are couples becoming more equal

Emotion work and triple shift

• devault = women do emotion work - managing feelings, relationships, keeping family happy

• Duncombe and marsden = women have a triple shift - housework, paid work and emotional work. Women do all men dont.

• Men may help but women hold the responsibility / mental load - planning, organising, remembering

The march of progress view

• Men are becoming more involved in housework and childcare just as women becoming more involved in paid work outside the home

• Roles are becoming more equal overtime

• Gershuny = women working full time is leading to more equal division of labour

• Sullivan = collected data from 1975- 1997. Found trends in women doing less domestic work and men doing more traditional women’s tasks

• Evidence = in 2012 men did 8 hours of housework a week , whereas women did 13

Feminist perspective

• equality is a myth, change is tiny and women still carry main burden

• Oakley - symmetrical family is exaggerated - men help occasionally but women still take main responsibility

• Dual burden - women work full time and still do most housework and childcare

• Allan - qualitative differences = men do fun tasks e.g DIY, women do never ending work which is boring and less satisfying

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