Sociology - Couples (DDOL)

Sociology - Couples (DDOL)

1. Domestic division of labour

   • The way tasks and jobs (labour) are shared (division) between men and women in the home (domestic)

2. Talcott Parsons

   • Roles of men and women in the family were separate which was normal and natural. And that men and women are suited to different domestic roles within the familiy
     • Husband - instrumental role
       • Achieving success, providing financially - Breadwinner
     • Wife - expressive role
       • Primary socialisation of children, Family's emotional needs - Homemaker
   • believes DDOL is based on biological differences- women naturally suited to the nurturing role and men to be the bread winner

3. Elzabeth Bott

   • Distinguishes between two types of conjugal (domestic) roles
     • Seperated conjugal roles
       • clear and distinct separate roles - male breadwinner, female housemaker within a couple
     • Joint conjugal roles
       • The couple share tasks (housework and childcare) and spent leisure time together

4. Bethnal Green

   • Young and willmott
     • 1950s
       • studied traditional working-class extended families in bethnal green
         • indentified a pattern of separated conjugal roles; male breadwinners playing little part in homelife, women full time housewives spending time at home doing housework and childcare
     • 1970s
       • revisited Bethnal green and took a 'march of progress' view.
         • Saw family life becoming equal and democratic
           • trend from segregated towards conjugal roles and symmetrical families.
             • symmetrical families - husband and wife roles aren't indentical but now are more similar
               • Women now go to work
               • Men help more with house work and childcare
               • Couples spend their leisure time together
               • common in younger families, geographically and socially isolated and who had more money
               • 72% of males did housework over washing up
     • Evaluating
       • the sharing of childcare and housework within a family has been a subject of controversy and criticism
       • much research has been done to assess inequality withing marriage but there is no agreed idea on how it can be measured

5. Oakley

   • A feminist view of Housework
     • they argue little has changed and women still do the majority of housework and childcare
     • Ann Oakley has been one of the most vocal critics of young and willmott, particularly the way they conducted their research
       • she believed that their research was based upon one simple, badly designed question - ' do you/ your husband help at least once a week with any household jobs like washing up, making beds, ironing, cooking or cleaning?'
         • as oakley claimed that by Y and W standards a symmetrical family could include a man who simply took the bins out once a week.
   • Oakley's research
     • She studied 40 married women who had 1 or more children under 5, who were british and aged between 20-30. half were middle class, half working class and all in London
       • findings - greater equality in allocation of domestic tasks between couples in the middle class than in the working class, and only a few marriages overall were described as equals. in only 15% of cases men had high participation in housework
         • Improvements of the study
           • Ask married men too
           • Ask parents with children over 5
           • Ask people of different ages
           • Ask a variety of classess
           • Recent research in the 90s by Warde and Hetherington found that sex-typing of domestic tasks remains strong.
             • wives are 30 times more likely to have been the last person to do the washing up whereas husbands are only 4 times more likely to be the last person to wash the car

6. Impact of paid work

   • 1970s women where full time housewives and households today have a 2nd income from a wifes full or part time week
   • Women taking on a 'dual burden' of paid work and domestic labour
   • A more equal division of domestic tasks and joint conjugal roles with the emergence of a 'new man'