The Social Construction of Childhood

The ideas we have about childhood are created by society rather than determined by biological age.

Last Updated on October 4, 2023 by Karl Thompson

Sociologists say that ‘childhood is socially constructed’. This means the ideas we have about childhood are created by society, rather than being determined by the biological age of a ‘child’.

Some of the aspects of childhood which are influenced by society include:

  • The length of childhood and the moment a child becomes an adult
  • The status of children in society – their rights and responsibilities, what legal protections/ restrictions we place on them
  • The general ideas we have about children: for example whether we think they are innocent and in need of protection, or resilient and in need of freedom to explore and develop by themselves.

This post explores some of the evidence for the view that ‘childhood is socially constructed’.

is childhood socially constructed? (mind map)

What is Childhood?

Childhood, ‘the state of being a child’ is often defined in contrast to adulthood.

For example, the Cambridge English dictionary defines a child’ as ‘a boy or girl from time of birth until he or she is an adult’.

More usefully (IMO) The Oxford English dictionary defines a child as a young human being below the age of puberty, or below the age of a legal majority.

Taken together these two definitions show us that childhood can be either biologically determined, ending when someone reaches their biological age of puberty, or it can be socially determined, ending when society says someone is an adult.

In Modern Britain, society determines when childhood ends and that age is currently set at 18, when an individual reaches the age of ‘legal entitlement’.

However, children do not just suddenly become adults at the age of 18. In Britain there is also a very lengthy transition from childhood, through adolescence, into adulthood. Children gradually pick up certain ‘legal entitlements’ as they progress through their teenage years.

For example, children can work from the age of 14, the age of sexual consent is at 16, and the age at which they can drive is 17.

The fact that society determines the age at which childhood ends is part of the reason why sociologists argue that ‘childhood is socially constructed’ – ‘socially constructed’ simply means created by society (rather than by biology).

Ideas associated with childhood

There are a lot of ideas associated with childhood, and how it differs from adulthood. In Modern Britain we tend to think of children as being dependent, naive, innocent, vulnerable, and in need of protection from adults.

We tend to see children as having insufficient experience and knowledge to be able to make good decisions, and we also tend to see them as not being responsible for their actions.

The separation of childhood and adulthood

There seems to be near universal agreement that there are some fundamental differences between adults and children. For example people in most societies seem to agree that

1. Children are physically and psychologically immature compared to adults
2. Children are dependent on adults for a range of biological and emotional needs – Children need a lengthy process of socialisation which takes several years.
3. In contrast to adults, children are not competent to run their own lives and cannot be held responsible for their actions.

In contrast to the period of childhood, one of the defining characteristics of adulthood is that adults are biologically mature, are competent to run their own lives and are fully responsible for their actions.

However, despite broad agreement on the above, what people mean by childhood and the position children occupy is not fixed but differs across times, places and cultures. There is considerable variation in what people in different societies think about the place of children in society.

For this reason, Sociologists say that childhood is socially constructed. This means that childhood is something created and defined by society.

The social construction of childhood in modern British society

Part of the social construction of childhood in modern Britain is that we choose to have a high degree of separation between the spheres of childhood and adulthood. Add in details to the headings below.

1. There are child specific places where only children and ‘trusted adults’ are supposed to go, and thus children are relatively sheltered from adult life.
2. There are several laws preventing children from doing certain things which adults are allowed to do.
3. There are products specifically for children –which adults are not supposed to play with (although some of them do).

All of the above separations between adults and children have nothing to do with the biological differences between adults and children.

Children do not need to have ‘special places’ just for them, they do not need special laws protecting them, and neither do they need specific toys designed for them. We as a society have decided that these things are desirable for children, and thus we ‘construct childhood’ as a being very different to adulthood.

soft play: an example of a child only space.
Soft Play: A Child Only Space!

The Social Construction of Childhood – A Comparative Approach

A good way to illustrate the social construction of childhood is to take a comparative approach. We can look at how children are seen and treated in other times and places other than our own. Four fairly well-known examples of how childhood can vary in other countries include:

  • Child labour
  • Child soldiers
  • Child marriage
  • Religious enslavement

Child Labour

In some cultures children are seen as an ‘economic asset’ and expected to engage in paid work. In Less developed countries children are often seen as a source of cheap/free labour on the farm or in sweat shops where wages can boost family income.

22% of children aged 5 to 17 in the least developed countries are involved in some sort of labour. The percentage rises to 25% in much of Sub-Saharan, West, East, South and Central Africa. 

Many adults in those countries don’t believe children should be in full time education until age 16 like in Western European Countries.

bar chart showing percentage of children aged 5 to 17 in child labour. 2022

Child soldiers

In conflict, typically young teenage boys may be recruited to fight, taking on very serious adult responsibilities several years younger than in ‘western’ societies.

