Examine the view that the distribution of domestic tasks between family members has become more equal.

Willmott and Young agree with the statement that distribution of domestic tasks between family members have become equal. During the 1970's they announced the arrival of the symmetrical family, a family in which the roles of husband and wife were similar. They stated that in the home the couple 'shared their work and shared their time'. Husbands were seen to be increasingly helping with domestic chores, child rearing and decision making about family life. Willmott and Young found that 72% of husbands helped with these household tasks. They argued that the change from segregated to joint conjugal roles results mainly from the withdrawal of the wife from her relationships with female kin, and the drawing of the husband into the family circle. Conversely, Young and Willmott found the symmetrical family was common amongst middle class families but not working class families but they believed that eventually the working class would become symmetrical.

However many sociologists, such as Ann Oakley and Edgel, have carried out research into conjugal roles, have found little evidence that couples share equal division of domestic tasks. Ann Oakley criticises this view of Willmott and Young who had claimed that 72% of husbands were taking equal roles regarding the domestic chores. In 1974 Ann Oakley pointed out that included in this figure were husbands who did very little, only had to perform one household chore a week. During the 1970's she collected information on 40 married women who had one child or more under the age of 5 and were themselves aged between 20 and 30. Half of her sample was working class and half was middle class. She found greater equality for domestic tasks in the middle class than in the working class. However in both classes few men had a high level of participation in housework and childcare. She found that most wives saw these jobs as their own responsibility, where only 15% of men in marriages participated in them at a high level. Oakley says that the symmetrical family does not exist and that families are still patriarchal.

In summary, sociologists that have conducted research on the sharing of domestic chores between the family and have had contrasting opinions. I disagree that the domestic tasks have become equally shared within a family, therefore agreeing with Ann Oakley.