Examine the factors affecting the domestic division of labour and power relations between couples.

The first 200 words of this essay...

Examine the factors affecting the domestic division of labour and power relations between couples.

Domestic division of labour is the division of tasks, roles and duties, within the household. With the increased entry of married women into formal employment, sociologists began to look more closely at the processes that linked home and workplace, including the question of whether or not women's increased involvement in paid labour led to a renegotiation of the traditional domestic roles and organization of domestic labour.

A major characteristic of the symmetrical family outlined by Young and Willmott was the degree to which spouses shared domestic work and leisure activities. In Young and Willmott's stage 2 family, conjugal roles were largely segregated. There was a clear cut division of labour between spouses in the household and the husband was relatively uninvolved with domestic chores and raising the children. The wife is associated mainly with her female kin and neighbours and the husband with his male workmates, kin and neighbours. In the stage 3 symmetrical families, conjugal roles become joint, however the wife still has primary responsibility for housework and child rearing, husbands become more involved, often washing clothes, ironing and sharing other domestic