Week 7 - Division of Unpaid Labor

Anthony Egger
Family & Work Blog
Week 7

Marjorie L Devault, Doing Housework: Feeding and Family Life

There have been changes in the family-work dynamic in the last hundred years, but one of the most is in the aspect of housework. Now with new technological advances, housework has become much easier than in years past, but yet still many households struggle to get everything done. Devault is arguing that is because many of the definitions of housework are incomplete. One of the main issues examined is that of feeding, and how it while it still requires much time and energy it is different from paid work. There is a debate about whether feeding is a type of work or if it is done out of love. In many families, meal time is a disjointed process, with many children being fed alone for breakfast or lunch. With different work schedules for parents and increasingly busy schedules for kids, many mothers are trying increasingly hard to maintain some semblance of regular, special meal times together. I know that in my family, it was very difficult, but we always tried to have dinner together as much as possible growing up.
An added difficulty to this process is that many members in a family have specific preferences on what they would like to eat on a daily basis. Dealing with these differences and putting “acceptable” food on the table every day is a pressing chore for many women. Another issue that I had never even considered was that these meals needed to be culturally acceptable.
The way meals and meal time activities are handled differ at almost every household, but as she points out, talking is a major issue that unifies almost every family. Families that are usually too busy to notice each other use these times to communicate and bond with each other. In that regard, meals are really one of the last safe havens for true family development. However, setting up these regular set meal times is difficult, especially for parents that work.
After discussing all of the time and effort that goes into not only planning but actually executing a family meal, Devault makes a good point that this work is often seen as “invisible.” The people eating the meals do not see the process behind, but merely the food in front of them. As I have grown and started to have to plan and make meals myself, I really began to appreciate the work of my mom who despite her busy schedule had dinner made for us almost every night. Also as I just showed in my own example, this process of feeding is a very gendered ideal, and one that is very female driven. In many of my friends homes, this is the way that it goes, with the wife cooking the majority of the meals. In my house though, I think my parents have a nice balance where my mom cooks Monday through Thursday and my father handles the weekend cooking. This way both are involved and I think that it is a system that can work well.

Sanjiv Gupta, “Autonomy, Dependence, or Display. The Relationship Between Women’s Earnings and Housework.”

In this article, Gupta examines the relationship between women’s earnings and the amount of housework they do. From his research he determined his autonomy hypothesis, which states that a women’s amount of housework depends only on her earnings and not on that of her husband’s earnings, especially not in comparison to her husband’s earnings, which is the criteria basis for much of the previous research.
Gupta addresses some of the other theories, starting with the economic dependence model, which states that there is an inverse relationship between the partner’s share of income and their share of household tasks. The belief is that whoever is earning less is most likely working less and thus has more time to contribute at home. Another theory which is pretty self explanatory is the gender display argument, which merely reinforces old gender roles that men should be the primary earners while women should do housework. However, as Gupta shows, the research does not support either of these claims. He instead puts forth studies that show that the women’s earnings exert a greater influence on the amount of housework accomplished. Gupta’s main point is that the focus needs to be on women’s absolute earnings on not on their earnings relative to men. Following this pattern than shows that the ever popular gender display and economic dependence theories are wrong.
Gupta’s dependent variable was the absolute number of weekly housework hours, and the independent variable was the women’s labor market earnings. In his results, Gupta explains that women in the upper echelon of \ housework are doing on average around five times as many hours a week on housework than those in the bottom 10 percent. One of the most interesting findings of his work was that women’s educational levels played no role in their amount of housework, but that it was reduced for every added year of their husband’s education. I would only hypothesize that the more educated the husband was the more money he was making, and that possibly these wives had the opportunities to hire outside help to reduce the housework. Gupta is sure there is a link between housework and earnings, stating that between 1965 to 1995, women’s average earnings were nearly doubled, while their housework time was cut in half. However, this study is limited in that it cannot determine the mechanism behind this phenomenon. Though difficult to accomplish, a more experimental study, instead of one based on surveys, needs to be conducted to deduce a logical mechanism.

