My sociology coursework is about the segregated conjugal roles between men and women in a household.

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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.

Methodology

To prove my hypothesis and answer the aims I will design three different questionnaires. The three questionnaires will be for the following people:

  1. 10 married couples that are living together to fill out together.
  2. 5 husbands to fill out individually.
  3. 5 wives to fill out individually.

I am doing different questionnaires to avoid bias. When married couples are participating in my survey together, they may be entirely honest just to please the partner. If I had just asked partners separately again there is a chance of them being biased by making it sound as though they are doing a lot of housework. Therefore, I have decided to question people individually as well as other people together with their partners. I can then compare my results and I will notice the bias. I will try to question people of different age groups and also ethnic groups. However, this may be difficult because my survey is specific to my local area which is predominately Asian.

My questionnaires will include open and closed questions. I will use closed questions like “who does most of the household tasks in the home?” this question is multiple choice and has a limited number of possible answers. These types of questions are easier to analyse and compare. I will also ask some open ended questions, however the majority will be closed. Open ended questions are good to use because they are more accurate and the respondents can answer them giving as much or little detail as they feel comfortable revealing about their household duties.

The questionnaires will be self-completion questionnaires. I am aware that they have a lower response rate and also sometimes problems occur when there are misunderstandings of questions. I prefer to use this method because I feel that most people will be willing to complete a questionnaire regarding housework but they may not be comfortable participating in an interview on the subject. There will be less embarrassment for the respondent of having to admit to not doing any housework. A questionnaire also allows time for the respondent to think. Also, my questionnaires need to be completed by married couples, knocking on the door of someone you do not know and asking many questions may be daunting to the respondent. There are possibilities that the respondent can have hearing difficulties, not be married or not speak English. If I post the questionnaires I can then go and collect them a few days later. I understand that I cannot expect people to fill in the questionnaire straight away because they may be busy or there partners may not be around. I also know that there may be a low response rate as some people may not be at home and others may not fit the criteria of my respondents or as I mentioned previously have difficulties in reading and writing English. Therefore I should be prepared to ask other members of the local community to fill them in.

Join now!

I will use a random sample to decide who is going to participate in my survey. I will the map of the local area on the next page to choose 10 streets. I will start from Barnes Close and chose streets around that area. I will then use the Leicester City Council planning application database to search for homes on that street. I will choose the first house and the last house on the database which means that everyone has an equal chance of being chosen.

Questionnaire – Results

When I went to collect my questionnaire a ...

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