Division of Labor

1
Division of Labor

• Physical work and symbolic meanings attached to
  work done in the household
• In U.S., defined as the private
  spheretraditionally associated with women and
  unpaid labor
• Split from the public spheretraditionally
  associated with men and paid labor, real work
• Separate spheres doctrine developed with the rise
  of western capitalism, industrialization,
  urbanization and the creation of the middle class

2
Defining household labor

• What gets measured as labor? Definitions of
  household labor not always agreed upon
• Houseworkcleaning, cooking, paying bills
• Both inside/outside house?
• Necessity versus leisure (barbecuingcooking or
  recreation)?
• Child care
• Emotion workemotional care for others

3
Measuring household labor

• Different sociological methods get different
  results
• Time budget studies how much time do people
  spend on which tasks?
• Self-report ask them to keep diaries of
  activities ask them to estimate on an
  hourly--daily, weekly basis ask one member to
  estimate other members time spent (wife to
  husband, husband to wife)
• Detached observation observe them as they spend
  time (detached observation)

4
Gender differences in tasks

• Household labor highly gendered with stereotypes
  matching researchwomen do inside labor, men do
  outside labor
• Tasks are sex-segregated
• Women do more housework than menin 1995 women
  spent 17.5 hours a week (excluding child care),
  men averaged ten hours a week.
• Women do 80 of child care.
• Ethnic differences African American men do more
  household labor than white men except in
  traditional mens labor (outdoor, auto, bills).
  Less stigma to women working outside home
  (historical necessities).

5
Generational changes

• Decreasing gender gap in household labor between
  women and men1965 women averaged more than six
  times hours spent in housework than men, 1995 1.8
  times hours of men
• Longitudinal research shows women spending fewer
  hours doing household labor today than forty
  years ago, men doing more child care
• Women who work for pay do fewer hours of
  household work than full-time homemakers, and
  women part-time workers do less household work
  than full-time workers (p. 136?!)
• Women not spending less time in child caretaking
  time out of doing housework

6
Womens Second Shift

• Arlie Hochschilds ethnographic study of
  household labor she called The Second Shift
  because women work two jobsemployed and at home.
• She estimated women spent 15 hours a week more
  than men on housework, meant working an extra
  month of 24 hour days a year than men
• Men do tasks that involved greater personal
  discretion and more likely to have fixed
  beginning and end (changing oil on car) women do
  tasks of everyday necessity (cooking) with
  childrenmen do interactive tasks (playing) women
  do custodial
• Hochschild found differences between individual
  and family gender ideologies and actual
  practicesdeveloped family myths to account for
  discrepancies.
• Criticism for overgeneralizing from too small
  sample, discounting generational change

7
Relative resource theory

• The resources that a person brings to family
  determines amount of housework timemore resource
  (paid work income) less time spent with converse
  true.
• Wives do less housework and men do more as the
  proportion of family income contributed by the
  wife increases (Bianchi, Schwartz and Blumstein).
• When wives are same age as husbands, they do less
  housework and husbands do more than when wives
  are two or more years younger.
• Criticismhow are these negotiations accomplished?

8
Time studies

• Amount of time spent on tasks determined by time
  availability affected by children and employment
  demands
• Children increase the hours women spend
  performing housework more than mens housework
  hours. Mens participation increases when wives
  not available to do it.
• Earlier research shows divorced women with
  children doing less housework than married women
  suggesting presence of men increases amount of
  housework women do.

9
Family Types

• Blumstein/Schwartz study that looked at four
  types of householdheterosexual married,
  heterosexual cohabiting, gay male, lesbian, found
  married women performed more housework than
  cohabiting women.
• No differences found between married and
  cohabiting men.
• Gay and lesbian households more egalitarian
  although person who brought home more money had
  more power.

10
Interactionist theory

• What meanings do individuals give to actual work
  done?
• People do not give the same meanings to household
  labor that they give to paid labor.
• Do beliefs produce activities or do activities
  produce beliefs?
• Parents in families where housework/childcare
  shared view women and men as more similar than in
  households with less equity where sexes viewed as
  more different.

