stability for the family
   - The breadwinner
2. Wife has the expressive role
   - Emphasis on the primary socialisation of the children and meeting the family’s emotional needs
   - The housemaker, full-time wife as opposed to a wage earner

Question 2

How have other sociologists criticised Parsons’ instrumental and expressive roles?

Answer 2

• Young and Wilmott (1962): men are now taking a greater share of domestic tasks and more wives are becoming wage earners
• Feminists: the division of labour isn’t natural, as Parsons claims, and only benefits men

Question 3

What are Bott’s 2 types of conjugal roles?

Answer 3

1. Segregated conjugal roles
   - A male breadwinner and a female carer
   - Leisure activities also tend to be separate
2. Joint conjugal roles
   - Where the couple share tasks such as housework and childcare and spend their leisure time together

Question 4

Which role did Young and Wilmott identify in their study of traditional w/c extended families in Bethnal Green, east London?

Answer 4

• Segregated conjugal roles
• Men were the breadwinners
• Men played little part in home life and spent their leisure time with workmates in pubs and working men’s clubs
• Women were full-time housewives
• The limited leisure time that they received was also spent with female kin

Question 5

What type of a view do Young and Wilmott take on the history of the family and what is the evidence for this?

Answer 5

• They take a march of progress view
• Family life is gradually improving for all its members
• There has been a trend towards a symmetrical family:
  : women now go out to work, although this may be part-time rather than full-time
  : men now help with housework and childcare
  : couples now spend their leisure time together instead of separately with workmates or female relatives

Question 6

What major social changes have contributed to the rise of the symmetrical nuclear family, according to Young and Wilmott?

Answer 6

1. Changes in women’s position: including married women going out to work
2. Geographical mobility: more couples living away from the communities in which they grew up
3. New technology and labour-saving devices
4. Higher standards of living

Question 7

What is the feminist view of housework?

Answer 7

• They reject the march of progress view and argue that little has changed
• Inequality stems from the fact that the family and society are male-dominated or patriarchal
• Oakley (1974): criticises Wilmott and Young by saying that their claims of a symmetrical family are exaggerated. Although most of the husbands in Y and W’s research ‘helped’ their wives at least 1x per week, this could include taking the children for breakfast
• Oakley: conducted her own research and found that only 15% of husbands had a high level of participation in housework, and 25% a high level of participation in childcare
• Oakley: the men only shared in the more pleasurable aspects of childcare, such as playing with the children, which meant the mothers lost the rewards of childcare
• Boulton: supports Oakley’s claims- fewer than 20% of husbands had a major role in childcare
• Warde and Hetherington: sex-typing of domestic tasks remained strong- wives were 30 times more likely to have been the last person to wash dishes, however men’s attitude has changed