Arlie Hochschild, “The Second Shift, Chapter 4 : Joey’s Problem”

Hochschild writes this chapter as a little vignette about the lives of a married couple with a young boy who has a problem of going to sleep. This problem tires and keeps them up, but has also strained their relationship and sex life. Over the next few pages, it shows that Joey exhibits many signs of an Oedipal complex, having an inordinately strong connection to his mother and disregards to his father. Hochschild suggests another explanation for the struggles in their marriage though, and that is that Nancy is on her “second shift” at home, having to take care of the household chores and Joey, without much help from her husband Evan. Years before, Nancy even brought this issue of inequality in the sharing up to Evan, but he constantly made excuses and never lived up to his end of the martial agreement as Nancy saw fit. This was definitely a clashing of two different gender ideologies, with Nancy believing in having it all with the help of her husband, and Evan adhering to older ideals of women maintaining the housework. An interesting point I thought was that Evan felt he should stay away from the second shift work, because otherwise Nancy would dominate him and take advantage of the arrangement. After years of this fighting increasing, the possibility of separating came up and after that, Nancy realized she did not want to throw away her marriage so she accepted once again most of the roles of the second shift.
The made what looked like a compromise in that Nancy did the upstairs work and Evan the downstairs, but in reality this was far from equal with Nancy getting much more work. They tried to convince themselves this was working but really it just began to escalate tension, eventually leading to “Joey’s problem” and the issues with their sex life. Nancy tried to justified their arrangement to herself, like many women do in difficult relationships. Another interesting point I found from the Holt’s was the difference in their ideas of feeling loved. It was reported that Evan felt loved when they had sex, but that Nancy felt love when Evan did something that connected them like make dinner. Furthermore, no other man interviewed talked about a connection between love and housework.
In trying to make their whole situation work, Nancy tried to stop comparing her life and husband, but ultimately she believed that he should be compared and not to others with similar inequalities in their relationships, but to her ideal of sharing. In the same breath, Nancy began to agree with some of the views of herself, and tried to focus on the positives. She saw her control of the upstairs and her domain, and started referring to the things in them as “my.”
Ultimately, the Holt’s explained their problem with the second shift as a byproduct of their differing personalities. Evan claims he is lazy and Nancy is more compulsive and organized. They believed that this accounted for lack of and over doing of the second shift work. I disagree with that though because, from the account, it only seemed like Evan was conveniently lazy, and I know that I have done that on more than one occasion. The issue wasn’t their personalities, but rather their ideologies. It was especially tough for their generation, because they grew up and witnessed their parents most likely adhering to the breadwinner model, but then were expected to grow up and live differently. The idea of equality in a marriage is vital, and now with the confusion in roles and responsibilities I believe that these issues should be talked about and planned for before a couple enters in marriage and parenthood.

Christopher Carrington, “Domesticity and the Political Economy of Lesbigay Families.”

In his book, Carrington documented many issues regarding a very diverse sample of gay and lesbian families. In this particular chapter, he presents the myths and then the actual accounts of how these families divide work in and outside the home. Namely, that there is a myth of egalitarianism in these homosexual relationships, even though there is strong empirical evidence to the contrary. Carrington makes a good point in trying to explain this, believing that lesbigay families try to present themselves as following American culture, and that culture preaches the egalitarian family. The issue of gender roles is especially difficult in these families, and it is often manifested in compensating ways. For example, in one family, one woman did the majority of the housework because the other had a high end job. However, to compensate the high end job women wore very feminine clothing. Many of the same issues facing heterosexual couples over the “invisibility” of domestic work, and the anger that ensues when their work is ignored or equality is not in place can be found in lesbigay couples as well. The same is also true for wealthier couples, no matter their sexual preference, who purchase many of their domestic needs to increase equality in their relationship essentially through subtraction of work from one. \
Another similarity that I found interesting was in the majority of homosexual relationships, one person specializes in domesticity, and that the longer the relationship, the more the specialization crystallizes. This is usually determined by their breakdown in paid employment, with the one with the greatest opportunity for money making to pursue it vigorously, with the other taking up the domestic slack. I think this is just another offshoot of the breadwinner model, and I think that it can be difficult for a couple. To accommodate this specialization, many of these men and women are involved in less intense and more family-friendly jobs. It is important to note that from the interviews it can be seen that many of these people did not chose their role in domesticity out of choice, but because their partner has the better employed job or they have hit the proverbial glass ceiling in their job. They want to preserve their relationships, and though it may not be ideal, many feel that the process of specialization is the best option for this. On the other side of the specialization spectrum are those who gravitate toward paid work. Even though they often have to work long hours, they believe that is their best opportunity to support and provide for their family.
As with heterosexual relationships, lesbigay couples are both egalitarian and specialized. There is no one way that works best for every couple, and it is important to find the one that is right for your own situation. I really liked this article because of the combination of facts that were than supported by real interviews. It helped to provide some real support for what he was saying other than just boring statistics and charts.