Are couples becoming more equal?

Parsons 2 roles of a couple:

1. The husband has an instrumental role, geared towards achieving success at work so that he can provide for the family financially. He is the breadwinner.

2. The wife has an expressive role, geared towards primary socialisation of the children and meeting the family’s emotional needs. She is the homemaker, a full-time housewife rather than a wage earner.

   1. Parsons argues that this division of labour is based on biological differences, with women ‘naturally’ suited to the nurturing role and men to that of provider.

Who criticised Parsons?

1. Wilmott and Young (1962) argue that men are now taking a greater share of domestic tasks and more wives are becoming wage earners.

2. Feminist sociologists reject Parsons’ view that the division of labour is natural. In addition, they argue that it only benefits men.

Botts two roles of a couple + sociologist example:

• Segregated conjugal roles, where the couple have separate roles: a male breadwinner and a female homemaker/carer, as in Parsons’ instrumental and expressive roles. Their leisure activities also tend to be separate.

• Joint conjugal roles, where the couple share tasks such as housework and childcare and spend their leisure time together.

Wilmott and Young in their study of traditional working-class extended families in Bethnal Green, east London, in the 1950s. Men were the breadwinners. They played little part in home life and spent their leisure time with workmates in pubs and working men’s clubs. Women were full-time housewives with sole responsibility for housework and childcare, helped by their female relatives. The limited leisure women had was also spent with female kin.

How do Wilmott and Young view the family?

They take a ‘march of progressive view’. They see family life as gradually improving for all its members, becoming more equal and democratic. They argue that there has been a long-term trend away from segregated conjugal roles and towards joint conjugal roles and the ‘symmetrical family’. By the symmetrical family they mean one in which the roles of husbands and wives, although not identical, are now much more similar:

• Women now go out to work, although this may be part- time rather than full-time.

• Men now help with housework and childcare.

• Couples now spend their leisure time together instead of separately with workmates or female relatives.

Feminist sociologist criticism of Wilmott and Young

Oakley critics Wilmott and Youngs ‘March of Progressive View’. She argues that their claims are exaggerated. In her own research on housewives, only 15% of husbands had a high level of participation in housework, and only 25% had a high level of participation in childcare. Husbands were more likely to take on the pleasurable roles of childcare such as leisure time.

She also argued women have to take on the dual burden which is having to be responsible of paid and emotional work outside and inside the home.

Sullivan’s statistics on the family role dynamics.

Sullivan’s (2000) analysis of nationally representative data collected in 1975, 1987 and 1997 found a trend towards women doing a smaller share of the domestic work and men doing more. Her analysis also showed an increase in the number of couples with an equal division of labour and that men were participating more in traditional ‘women’s’ tasks.

Who built on from Oakley’s ‘dual burden’ idea?

Duncombe and Marsden (1995) argue that women have to perform a ‘triple shift’ of housework, paid work and emotion work.

The British Surveys statistics on changes of attitudes on British traditional labour

The British Social Attitudes survey (2013) found a fall in the number of people who think it is the man’s job to earn money and the woman’s job to look after home and family.

In 1984, 45% of men and 41% of women agreed with this view,

But by 2012 only 13% of men and 12% of women agreed.

Crompton and Lyonette (2008) two different explanations for the unequal division of labour.

The cultural or ideological explanation of inequality.

In this view, the division of labour is determined by patriarchal norms and values that shape the gender roles in our culture. Women perform more domestic labour simply because that is what society expects them to do and has socialised them to do.

The material or economic explanation of inequality. In this view, the fact that women generally earn less than men means it is economically rational for women to do more of the housework and childcare while men spend more of their time earning money.