Ethical considerations.
Ethical considerations are factors which prevent a particular method or research study being used because it would be morally wrong. Some of the ethical issues I must consider while doing my investigation are:
- Informal consent – this will be ensured by making sure that I co-operate with the respondent as they are willing to give up their time.
- Deception – the people who I approach have a right to know what we are doing and why, they have a right to refuse and we must accept their decisions. To ensure this I will ask the responded before doing the investigation and will also make sure that I accept the decision made by the respondent.
- Privacy - I must ensure that the questions that I ask must avoid situations that causes embarrassment and asking question that are too personal.
- Confidentiality – I must not ask the name of the pupil doing the questionnaire, if asked than to make sure that it is kept very safe and is protected.
- Voluntary – respondent do not need to answer questions they do not want to and I must ensure that their decision is respected.
- I must make sure that the respondent is protected from harm.
Pilot study
Pilot study is a smaller version of study which is carried out before the actual investigation is done. Researchers use information gathered in pilot studies to refine or modify the research methodology for a study and to develop large-scale studies.
I have chosen to do a pilot study because I will be able to check whether all my questions are suitable for the data I am collecting for my investigation is going to be, I can put problems right at early stage if there’s any problems so it saves time and also saves a lot of effort.
Pilot Questionnaire
Hello, my name is roohian mohamedanif 11M1 and I am student at Mayfield School and College, I am doing an investigation as a part of my sociology coursework.
-
Are you male or female?
Male Female
- Do you live with your partner?
Yes No
- How much percentage of work do you think you do in the house?
………………………………
- What kind of housework do you do from the options below?
I
- What kind of housework is done by your partner?
I
- Do your children do the housework?
Yes No
- If yes, what kind of housework is done by your children?
I
- How many hours a day do you spend on domestic labour a day?
Less than 1 hour 1-2 2-3 3-4 4 and more
- How do you feel about the domestics work done by you?
Enjoy
Pleased
Fun
Happy
Satisfactory
Hate it
Offensive
Depressing
- Do you believe the division of labour is fair between you and your husband?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
- Do you enjoy doing your work?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
My Final Questionnaire
Hello, my name is Roohina Mohamedanif and I am a student at Mayfield School and College. As a part of my sociology coursework I am doing an investigation on the topic DOMESTIC DIVISION OF LABOUR within the household. I guarantee you that all the data collected form you will be kept private and confidential. I appreciate the time taken from you to answer my question.
- What gender are you?
Male Female
- How much percentage of work do you fink you do in the house?
25 50 75 100
- How is the house work shared between husband and wife?
Wife Husband Both
I
- Do you have a job? If yes, do you work part-time or full-time?
Yes No Part-time Full-Time
- How many hours a day do you spend on domestic labour a day?
Less than 1 hour 1-2 2-3 3-4 4 and more
- Dose your children help you doing the housework?
Yes No
- If yes, what kind of housework is done by your children?
I
Only asked to the females (wives)
- How do you feel about the domestics work done by you? Please explain your reasons
Enjoy
Pleased
Fun
Happy
Satisfactory
Hate it
Offensive
Depressing
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
- Do you believe the division of labour is fair between you and your husband?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Analysis
I am now going to analysis my result that I have found out from my investigation. First of all I am going to link all the aims to the questions of the questionnaire, than later produce a graph for each question and than link all the questions together.
My Aims and how they link to the questions:
- What sort of domestic work is done by women and man?
- How housework is divided between the households?
- How woman feel about their domestic work?
-
Question 1 is linked to my first aim what sort of domestic work is done by women and man
-
Questions 2, 4, 5, and 6 are linked to my second aim, how housework is divided between the households.
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Question 7, 8, 9 and 10 are linked to my third and final aim, how woman feel about their domestic work.
General Question
Questions 1 is a general questions which gives me an idea about the number of male and female I have surveyed, so I don’t make mistake of surveying more male than female.
This graph tell me that I have served 10 male and 10 female, it also inform which gender does what so of work in the next questions.
Aim 1: What sort of domestic work is done by women and man?
Question 3 helps me to answer my first aim as this question is asking about what kind of work is done by the respondents, the way this question is related to my first aim is that in this aim I am trying to find out what sort of work is done by the men and women and this question is also asking about the sort of housework the husband and wives do.
