I am going to carry out twenty questionnaires and two interviews. I will carry out twenty questionnaires because most of my information (data) would have come from them and I will carry out two interviews because this will give me an inside view and feeling to domestic labour and equal rights. By doing questionnaires and interviews this would give me both closed and open questions. By doing this I was able to get viewpoints from respondents and how they felt about domestic labour and equal rights.
I targeted my questionnaires at teenagers, my age because my questionnaires were based on teenagers living at home with their parents. I chose this age group because I was able to get the most information about who in the household does the most domestic labour and do they have joint conjugal roles where they share tasks between them. I chose a random of different races, so it would give a fair. The larger the sample the results will be more accurate and reliable and will able to make better generalisations from it. My sample was a random sample to ensure the sample is representative e.g. age, ethnicity, gender. This allows us to make comparisons and generalisations.
In my questionnaires I selected ten boys and ten girls, so the gender factor was fair. In my research I chose the methods questionnaires and interviews because I found that if I didn’t get enough opinions in my questionnaires, I was able get more feed back from the interviews. If I was able to get enough feed back from the questionnaires, then I would have done the interviews unstructured.
There are both advantages and disadvantages in using questionnaires. There are two types of questions you can ask, “Open” and “closed” questions.
Advantages of Open Questions:
- Get a personal response on peoples views, and if it happened to people before.
- More specific, so they can express their personal opinions. It would be fairer to check their answers by asking them a closed question and whether their answers are true or not.
Disadvantages of Open questions:
- People can lie about the things you ask them. The problem with this is that the results are not accurate and that there will be so much information/material, which isn’t very easy to evaluate from. It takes to long (time factor) and takes even longer.
Advantages of Closed questions:
- More reliable
- Easier to get a straight answer from
- Simple and easy for person to fill in
- Very quick
- Easier to evaluate/categorising-put into different forms (charts)
- Easier to collect statistics (quantify)
Disadvantages of Closed questions:
- Wouldn’t get enough information (material)
- Respondents might have a problem in answering “yes” or “no”
- Respondents can’t express themselves enough, so information is locked (hidden away)
There are both advantages and disadvantages to interviews. There are two types of interviews you can have; they are “formal” or “informal” interviews.
Advantages of Formal interviews:
More structured, the interviewer asks each respondent the same questions in the same order (standardised questions.)
- Results can be checked, the interview can be repeated to verify the results
- The interviewer does not play a role
Disadvantages of Formal interviews:
- With closed questions respondents can’t explain their views. They can only say yes and no. This doesn’t really explain their views
Advantages of Informal interviews:
- Open ended questions allows the interviewee to speak freely
- Questions are not fixed, so the interviewer can then follow up a lead and probe beneath the surface.
Disadvantages to informal interviews:
- The information can’t be checked since an informal interview can’t be duplicated.
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There could be an interviewer who is biased- either the interviewer could influence the respondent by their tone of voice or follow up questions.
- The respondent could give answers wanting to please the interviewer.
Interviewer biased: The age, sex, race, accent, and appearance of the interviewer may influence the respondent. Interviewers should be trained to avoid bias, but an interview is an artificial situation respondent may give answers that aren’t genuine. This obviously affects the validity of the findings.
Some of the methods I didn’t use, e.g. “Participant Observation,” because it is very time consuming, therefore expensive, also difficult to gain access because if you use someone, their behaviour might change if they know who you are and I am a full time student. You might become sympathetic to the group and this might influence your findings, which would then become invalid. You might be in danger, if you are covert and people find out, difficult to write down details if you are covert, therefore you are selecting (i.e. bias.)
I didn’t use the method of “experiments” because, expensive, are a small scale (experiments can’t be carried out on large groups). They are unethical (they can involve deceiving people or putting them into stressful situations) and the experiment effect people meaning that people know they are participating in an experiment and they may behave differently.
The problems that I came across were that certain type of people wouldn’t fill in the questionnaires, so I had to find people like that and tried to make them fill in the questionnaire. Another problem I faced was that people wouldn’t give their reasons to why they chose that answer, so I had to try and get them to fill out the questionnaire properly before they were allowed to go. Question six respondents didn’t fully understand it; so for question six in my questionnaires I told the respondents that it is linked to doing housework.
The secondary method I used was the internet and newspaper. I used the internet to find out my secondary research because I was able to find articles on domestic labour, which are up to date. This means that the articles are valid, so we can make generalisations from it and compare it to my hypothesis and see whether it proves my hypothesis is right. With the use of these secondary resources, they are updated everyday, meaning that the resources that I have chosen are reliable and to see the claim that I have made is true or not.
Results:
Mum 14
Dad 2
Mum and dad 4
From the pie chart we can see that mostly the “mums” do the most house work in the house, then “mum and dad” and finally “dads.” From this we can see that women are still being left at home and they are to do the housework.
The pie chart shows that 70% of “mums” out of my questionnaires do the most house in the household, like in the old days. Mrs P Johnson quote, “yes, gender roles still exist.”
20% out of my questionnaires “mums and dads” do the housework together, meaning that they share domestic tasks in the home. This shows that women have seen that men and women have equal rights, so women have gone out to get jobs and got their husbands to help in the house as well.
Finally 10% out of my questionnaire do the “dads,” do the domestic labour, meaning the majority of the housework is don e by men. Overall, from this pie chart I can say that women still the majority of the housework stereotypical gender roles predominate. Also that men still do the least amount of housework in the household because they are seen to be the breadwinner of the household and it is the women’s job to look after the home while the men go out and work. Form my results I can say that more men and women spend doing domestic tasks are increasing. This shows that gender roles are now changing and those men women are seen as equal in the house or at work. Also men and women are forgetting about stereotypical gender roles and are moving forwards together.
