The domestic division of labour

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  • The Domestic Divisions of Labour
    • Parsons: instrumental & expressive role
      • Husband has the instrumental role- being the breadwinner
      • Wife has the expressive role- geared towards emotional needs
      • Roles are based on biological differences - which benefit both the sexes and wider society
    • Bott: joint & segregated conjugal roles
      • Segregated conjugal roles: separate roles of breadwinner and a homemaker with separate leisure too
      • Joint conjugal roles: tasks are shared and leisure time is together
      • Young and Willmott found this in their study of traditional working-class families in the 1950's
        • Men findings: breadwinners, little part in family life, leisure with workmates in pubs
        • Women findings: full time housewife, full responsibility for home and child care, helped by female relatives, and spent leisure with them
    • Young and Willmott: the symmetrical family, march of progress view
      • See the family as gradually improving
      • Roles between men and women are much more similar
        • Women go out to work (but may be part-time)
        • Men help with housework and childcare
        • Spent leisure time together
      • More common among younger couples who are geographically and socially isolated and better off
      • Reasons for the change includes:
        • Change in the position of women
        • Geographical mobility
        • New technolog and labour-saving devices
        • Higher standards of living
    • Oakley: the rise of the houswife
      • Inequality has come from patriarchy
        • Women hold a subordinate and dependent role in family and society
      • Criticises Young and Willmott's exaggerated claims
        • The husbands helped once or twice, but this isn't symmetry
        • Men only helped with pleasurable parts of childcare for example
          • Boulton (1983) fewer than 20% of men have a maor role in childcare
      • Warde and Hetherington (1993
        • Men would only carry out female routine taks when partners are not around
        • However, there is a small change among younger men

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