Tag: domestic division of labour

Home working reinforces traditional domestic roles…

but flexible work hours leads to more gender equality at home.

An analysis of six years of longitudinal data from between 2010 and 2016 has found that home working reinforces a traditional gendered division of domestic labour while flexible working leads to a more equal domestic arrangement. 

The research analysed data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2010-2016) which surveyed 1700 working parents with at least one child aged under 12.

Overall, women spend more than twice as long as men doing housework. Women reported doing 13.4 hours of housework a week on average, men reported doing an average of 5.5; while 54% of women reported being primarily responsible for childcare.  

Further data analysis adjusted the stats for income, education level, ethnicity, age and neighbourhood to isolate the effect of working from home on childcare and housework.

Fathers working from home were half as likely to report they were sharing child care compared to those who were not working from home, with men fearing they may lose their masculinity when taking on more routine tasks.

Whereas women working from home were twice as likely to report they were primarily responsible for childcare compared to those who were not working from home. 

The effect was greater for lower income couples: women doing low income jobs at home spent proportionately more time doing domestic work than women in higher income jobs. 

graphs showing how gender equality at home changes with working from home and flexible working hours.

Flexible working hours led to a more equal gendered division of labour

Flexitime, where men and women have some degree of control over their working hours (days of the week/ start and finish times) led to a more equal division of domestic labour. 

Conclusions and relevance

The broad conclusions are that working from home does not benefit women, but flexible working arrangements do, so if we want to see a more equal division of labour and childcare we want to push for more flexible working hours, not necessarily more home-working hours! 

You need to be careful when using this research as the results are open to interpretation.

If we just allow men and women to work at home then this reinforces traditional gendered divisions of labour. This suggests that if the domestic sphere is further isolated from society this results in ‘patriarchal norms’ being reinforced. This seems to suggest support for the radical feminist view that the isolated, privatised nuclear family is oppressive to women: as they end up doing more domestic labour, men end up doing less when both partners do more paid work from home.

HOWEVER, the fact that more flexible working hours results in more gender equality in how domestic chores are divided offers support for liberal feminism: when men and women are both working but more flexibly, this breaks down the oppressive traditional division of labour, but this requires men and women to be out at work.

Overall, it suggests that a good social policy change would be to introduce more flexible working hours in general, but that pushing for more home based working isn’t such a good idea, if we are interested in more gender equality at home that is!

Limitations of this research

One limitation of this survey is the relatively low sample sizes for those home working and doing flexitime. 

Only 7% of men used working from home arrangements, and only 5% of women. Only 15% of women used flexitime, and only 11% men. 

This means with a sample size of 1700, only around 50 men would have been working from home in that sample, and once you control for income, location, and ethnicity you have some very small sub-samples, for example. 

Sources and Signposting

Heejung Chung and Cara Booker (August, 2022) Work, Employment and Society: Flexible Working and the Division of Housework and Childcare: Examining Divisions across Arrangement and Occupational Lines.

This material is mainly relevant to the families and households module, usually taught as part of the first year within A-level sociology.

How equal are men and women in relationships these days? Student survey results

Women who do the lioness’s share of the housework, but men and women seem to have equal control over the finances, at least according to two surveys conduct by my A Level sociology students last week.

This acts as a useful update to the topic of power and equality within relationships, especially the ‘domestic division of labour’ aspect.

I actually did two surveys this week with the students this week, both on Socrative.

For the first survey, I simply asked students via Socrative, who did most of the domestic work when they were a child (mostly mother or mostly father – full range of possible responses are in the results below), with ‘domestic work’ broken down into tasks such as cleaning, laundry, DIY etc…

For the second Survey, I got students to write down possible survey questions on post it notes, then I selected 7 of them to make a brief questionnaire which they then used as a basis for interviewing three couples about who did the housework.

Selected results from the initial student survey on parents’ housework

These results were based on students’ memory!

Housework survey 2018

Housework survey 2018 DIY

Selected results from the second survey

based on student interviews with couples

Domestic labour questionnaire 2018

men women finances survey 2018

Discussion of the validity of the results…..

These two surveys on the domestic division of labour (and other things) provided a useful way into a discussion of the strengths and limitations of social surveys more generally….we touched on the following, among other things:

  • memory may limit validity in survey one
  • lack of possible options limits validity in survey two, also serves as an illustration of the imposition problem.
  • asking couples should act as a check on validity, because men can’t exaggerate if they are with their partner.
  • there are a few ethical problems with the ‘him’ and ‘her’ categories, which could be improved upon.

Postcript – on using student surveys to teach A-level sociology

All in all this is a great activity to do with students. It brings the research up to date, it gets them thinking about questionnaire design and, if you time it right, it even gets them out of the class room for half an hour, so you can just put yer feet up and chillax!

If you want to use the same surveys the links, which will allow you to modify as you see fit, are here:

 

Gender equality in the domestic division of labour

Who does the housework? Men or Women?

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 mens 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.

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.

Historic Evidence of gender inequality in the domestic division of labour

Despite the changes with lockdown, historically there is considerable evidence that women doing more housework and childcare than men!

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.

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 doing 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.

However, Radical 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’.

Longer term trends in gender and housework:

Below is some more historic data!

A 2014 survey by the BBC’s Women’s Hour found women devote well over the equivalent of a working day each week to household chores. Women spent an average of 11-and-a-half hours doing housework by their own estimation, while men completed just six.

Source – Chore Wars Poll

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?

Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com

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