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 week later I only received 18 questionnaires out of the 30 that I had sent. 10 of these questionnaires were from couples that had filled them in together. The other 8 were individual questionnaires. I made a tick list of who I had not received a reply from; I needed 12 more replies (6 addresses). I then chose another 10 addresses to send my questionnaires to. I decided that if I got extra replies it was not a problem.
From these 10 addresses I received 18 replies. I chose to include the first 12 in my survey.
Now that I have a full set of questionnaire I can compare my results and analyse what I found out.
Questionnaire Analysis
Questionnaire 1 – Married couples together
QUESTION: What age group(s) do you both fit into?
I asked this question to see if the household tasks undertaken by older couples differ from younger people.
This shows that in my survey I have couples from all age groups. This will show me if the views of elderly people are different to younger couples. The largest group of people in my survey were aged between 31 and 40. Therefore, I should keep in mind that the majority of the answers in my survey are from this specific generation of people.
QUESTION: How long have you been married?
I asked this question because I tried to get responses from people that live different lifestyles.
This shows that I have couples that have been married for a short period of time and also a very long period of time.
QUESTION: What ethnic group do you belong to?
I asked this question because different ethnic groups may have different views on how household tasks should be shared in the house.
I have couples from different ethnic groups. However, they are mostly Asian. This is because Rushey Mead is known to be predominately Asian.
QUESTION: Which of the following classes would you place your family in?
I asked this question to find out if there is a difference in attitudes to housework if families belong to different classes.
All of the participants in my survey would place themselves in the middle class and therefore the results that I receive will apply to middle class families.
QUESTION: Do you have any children? If yes, how many live I the same household as you?
I asked this question because if there are young children living in the house there may be more housework to do and if the children are older, they may participate in doing the household chores.
Most of the respondents had children.
1 couple had 3 children.
4 couples had 2 children.
2 couples had 1 child.
QUESTION: Do you both have jobs?
If the wife is working and the husband is not. Then it would be expected that the male does housework. Therefore I need to be aware of this when saying whether my hypothesis is true or false.
The wife The husband
There are more unemployed men than women. This shows that there have been changes in the employment patterns. In the past women stayed at home and did housework and looked after the children whilst the man (the breadwinner) went out and worked. There are more men in my survey that have full time jobs.
QUESTION: Do either of you have medical issues/ disability/ bad health that prevent you from doing housework?
3 husbands answered yes.
3 wives answered yes.
This shows that there are an equal number of men and women that have things that prevent them from doing housework and this should be taken account for.
QUESTION: Who do you think spends most time at home?
I am asking this question because it will show me whether the person who spends most time at home does most of the housework.
This shows that 60% of wives spend more time at home. However, as we saw from a previous question this is not because husbands spend more time at work. One of these wives is self employed and therefore you would expect her to spend more time at home.
QUESTION: Who does most of the household tasks in you home?
This shows that 80% of the couples said that the wife does most of the housework.
Comparing this with the above graph I can see that out of the 40% of the husbands that spend most time at home only half of these spend time doing housework. 30% of wives have problems that prevent them from doing housework. However, there are less than 30% of wives that do not do most of the housework.
QUESTION: In your home do you think that the way you share the housework tasks is fair?
This shows that 50% of couples think that they share the housework fairly. The other 50% think that the housework is not shred fairly.
QUESTION: Who is responsible for picking the children up and dropping them off to school?
This shows that most husbands pick their children up from school. 8% of couple share the job.
QUESTION: Whose duty is it to help the children with their homework?
This shows that this duty is shred between the husband, wife and brothers/sisters.
QUESTION:
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?
This shows that many people have electrical appliances that make housework easier.
QUESTION
What age group(s) do you both fit into?
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?
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?
Questionnaire analysis
From these questionnaires I found that women spend more time at home. In questionnaire 1 filled out by husband and wife together it shows that the wife spends more time at home. In questionnaire 2 more husbands claimed that they spent more time at home and in questionnaire 3 women claimed that they did. For this question I used the result from questionnaire 1. I also found that women do most of the household tasks in the home. This was agreed by both men and women as this is what all 3 of my questionnaires showed. This conforms to the gender stereotype that females do the housework whilst men go out to work. The only difference is that women also go out to work. This is shown in all 3 of my questionnaire.
When filling in the questionnaires together 50% of couples said that they think that the way the household tasks are shared in the family are fair. When women were filling in the questionnaires individually, most of them said that they thought it was unfair whilst most of the men said that it was fair.
