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Introduction

Introduction Conjugal roles are the tasks typically taken up by husband and wife in the household. My sociology coursework is about the segregated conjugal roles between men and women in a household. My main aim is to find out if household tasks are shared equally between men and women in the house. In 1957, E.Bott analysed conjugal roles in the household. He studied 128 working and middle class couples and found that women were left to do most of the housework and therefore there was a clear division of labour between who carries out the household tasks. However, more recently, in 1970 Young and Willmott found that this was changing and that joint conjugal roles existed. They believed that men and women both helped around the house and this was called the "symmetrical family." However, there was conflict feminists did not agree with Young and Willmott's theory. They said that although men were helping out around the house more, the main responsibilities were still with the women and that there was a clear division between what is seen as a women's job and a mans job. Foe example, gardening is still seen as a job that should be done by men. In my coursework, I am going to find out: * How household tasks are shared between couples. * Whether there is still existence of "men's jobs" and "women's jobs." * If men are helping are they taking sole responsibility or are the duties shared? My hypothesis is women and men both do work around the house however; women are seen as responsible for making sure that it is all done. I also think that the duties will not be soul duties but will be shared between the husband and wife and that there will still be prejudices of what household tasks are seen for men and which ones are specific for women. ...read more.

Middle

This shows that this duty is shred between the husband, wife and brothers/sisters. QUESTION: Done by... Q no. Job Husband Wife Shared Task Children Other (please state) 14 Cleaning 15 Cooking 16 Washing the dishes 17 Washing the clothes 18 Food and Grocery shopping 19 Hoovering 20 Gardening 21 D.I.Y 22 Washes car 23 Look after pets 24 Look after elderly These Graphs show that most wives do the cleaning, cooking, wash the dishes and clothes, the food and grocery shopping, hoovering and look after elderly people. They also show that men do help out. Most men do the gardening, D.I.Y and wash the car. These are jobs that are seen to be done typically by men. QUESTION: What electrical appliances do you own? Dishwasher 6 Washing Machine 7 Dryer 4 Hoover 9 Computer 5 Lawnmower 5 This shows that many people have electrical appliances that make housework easier. QUESTION What age group(s) do you both fit into? Lower class 0 Lower middle class 1 Middle Class 6 Upper middle class 3 Upper class 0 How long have you been married? What ethnic group(s) do you belong to? Which of the following classes would you place your family in? Yes 6 No 4 Do you have any children? If yes, how many live in the same household as you? Do you and your partner have jobs? Do either of you have medical issues/ disability/ bad health that prevent you from doing housework? Who do you think spends most time at home? Who does most of the household tasks in you home? In your home, do you think that the way you share household tasks is fair? Who is responsible for picking the children up and dropping them off to school? Whose duty is it to help the children with their homework? Done by... Q no. Job Husband Wife Shared Task Children Other (please state) ...read more.

Conclusion

These show that the jobs that were typically known to be done by men still are. To show if the household tasks are sole duties or shared duties, I have the following information. Only a small 10% of couple's share the cleaning, gardening and washing up, 20% of couple share the shopping. Only 9% of people share the job of washing the car. This shows that most of the time the duties that are done are soul duties. This disproves part of my hypothesis. My observations also show that women do more housework than men although they work similar hours. My secondary data supports my primary data. All three sources show that women do more housework than males an that the stereotypical jobs still exist and the "new man" does not exist. Conjugal roles in the home are still segregated and are mainly done by women. Women are responsible for making sure that it is all done. This supports my hypothesis. The duties done are soul duties and are not shared between partners. This disproves part of my hypothesis. The prejudices of what household tasks should be done by men and women still exist and are correct. Evaluation All the information that I collected was useful and helped me to prove or disprove my hypothesis. I answered all my aims successfully and found that part of my hypothesis was correct. However, some of it was incorrect. I could say that my results were accurate because they were supported by my secondary research. To increase the accuracy I could have had more respondents to my questionnaires and also had more observations. I could also have done interviews. However, I have to ensure that the questions I ask are not humiliating for the respondent and are not too personal. A weakness of my study that it is only research into my local area and therefore cannot be used to show what how household tasks are shared in other parts of the world. I think that I resolved ethical issues well and avoided bias by using three different questionnaires. ...read more.

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our AS and A Level Sociological Differentiation & Stratification section.