Couples

The Domestic Division of Labour

Functionalism:
- Parsons identifies the instrumental (breadwinner, male) and expressive (nurturer, female) role which is functional for the family & wider society.
March of Progress:
- Bott identified segregated (gender division of labour) and joint (share domestic tasks & leisure) conjugal roles.
- Young & Willmott identifies the symmetrical family with a long-term trend towards joint conjugal roles & the symmetrical family as women now rok, men help with housework & childcare, and couples spend their leisure time together due to major social charges.
Feminism:
- See the family is patriarchal and not symmetrical or equal as women still do most of the housework & childcare.
- Oakley - no evidence of symmetry in domestic labour & the men's role was exaggerated.
- Boulton - need to look at who is responsible for tasks not just who performs them.

1 of 4

March of Progress view:
- Most women are in paid work leading to a more equal division of domestic labour.
- Sullivan - women now do less domestic work, men do more traditional 'women's' tasks & more couples have an equal division of labour.
Feminist view:
- Women now carry a dual burden of paid work & domestic work.
- Dex & Ward - only 1% of fathers took the main responsibility for caring for a sick child.
- Duncombe & Marsden - women perform a triple shift of emotion work, domesic labour & paid work.
Explaining the Gender Division of Labour:
- Patriarchal cultural norms shape gender roles - Gershuny couples are adapting to women working full time establishing a new norm of men doing more domestic work.
- Women earn less than men so it is economically rational for them to do more domestic labour - Arber & Ginn better-paid women buy products & services e.g. childcare & cleaner.
Same-sex Couples & Gender Scripts:
- Dunne - lesbain couples have a more equal division of labour as they don't link household tasks to gender scripts whereas heterosexual couples are socialised into set roles & identities.

2 of 4

Decision Making and Paid Work:
- Men take a greater share of resources & have a bigger say in dicsions as they earn more.
- Pahl & Vogler identifies the allowance system (men work & give their non-working wives an allowance to budget to meet the family's needs) and pooling (joint responsibility for spending).
- There has been an increase in pooling in recent years but Vogler found that men still make major decisions.
Professional Couples and Decision Making:
- Edgell - very important decsions made by the husband, important decisions made jointly, & less importatn decisions made by the wife.
- Men have more power as they earn more, whereas women are economically dependent.
- Feminists argue that gender role socialisation in patriarchal society instils the idea that men are the decision-makers.
The Personal Life Perspective on Money:
- Nyman - different couples give money different meaning which reflect the nature of the relationship.
- Smart - same sex couples are less likely to see the control of money as meaning either equality or inequality as they don't enter the relationship with the same 'heterosexual baggage of cultural meanings' that see money as a source of power.

3 of 4

Domestic Violence Statistics:
- The British Crime Survey estimate that there are 6.6 million assaults per year mostly by men against women - nearly one in four women is assaulted by their partner at some time.
- Under-reporting - under a thrid of assaults are reported; Yearnshire suggests that a woman suffers 35 assaults before reporting abuse.
- Under-recording - police are often unwilling to record, investigate or prosecute domestic violence as it is interfering with the 'private sphere' of the family.
Radical Femininst Explanation:
- Domestic violence is the result of patriarchy - men oppress women & benefit from their unpaid domestic labour & sexual services; domestic violence enables men to control women so it is inevitable in a patriarchal society.
- Men also dominate the state, thus explaining shy the police & courts fail to take domestic violence seriously.
- Dobash & Dobash - violence was triggered when husbands felt their authority was being challenged so marriage legitimates violence by giving power to men.
The Materialistic Explanation:
- Children, young people, the poor & lower classes, alcohol & drug users are also at risk.
- Wilkinson & Pickett - result of stress o nthe family caused by social inequality e.g. families that lack resources.
- Ansley - male workers that are exploited at work take out their frustration on their wives.

4 of 4