From the graph I found out that the wives (woman) do more of the house related work which we would expect the women to do, for example cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, cloths and dusting where as the mans do more of the physical work such as gardening, washing cars etc.. And the husband also takes care of the financial based work, related to money as they are more aware of how to deal with such kinds. However the husband and wife also share some work between them such as ironing, vacuuming, shopping for groceries and dusting in the house.
My result from the question related to the first aim agrees with the theory of ANNE OAKLEY as she argued that it only required men to do a few things around the house to be qualified, we can see from the graph that women did more house work compare to men. Wilmot and Young theory also agrees with this as they said that the division do labour was more equal, this is also shown in the graph as there are quit a lot of things in the house which women and men both share between that are related to house work such as ironing, vacuuming, shopping for groceries etc...
Aim 2: How housework is divided between the households?
Question 2 helps me to answer my second aim as this question is asking how many percentage of work the respondents believe they do in the house.
Question 4 helps me to answer my second aim since this question is asking if the respondents are employed or not.
Question 5 helps me to answer my second aim because this question is asking about how many hours the husband and wife send on domestic housework each day.
Question 6 helps me to answer my second aim because this question is asking about if the children helps their parents doing the house work.
Question 7 also helps me to answer my second because this question is talking about what
sort of housework is done by the children around the house.
From the graph in question 2, I establish that from 10 married women respondents, 6 said they felt they do 50% of the housework and 4 felt that they do 75% of the housework however all the husband responders felt that they do less than 75% of the housework; 5 thought they do 25% and the other 5 thought they do 50%. This question links to question 4 which is about if the respondent are employed or not and if they are than what kind of working shift they do: full-time or part-time. From the graph of this question I found out that all the men respondents work full-time but from the women only 6 respondents worked part-time and the other 4 didn’t work. This might be the reason why in question 2, 6 women
felt they do 50% of the housework and 4 felt they do 75% of the housework. This question
also links to question 5 which is about how many hours the respondents spend doing the housework. From the graph I found out that 6 man respondents spent less than 1 hour doing the housework, 2 spent 1-2 hours and the other 2 spent 2-3 hours. This data links to question 2 where I found that 5 men felt that they do 25% of the house work only and in question 5, 6 men spend less than an hour on the housework, so the reason why 6 men felt that they only do 25% of the housework is because they spend less than 1 hr doing the house work. From the graph I also found out that women spent more hours doing the housework compare to men, 3 women spent 1-2 hours, 3 spent 2-3, 2 spent 3-4 and the other 2 spent 4 and more. I think the reason why 6 women spent less than 3 hours doing the house work is because they were employed part-time as show in the graph of question 4.
From the graph in question 6 I found out that all the children of my respondents help them doing the housework the sort of work done by their children’s are washing up, cleaning, ironing, washing car, dusting and vacuuming.
In question 2 non of the women respondent said that they felt they do 100% of the housework, the reason for this might be because their children or their partner helps them doing the housework.
My result from my graphs agrees with the theory of feminist as they said that the division between the husband and wife is not equal. I believe this is true as it agrees with my result because I found that the men respondents said that they do less than 50% of the work and the women said that they do more than 50% of the work.
Aim 3: How woman feel about their domestic work?
Question 8 relates to my third and final aim because this question is asking the female respondent about how they feel in relation to their housework.
Question 9 also relates to my thirds aim because this question is asking the women respondent if they believe the division of labour is fair between them and their husbands.
From the graph in question 8 I found out that half of my women respondent were pleased with the domestic work that they did. And from the other half I found out that 3 were happy, and 2 were satisfied with the domestic work that they did in the house. The reason
that the 5 respondents gave of being pleased with their work was: 3 of them said because their husband and their children helped them with the domestic work in the house and the other 2 said because they were not employed. This data also relates with the 4th question as it asked about if the respondent worked or not. From that data I investigated that 4 women didn’t work and 6 worked part-time as a result another reason why 5 women were pleased with their housework might be because 3 were employed part-time and 2 didn’t work . The reason that the 2 respondent gave of being happy with their wok was because they didn’t work and from the data in question 4 I found out that 4 didn’t work so the 2 out of the 4 women who didn’t work were happy with their housework. The reason that the 3 respondent gave of being satisfied with their work was because they had to work out said the house and in the house. Again this relates with the 4th question as 6 women were employed therefore 3 out of the 6 were satisfied.