Mum 2
Dad 4
Mum and dad 14
Before men were the gender that went out to work and earned money while the women stayed at home cooking, cleaning, looking after the children and looking after the home. Now things have changed and those women are getting jobs higher-class jobs than men are in some cases. From my results, I can see that less and less that men are working and women are staying at home. 70% of men and women go out and work full time or part time and earn a living. This show that women have seen that they are more capable as men are and can do the same jobs as men or even better than men at the same jobs.
Yes 10
No 10
From my results I say see that half the children do get pocket money and the other half don’t get any pocket money. Therefore I can say that parents are given there children money if they help to do chores in the house. This shows changes in gender roles that boys aren’t supposed just to go to work but they are supposed to help out in the house, so this encourages the boys to help out. Doing chores in the house is not expected by boys but supposed to be expected by girls, because of the gender roles that given to boys and girls. Parents give their children pocket money as an incentive to do housework because when their parents were their age they used to do more housework at the same age, meaning that gender roles has changed over the years.
Evaluation:
My results support my hypothesis that I discovered that women still do the majority of the housework because people believe that gender roles still predominate within families. I think this still applies because women think they are expected to do the housework, from the generations above have done this for years. This is saying that they should carry on with the same routine as their parents or grandparents did when they were their age.
People believe now that husband and their wife should help out each other with domestic tasks because they see that it is a bonding process and the relationship is strong.
Now day’s men and women go out to work to earn money for their family because they feel that they are contributing to the family. More and more women have started getting jobs over the years because women have seen that they are capable of doing the same things as men or even better than men. In some families the women are the breadwinners and they bring money into the home.
In some families parents are now paying their children pocket money for doing chores in the house. Originally only girls were supposed to help out in the home but now boys are now helping out to. This shows that gender roles are changing and that boys and girls are doing things that they wouldn’t have done before.
Parents are doing these things because when they were at their age they used to help out more in the home than they do at the same age. By this the parents are trying to get their children to help out and not to get bored and do something useful. Children find the housework boring and a waste of time because; children aren’t uses to it and don’t want to do it either.
People believe that there isn’t anymore gender role stereotyping on television anymore because they think it is illegal and over the years gender role have changed, so the message given out will be of no use to the public.
Overall, I found that women still do the majority of the housework, that men and women are the breadwinners of the home and that parents are paying their children to do chores in the home. This has happened because gender roles have changed and people’s views to men and women are equal and not different.
Over the years this has changed due to change in people’s attitudes towards women, the change in how they see women as equal and that women are capable of doing the same things as men and that bonding between the families takes place in the home by sharing domestic tasks.
In my secondary research I found that my secondary research supported what I found in my primary research. In my secondary research I found that women still do the majority of the housework and that boys are paid more than girls are for doing chores. The similarities I found was that my secondary research supported my primary research. So if my primary research and my secondary research prove my hypothesis is correct then my results must be correct as well. If my secondary information is up to date and supports my hypothesis and my primary research means what I found out those women still does the majority of the housework, means that they still do the majority today. In my secondary information a news article by John Carvel a social affairs officer found out that boys are being paid more than girls, for the same type chores. This may be because it is not expected from boys to do chores from peer pressures and how they had been socialised from a young age when taught the norms and values of society. In primary research I found that half of the people I gave questionnaires I gave said I do get pocket money and the other half didn’t get pocket money. This may be because in some families, parents believe that their children, boys and girls should be helping out with chores. This shows that, parents’ views to gender roles have changed over the years and to start thinking fairly. However, on the other hand some families believe it is not right for gender to change because they feel that their children should carry on with the tradition that have gone on for generations.
Conclusion
Overall, my hypothesis was correct. I would do the research again but differently to get more information, to make better generalisations and representations. In stead of using interviews and questionnaires, I could use participant observation. Participant observation is when a researcher joins the group and acts as one of them. There are two types of observation, covert and overt observation. Covert is where the researcher does not tell the group members that he/she is a researcher. Overt is where the researcher is completely open about the research.
Advantages of participant observation
- No hypothesis-you can go into your research with an open mind.
- Micro-sociology- you can find out about people might not know about.
- You can understand why people do what they do
Disadvantages of participant observation
- Very time consuming
- Difficult to gain access
- Difficult to write down details if you are covert
- Problem of ethics
Bibliography
3rd edition
By Stephen Moore
- Boys paid more for chores
Collins educational
By Pauline Wilson, Alan Kidd
Summary of the two articles
Boys paid more for chores
This article supports my hypothesis, in that change roles and tasks have changed over the years. More and more boys are involved in doing chores around the house and paid more, which is shown in this article. I think boys are paid more than girls in doing chores because it is not expected from boys to do house work. As the boys are getting paid more, this encourages them to do more in the home and help out. In the article it says ‘children did fewer chores than they did at the same age.’ From this I can conclude, that now less children are doing chores, this maybe why boys are paid more to do chores. It is seen that chores are stereotypically female gender roles and not boys gender roles, this maybe why parents are encouraging their children to do chores for pocket money.
Working up sweat
This article is up to date, so it allows us to make representations from. “Men spending more time in paid work…women spending more time working in the home.” From this quote it is giving us the impression that men are still the ‘bread-winners’ of the household. It also says that women are still doing the majority of the house work and that stereotypical gender roles predominate. “British household panel survey,” is relevant because the research carried out is reliable and accurate.
“Differences between the amount of time men and women spend in domestic and paid works are narrowing.” Men are now helping with domestic labour and are forgetting about stereotypical gender roles. That female’s attitudes are changing. Couples are thinking of sharing house work more equally, “shared and household load more equally.”