Tens of thousands and children have been recruited as child soldiers, mainly in Western Africa and parts of the MIddle East. The United Nations estimates that almost 8000 children were newly recruited in 2019. 

The countries estimated to have the most child soldiers are currently The Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. It is mostly non-state groups which recruit children into their ranks. 

Obviously the responsibilities that go along with being a soldier are severe, including risking one’s life. Those doing the recruiting don’t regard children as being in need of protection like people in the West do.

Child Marriage

In the Least Developed Countries 11% of girls are married by the time they are 15, and 39% by the time they are 18.

39% of girls don’t have the gradual transition from childhood through youth to adulthood like most girls in Western European cultures do. Adulthood status has started by the age 18 for all of these now fully-fledged women.

In some cases young teenage girls are coerced into marriage without their consent, taking on the duties of a wife or mother younger than 18. This is well-documented in India and Ethiopia, for example.

Bar chart showing percentage of young women married by 15 and 18 years of age.

Religious enslavement

In West Africa, thousands of girls and women have been enslaved by a practice called ‘trokosi’.

Girls as young as seven are given away by their family to pay for the sins of family members. They get forcibly shipped to a shrine, possibly in a foreign country, stripped of their identity, and forced to work as ‘servants of God’.

NB this isn’t to suggest that any of these conceptions are ‘equal’ to our conceptions of childhood in the west. The point is there are plenty of cultures where adults DO NOT think children are ‘in need of protection’ and so on. There are hundreds of millions of adults who believe that childhood should end earlier than 16-18.

Philippe Aries – A Radical View on The Social Construction of Childhood

The historian Philippe Aries has an extreme view on childhood as a social construction. He argues that in the Middle Ages (the 10th to the 13th century) ‘the idea of childhood did not exist’ – children were not seen as essentially different to adults like they are today.

Aries uses the following evidence to support his view…

  • Children were expected to work at a much earlier age.
  • The law often made no distinction between children and adults.

Works of art from the period often just depict children as small adults – they wear the same clothes and appear to work and play together.

In addition to the above Edward Shorter (1975) argues about parental attitudes to children in the Middle ages were very different from today.

  • High infant mortality rates encouraged indifference and neglect, especially towards infants.
  • Parents often neglected to give new born babies names – referring to them as ‘it’ and it was not uncommon to eventually give a new baby a name of a dead sibling.

Aries argues that it is only from the 13th century onwards that modern notions of childhood – the idea that childhood is a distinct phase of life from adulthood – begin to emerge. Essentially Aries is arguing that childhood as we understand it today is a relatively recent ‘invention’.

A Level Sociology Families and Households Revision Bundle

If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my A-Level Sociology Families and Households Revision Bundle:

Families Revision Bundle Cover

The bundle contains the following:

  1. 50 pages of revision notes covering all of the sub-topics within families and households
  2. mind maps in pdf and png format – 9 in total, covering perspectives on the family
  3. short answer exam practice questions and exemplar answers – 3 examples of the 10 mark, ‘outline and explain’ question.
  4.  9 essays/ essay plans spanning all the topics within the families and households topic.

Signposting and Related Posts

The social construction of childhood is one of the major topics taught as part of the A-level sociology families and households module (AQA specification).

Related posts include…

The March of Progress View of Childhood

The Social Construction of Childhood (from the Open University)

The Social Construction of Childhood (from the Junior University)

Sources

Reuters (2021) Child Soldiers
Unicef: Child Labour.
Unicef: Child Marriage
Soft Play Image Source
Children’s Toys Image Source

Gender equality in the domestic division of labour

Domestic work has been distributed more equally since the 1950s, but women still shoulder the majority of housework and childcare responsibilities. Although new technologies and women’s increasing participation in paid work have contributed to balancing the load, there is evidence of a lingering dual burden for women. Factors such as ethnicity, education, and social class also influence these dynamics.

Last Updated on October 3, 2023 by Karl Thompson

Do men and women do equal amounts of housework and child care today or is there evidence of a dual burden for women? What do the trends suggest about women’s empowerment? 

Before reading this post, you might like to read this preceding post: Conceptualising Gender Equality. This post covers some of the concepts sociologists have developed over the years to describe trends towards gender equality in domestic life.

A useful resource for exploring ‘raw data’ on who does the housework is the Understanding Society UK Longitudinal Study.

The domestic division of labour: more equal since the 1950s

  • Numerous surveys carried out since the 1950s show a narrowing of the gender gap in the domestic division of labour.
  • Liberal Feminists and Young and Willmott would argue that more women are in paid work means families become more symmetrical.
  • Another reason for this is the ‘commercialisation of housework. New technologies such as washing machines, hoovers and fridge-freezers (think ready meals) have reduced the amount of housework that needs doing and narrows the gender divide in the domestic division of labour.

