Families and Households (All topics 1-6)

Families and Households

1) Couples

The domestic division of labour-

• Refers to roles men and women play eg housework, childcare, paid work
• Functionalism-
  • Parsons 1955, identifies 2 conjugal (marital) roles: the instrumental role of the male breadwinner and the expressive role of the female care giver
  • argues that this leads to a functional family and is good for wider society and also says its biologically based-women naturally suited to nurturing, men to providing-so everyone benefits from this specialisation
    • however feminists reject this view, says not “natural” and only benefits men. Also its an old view eg same sex marriage not functional then ?
  • The New Right agree with Parsons that the biological division of labour is the best way of organising family life 
• The March of Progress View-
  • sees conjugal roles becoming more equal in modern society, Bott (1957) identifies 2 types: 
    • Segregated conjugal roles: shape division of labour between male breadwinner and female homemaker (like Parsons says), Young and Willmott 1962 found segregated conjugal roles in w/c extended families in London in the 50s 
    • Joint conjugal roles: involve sharing domestic tasks and leisure
  • The Symmetrical family: Young and Willmott 1973 see a long term trend towards joint roles and symmetrical family where roles are more equal eg most women go to work, men help with housework, couples spend leisure time together
    • this is because major social changes in 20th century (Parsons time is the start of social change, Bott sees some, Young and Willmott 20 years later see a lot), eg high living standards, labour saving devices, better housing, women working, smaller families
• Feminism-
  • Reject mach of progress and instrumental/expressive view
  • they see family as patriarchal, not equal, women do everything (housework, childcare)
  • Oakley 1974 found no evidence of symmetry and argues Young and Willmott exaggerate men’s role: husbands did help but very little and not enough “iron their shirts once a week”
  • Boulton 1983 argues that we need to look at who is responsible for tasks, not who performs them, eg women still organise kids going to park even if men take them

Are Couples becoming more equal?

• The March of Progress view (Yes)-
  • sees women in paid work as lading to equal division of domestic labour
  • Sullivan 2000 found women now do less domestic work, men do traditional “women tasks” and couple have an equal division of layout
• The Feminist view (no)-
  • don’t believe women working has led to greater equality, instead they now have a dual burden, paid work and domestic work
  • British Social Attitudes Survey 2013-women do twice as much and couples still divide housework on traditional gender lines, little change since the 1990s
  • Responsibility for children: men do some but others do most including all for children’s well-being. Dex and Ward 2007-1% of fathers took the main responsibility for a sick child, Braun et al 2011-most fathers are background fathers, hold provider ideology and not primary caregiver
  • Responsibility for quality time:women take responsibility for quality time of the family, however late…