One of the questions also asked if they had children less than five years of age, this could cause inconsistency in the childcare section of the results as they may have children over the age of five.
Context
Previous research, such as the British Social Attitudes Survey (1992) on household division of labour among married or cohabiting couples, found that mainly women carried out domestic chores such as cleaning, washing and ironing whilst the main responsibility of the men was household repairs. It also found that washing up dishes and household finances were equal throughout the participants.
With regards to childcare, the household division of labour by marital status in Great Britain (1984) shows that a higher percentage of woman than men cared for the children when they are sick whilst the responsibility of disciplining children was shared equally between parents.
In the 1970’s Young and Willmott believed that domestic roles were separated within the household and that it was the woman who mainly did domestic chores and cared for the children (cited by Haralambos and Holborn, 2004), this is reflective of the above research. Further investigation seemed to suggest that husband and wife increasingly shared responsibility for domestic decisions such as finance and education. These findings have been under scrutiny from peers such as Oakley (1974) who criticised the methodology used to collate such results; with other sociologists concentrating on the lack of evidence acquired to conclude any significant reduction in inequality.
Findings
Looking at the above results it appears that in today’s society, the women in cohabiting couples are still generally responsible for domestic chores such as washing clothes, cleaning floors and toilets and doing the ironing, whilst the man is still more commonly responsible for household repairs. What does seem to have changed from the previous research mentioned is that shopping for groceries, deciding what to eat and cooking are now more equally shared. Modern men seem to be spending more time in the kitchen than in earlier years.
With regards to child care, the results show that other than buying the clothes, the rearing of children is now more equally shared than in previous years, though the woman is slightly more responsible for caring for sick children. In households where the child care is not shared, a higher percentage of women than men have the responsibility this is reflective of the claim by Mary Boulton that ‘although men might help with particular tasks, it is their wives who retain primary responsibility for children’ (Haralambos and Holborn, 2004).
Looking at Murdock’s functionalist perspective of the role of the family, the results of this research conform partly to the economic function. The results show that there does appear to be a natural positive division of labour between the male and female, with men helping more around the house than in previous years. Though going against Murdock’s theory that ‘man works and woman looks after the home and children’, the results of this research show that more women now go out to work in modern society, and the children are cared for by both parents.
Conclusion
The research carried out went well and provided clear results as to how domestic labour is divided with today’s households. Modern society sees cohabiting couples sharing the majority of household chores and childcare evenly. Where tasks are not shared there appears to be an even keel of tasks mainly carried out by women such as washing clothes, and men with household repairs.
If the research were to be carried out again, the questionnaire could be altered to focus only on couples with children under five years of age, or those with children of any age. In this instance the questions regarding nappy changing and bathing of baby taken out or exchange for alternatives. This would create more specific results. Alternatively more thorough research could be carried out such as an interview to find out how couples feel about their roles within the household, but of course this would result in qualitative data which would need more analysing.
References
Haralambos, M and Holborn, M (2004). Sociology Theories and Perspectives. 6th ed. Hammersmith: Collins. pp508-510.