11
Household roles

• Household roles and ideologies about them develop
  in relation to economic changes. Differ by
  society, history, culture
• In Europe and U.S., with Industrial Revolution
  men went into industrialized workforce and became
  breadwinner, women went into unpaid household
  labor in middle classes and became nurturer
  children became more dependents less
  workers/miniature adults.

12
Mother role

• What makes a good mother? A bad one? Depends
  on culture, diversity in ideologies and practices
• Western feminist critique compulsory
  motherhoodwomen should have kids and take care
  of them. Conservatives critique this critique as
  anti-family or anti-mother.
• Social class differences--McMahon studyworking
  class women saw motherhood as entrance into adult
  status middle class saw motherhood as an
  accomplishment after establishing career as
  marker of adult status, affected timing of
  childbirth
• Afrocentric ideology of motherhood--Importance of
  Black Othermothers (fictive kin) and
  Women-centered networks of social care extends
  meaning of mothering beyond individual family
  into community mothering (Hill Collins)

13
Motherhood wage penalty

• Role conflicts between paid work and unpaid
  family labor for women. Assumption that mothers
  not good employees, not ideal workers
• Employed mothers earn less than non-mothers.
  Estimate wage penalty of about 7 per child.
• Women lose seniority and work experience as
  mothers. Less time at work, less energy for
  work. Explains only 1/3 of wage penalty.
  Accounting for similar experience/seniority,
  mothers earn 4 less than non-mothers.
• Mothers choose jobs that are mother-friendly
  flexible schedules, on-site childcare etc.
• Employers discriminate against mothers, believe
  mothers less committed to jobs thus treat them
  differently than non-mothers (dont promote, keep
  and justify lower salaries, etc).

14
Father role

• What makes a good father? A bad one?
• Can we disentangle breadwinner role from father
  role? Role conflict or role support for
  fatherhood in relation to ideal worker myth.
• Kanter Married men bring two people to the job,
  while married women bring less than one.
  Assumption that married fathers have wives to do
  their work for them (pick up the slack and/or
  contribute to work outcomes?)

15
Mens marriage benefit

• 1992 study 4000 male college profs
  never-married men had lowest salaries, followed
  by men with employed wives, highest salaries and
  achievement levels were men with nonemployed
  wives.
• With employed wives men earned 1000 more a year
  than never-married men with non-employed wives
  earned 2000 more than never-married.

16
His/Her marriage

• Sociologist Jessie Bernard in 1972 argued
  different relationship to marriage for women and
  menhis marriage was not like her marriage.
• Shock theory of marriagemarriage more a shock
  for women than men because women give up more
  independence (lose name), more likely to
  accommodate, more likely to get distressed be
  less happy. Todaysingle men less healthy than
  single or married women. Whose benefits?
• Power theory of marriage those with greater
  resources tend to have more power in the
  relationship and the corollary.

17
Gay families

• Challenge to heteronormative conceptions of
  family
• Conservatives dont recognize legitimacy rights
  of gay parents. U.S. Defense of Marriage Act only
  recognizes marriage between heterosexuals.
• What about where there are two women mothers?
  One biological and one fictive, or two
  non-biological fathers?
• Gay couples share more time together and share
  more interests
• More egalitarian because less gender scripted by
  social gender norms
• Research shows kids of gay parents no more likely
  to be gay than kids of straight parents.
• Problems are discrimination against gays and
  their kids.

18
Raising Gender-Aschematic Children

• Psychologist Sandra Bem says we should seek to
  raise gender-aschematic kids to undermine the
  dominant gender ideologies and stereotypes
• Thinks kids should be taught biology of sex in
  terms of anatomy and reproduction to undermine
  stereotypical cultural correlates of sex as
  definitional of gender (p. 154)
• Teach about variability of individuals within
  groups as compared with small mean differences
  between groups
• Teach cultural relativism and consequences of sex
  discrimination

19
References

• Wharton, Chapter 5
• Philip Blumstein Pepper Schwartz, American
  Couples (1983)
• Arlie Hochschild, The Second Shift (1989)
• Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought
  (2000)
• Abigail Garner, Families Like Mine Children of
  Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is (2004)