Gender inequality in housework just before lockdown

A 2019 study UCL study based on interviews with 8 500 opposite sex couples found that:

  • Women do 16 hours of household chores every week, men do closer to six.
  • Women did the bulk of the domestic chores in 93 per cent of couples .
  • There was a 50-50 split of domestic chores in 6% of couples
  • Only 1% of couples had men doing more domestic work than women.

This work is summarised in this Independent article.

Lockdown narrowed the Gendered Division of Labour Gap

A 2020 study from the ONS found that before Lockdown, in 2104-15, women did 1 hour 50 minutes more housework and childcare per day than men. This reduced to 1 hour and 7 minutes per day during Lockdown.

graph comparing housework done by men and women.

After Lockdown: more inequality

In 2022 women did 30 minutes more housework per day than men. They did one hour more childcare.

Interestingly, men seem to do slightly more housework post-lockdown compared to before lockdown. The difference is less for childcare, which has reverted back to being mainly women.

Housework – Gendered Variations by Ethnicity

A 2016 study found that women do three times as much housework than men in Indian households, and four times as much in Pakistani and Bangladeshi households. This compares to twice as much housework than men in White British and Black British households.

table of stats showing how housework varies by gender and ethnicity.

The study found that gender attitudes and lack of education were predictors of housework imbalance. More educated women in all ethnic groups did proportionately less housework.

Do women who do paid work do less housework than men?

It seems obvious that women going into paid work has resulted in greater equality. As most women are now in paid work this means they have more financial independence than ever before.

The statistics above clearly show that the gendered division of labour has become more equal since the 1950s and this is correlated with women and men doing more similar amounts of housework.

HoweverRadical Feminists argue that paid work has led to the dual burden and triple shift.

Even in relationships where both men and women work women do more housework and childcare than men.

This data seems to support the radical feminist view that paid work has not been ‘liberating’. Instead women have acquired the ‘dual burden’ of paid work and unpaid housework and the family remains patriarchal. Men benefit from women’s paid earnings and their domestic labour. Some Radical Feminists go further arguing that women suffer from the ‘triple shift’ where they have to do paid work, domestic work and ‘emotion work’.

Housework: what chores do men and women do?

We need to go back a bit further in time to get the data.

A survey of almost 1,000 users of the Mumsnet website revealed similar findings:

  • Changing lightbulbs, taking the bins out and DIY were the only three of 54 common domestic tasks done mainly by men.
  • Most often done by female partners were organising playdates, health appointments, childcare and birthday parties, cleaning and laundry. Parents were most likely to view parents evenings, school plays and bedtime stories as shared activities.
  • Justine Roberts, CEO of Mumsnet said: “One in three working mums is the main family wage earner, a rise of one million over the last 18 years… But despite this, women are still busting a gut back home, responsible for the vast majority of chores and domestic responsibilities. It’s not surprising we still talk about glass ceilings and the lack of women at the top. Most of us are just too exhausted to climb the greasy pole.”

According to a 2011 survey by the Social Issues Research Centre, The Changing Face of Motherhood, there has been hardly any change in domestic division of labour over the last 20 years (since the mid 1990s):

  • In 1994 it emerged that for 79 per cent of couples the woman did most or all of the laundry. Partners shared laundry duties in only 18 per cent of cases. The latest survey (in 2011) showed that the proportion sharing the role has only risen by two percentage points. 70 per cent of households still see laundry as women’s work.
  • In the kitchen, there has been virtually no change in the last 10 years. Women still do the lion’s share of the cooking in 55 per cent of couple households.
  • When it comes to tasks such as shopping for groceries, women’s workload has increased slightly the early 1990s. The same is true for cleaning and caring for sick family members.
  • By contrast, 75 per cent of households see DIY as solely men’s work. This is exactly as it was almost 20 years ago

Source.

Analysis – Who does the Housework? Men or Women?

  • Looking at the above statistics it seems reasonable to conclude that Radical Feminist concepts such as the dual burden and the triple shift still apply.
  • We can also conclude that women going into paid work has not yet resulted in total equality in the domestic division of labour.
  • It also seems reasonable to assume that there may be social class differences in the gendered division of labour – the top 10% of households will be in a position to hire cleaners and child care thus reducing the dual burden on middle class, professional women.
  • Another way in which middle class women will be advantaged compared to working class is that because of their husbands’ hire earning power, they will be more able to take time off work to be full time stay at home mums – meaning that they may do more domestic labour, but at least they don’t suffer the dual burden and triple shift.
Signposting and Related Posts

The material above is relevant to the families and households module, usually studied as part of the first year in sociology.

To what extent are gender roles equal?

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