Most of the cleaning, cooking, washing, shopping and hovering was done by the wife although there were a few men that did these jobs. More men did D.I.Y, gardening and washed the car than women. This shows that the stereotypical “men’s job” and “women’s jobs” still existed in my local area.
Many people owned electrical appliances that helped them with the housework. This shows that due to the development of modern technology household tasks are easier and done more quickly.
Observation Results
Observation Analysis
From my non-participant observation I found that both males and females work similar hours. During the weekend and the weekday mothers do a lot more housework than males. All mothers do the cooking and cleaning. The only jobs done by the fathers were D.I.Y, cleaning the car, washing the dishes, ironing and hovering. D.I.Y and cleaning the car are seen to be done typically by males. My observation show that typical gender roles still exist.
Secondary Data Analysis
Jobs about the house
Household chores still women’s work?
(From national statistics online)
The graphs on the pages show what household tasks males and females enjoy doing (their attitudes to household chores). It was not stated in my aims that I needed to find out about what jobs women and men like. Therefore, these graphs are irrelevant. However, throughout the rest of the source there is some good statistics that I can use to prove my hypothesis.
It says “women spend nearly 3 hours a day on average on housework. This compares with the one hour 40 minutes spent by men.” This shows that women spend more time doing housework than men. Women spend 1 hour 20 minutes more a day than men. It also states that “women also spend more time than men looking after children.” This shows that as well as doing more housework they spend more time with their children.
2 out of 5 men do not do ironing or laundry, while only 1 in 12 women do not do these tasks. This shows that the jobs that men and women do are still segregated and not all jobs are joint conjugal roles. This is shown again; nearly 50% of women say they do not do D.I.Y compared with only 16% of men. D.I.Y is seen as a job for men and these statistics show that this still is.
This secondary source is a recent source from a national government website. It shows two things which are:
- Women spend more time a day on average on housework.
- There are still “men’s jobs” and “women’s jobs”
Lifestyles
Women do more chores than men.
(From national statistics online)
The graphs show that there is a large difference in minutes per day spent by women and men on different household activities. Women spend a lot more time on cooking, washing up, housework, shopping, washing and ironing. The number of time spent by women on washing and ironing is about 5 times more than men and the time spent on housework by women is double the time spent by men. However, when it comes to D.I.Y, gardening and pet care, which are seen by stereotypes as traditional men’s tasks, men spend more time than women doing these tasks.
The table shows the amount of time spent on leisure activities. On weekdays and weekends men have more free time than women. On weekdays men are more likely than women to spend their free time on sports and exercise, games/hobbies and computing and watching TV, video and listening to the radio. The same applies to weekends.
This secondary source proves that women spend more time on housework than men and also that there are still stereotypical “men’s jobs” and “women’s jobs.”
Conclusion
Throughout my coursework, I have researched by using primary data and secondary data. The primary data shows results in my local area whilst the secondary data is spread throughout the U.K.
From my questionnaires I found that women spend more time at home than men do. This is not because they spend less time at work. This can be seen on page 23. Only 20% of women are unemployed. In comparison to this 30% of men do not have jobs. My questionnaires also shows that women do most of the household tasks in the home. On page 24 the graph shows that when the couples filled in questionnaires together 80% of couples agreed that women did most of the housework. On page 27, I can see that 60% of men said that women do most of the housework, 90% of wives said that they did most of the jobs in the house. This proves part of my hypothesis is correct. Women are seen as responsible for making sure that all the housework is done.
To find out if the household tasks are shared equally between husbands and wives I can use the above information to prove that they are shared unequally. This is also shown when I asked the question “do you think that the way household tasks are shred in your home are fair?” To this question 50% of couples answered yes while the other 50% said no and 80% of women said no. Men and women had different views on this question. However, if women do most of the housework then we could say that it is unfair and can say that household tasks are shred unequally.
Using my questionnaire, I can say that there is still existence of “men’s jobs” and “women’s jobs.” 60% of cleaning is done by the wife and also the same proportion of cooking. It is the job of 70% of women to wash the dishes and 50% to wash the clothes. 70% of women were responsible for doing the hovering. These jobs are stereotypically seen as women’s jobs and these results show that these stereotypes show that these stereotypes are true. Men’s jobs include D.I.Y, gardening and washing the car. 60% of men do the D.I.Y, 46% of men wash the car and 50% of men do the gardening. 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.