From the data that I collected in question 9 I found out that most of the women thought that the division of labour was fair in the house. 7 women said that it was fair, the reason that they gave were; 4 out of the 7 said that it was fair because they only had to do the housework and didn’t have to go to work, and the other 3 said that it was fair because the jobs were equally divided in the house. This data also links to question 8 where I found out that 8 women were happy and pleased with the domestic work in their house. Consequently the 7 women who said that the division was fair are the 7 women who were happy and pleased with the domestic work.
The other 3 women said that it was not fair because they had to do the housework and the job outside the house, which again links to question 8 as in that question 3 women said that they were satisfied with the domestic work that they did. Therefore the 3 women who said that they were satisfied with the domestic work were the 3 women who thought the division was not fair.
The result that I found out from question 8 & 9 agrees with the theory of Anne Oakley who found out that women do most of the housework around the house it also agrees with the feminist’s theory that women are have most of the liability and responsibilities around the house. Therefore the Willmont and Young’s theory has been verified wrong.
Conclusion
I am not going to conclude my findings from this investigation:
Aim 1: What sort of domestic work is done by women and man?
I found out that the sort of housework done by women were cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, cloths and dusting, this finding was expectable because the wives (woman) do more of the house related work compare to men. I also investigated that men do more physical work such as gardening, washing cars because these are seen as manly jobs. This would apply to the theory of ANNE OAKLEY as she argued that it only required men to do a few things around the house to be qualified.
Aim 2: How housework is divided between the households?
I found out that the division between the household was not equal; all the female respondents thought that they did more than 50% of the housework and the male respondent thought that they did less than 50%, this result was not very surprising for me as I thought that the women would do more housework compare to men. I also investigated that 6 women spent less than 3 hours on the housework as they were employed part-time and 4 women spent more than 3 hours on the house work the reason for that I found out was because they didn’t work. I also establish that the children also helped their parent doing the housework which is why in question 2 none of the respondent said that they do 100% of the work. The sort of housework done by the children were washing up, cleaning, ironing, washing car, dusting and vacuuming. This proves Young and Willmott’s theory wrong in saying that the roles are becoming more joint and that the division of labour is becoming more equal between men and women in the household and proves the of feminist’s theory right as they said that the division between the husband and wife is not equal
Aim 3: How woman feel about their domestic work?
The result that I found out for this aim agrees with the theory of Anne Oakley who found out that women do most of the housework around the house it also agrees with the feminist’s theory that women have most of the liability and responsibilities around the house. I found out that half of the male respondents were pleased with the domestic work that they did, 2 were happy and 3 were satisfied with they work that they did. This result was not very shocking as the respondent gave relevant reasons for choosing the feeling that they chose (mentioned in analysis). I also found if the women thought the division of labour was fair in their house or not. Most of the women said that the division was fair however 3 respondents said that it was not fair as they had to do both outside and inside the house.
Evaluation
I am now going to evaluate the method that I chose for this particular investigation and how it might have affected the data I collected.
The method that I used for this investigation on women and house work was social survey in form of self completion questionnaire, from my opinion this type of method was quite successful to use as there was no bias taking place, there are many advantages of using this method for example; less cost, I can do a large number of respondent at the same time, if I am not satisfied with the data I collected than I can redo it however there were also some disadvantages such as low respondent rate-people may not return questionnaire.
Strengths:
There are many strength of using social survey as a method for doing an investigation such as the same questions are given to all the respondents therefore I can easily compare my results. The results I get back from this type of method are reliable because the investigation can be repeated and I can get the same results again, another strength is that by using a self completion questionnaire it reduce bias as there are no verbal or visual to influence the respondent’s opinions as a result I know that the investigation was valid.
Weaknesses
The biggest weakness that could have biased my investigation was if the respondent didn’t understand the question than it is more likely that the respondent may give me a different answer to what I was looking for therefore my results may not be valid or reliable, to make this situation more reliable I could have stated the question in a way which is not biased so I get the answer which I am looking for and not what I get. Also because while doing a self completion questionnaire there is a risk of not every one completing the questionnaire and returning it back. Some people do not have time to do the questionnaire therefore they don’t do it, so if I sent it to 10 men and 10 women and if I only get 8 men’s and 4 women’s responses back, my results will not be reliable or valid.
Bibliography
Bibliography is a list of materials (books, articles, videos, etc.) on a particular subject or by a particular author. The list of references at the end of a research report is a bibliography.
- Book in print – CGP, GCSE sociology
