The Third Job

Employed Couples' Management of Household Work Contradictions

Gurjeet K. Gill

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138323032
• eBook ISBN: 9780429770357
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Published in 1998. This text focuses on "three-job" (two paid and one unpaid housework job) families. It investigates the way in which partners experience and handle the contradictions in the daily running of the household - contradictions which result from the conflicting features within and between society and the family. An equal division of household labour remains at the heart of these contradictions as women take on the responsibility of running the family home in addition to paid employment.

1 Assessment of Household Work Contradictions

Rapid changes in society over recent years, particularly the increasing number of families in which both partners work in the labour market, have led to changes in family structures in Australia. Women's labour force participation has been on the increase since the 1960s. In 1966 women's labour force participation rate was 30 per cent of the Australian work force (Women's Bureau, 1968: 11). It increased to 41.8 per cent in 1991 (Women's Bureau, 1991: 12) and 52.9 per cent in 1996 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1996b: 6-8). Similarly, married women's labour force participation has increased from 12 per cent (O'Donnell and Hall, 1988: 7) in the early 1950s to 52.5 per cent in 1996 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1996b). Recent changes in the labour market and equal opportunity provisions, together with the International Labour Organisation convention 156, have helped women to move into and stay in the labour market (Office for the Status of Women, 1992: 3). In conjunction with the Australian government's commitment to the International Labour Organisation convention, a policy is in place that entitles both mothers and fathers to parental leave. To further facilitate women's labour market involvement, the Office for Status of Women is committed to making structural changes in the domestic division of labour and to increasing men's contribution to housework (Bittman, 1991). These facts indicate a favourable trend in the macro institutional order that facilitates women's involvement in the economy.

On the other hand, women's role in the labour market is considered as secondary and in addition to their institutionalised roles in the domestic sphere, as they often favour part-time employment and choose to drop out of the work force during child-bearing years (Evans, 1991: 147-159). This is because household work is still considered to be women's work even as people's perceptions change. Bittman and Lovejoy (1993) describe an overt disjunction between belief and action, as there is now a broad subscription to the 'new' values of gender equity (Holmstrom, 1985: 4), yet a 'traditional' sexual division of labour still persists (Bittman, 1991). This discrepancy can be described as 'pseudomutuality' (Wynne, Ryckoff, Day and Hirsh, 1967: 444). Bittman and Pixely (1997: 145-171) discussed pseudomutuality in the context of domestic division of labour. They argued that strong commitment to the value of equality and companionship in intimate relations is combined with the inability to live out these principles. This results in situation where it is difficult for either partner to acknowledge the inequalities in the relationship. They further affirm that couples' commitment to an equal, pure relationship barely hides the apparent relations of power and the result is frustration, guilt and pain.

Even when employed women reduce their domestic labour considerably, especially if they are employed for more than 30 hours per week they still do more household work than men (Bittman, 1991: 21). Although some fathers are sharing parenting responsibilities (Russell, 1983), it is women who feel guilty for using substitute child-care (Shaw and Burns, 1993: 30-43). This shows that although favourable changes are taking place at the macro institutional level, similar results are yet to be achieved in the micro interaction order.

Equity for women in the labour market and in Equal Opportunity legislation on the one hand, and expectations of traditional family roles on the other, have produced and exacerbated contradictions inside the family. These contradictions have to be dealt with both by families and by social theorists of family and gender.

Accordingly, the main question explored in this book is who manages the household when husband and wife are involved in the labour market? In other words, who will take the responsibility? Here, the third job of 'household management' is perceived as a 'job' in its own right. At a general level, it is unpaid and gender specific and includes the performance of household work and child-care activities, decision-making, worrying, planning, negotiating and the designing of coping strategies, as well as any other activity considered important for the overall family management. However, more specifically it is conceptualised at two levels: ideological and practical. In the ideological sense it is the running of household affairs to carry out a 'normal family life' (Brennan and Moss, 1991: 2), and in the practical sense it is the performance of household work 'necessary' for the sustenance of family members. The two aspects are interlinked as they both implicate one another.

The household work contradictions involved can be illustrated from discrepancies within and between macro institutional and micro interaction orders that cause problems for three-job (two paid and one household work) families. For example, within the macro institutional order (labour market) some aspects such as Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action are contradicted by a lack of childcare and rigid job structures, as well as patriarchy, that mostly implicate women workers. Contradictions between macro and micro orders result, because typification, schema, cultural traditions in the macro institutional order regarding men and women and their family roles may conflict with the need for sense of identity and with the need to adjust, adapt and co-operate in the family interaction order. Similarly within the micro interaction order (family) the need to adapt and adjust to a three-job family way of life maybe in contradiction with the prevailing images of self/other and family roles of men and women as husbands and wives, and fathers and mothers respectively. Household work contradictions become real issues for working couples, because these act as obstacles (ideological or practical, material or institutional, personal or social) that encumber the workings of three-job households.

Given that household work contradictions are acutely experienced in daily interactioas within three-job families, I will argue that in order to solve those problems, families devise their own interaction orders. I further contend that household work contradictions can be relatively effectively managed by means of devising specific sets of household management rules in the interaction order.

The significance of the question is both moral and theoretical. The moral issues relate to autonomy and equity. The theoretical significance is in the articulation of the conflicting institutional demands with the as yet un-institutionalised practices at the face to face and interpersonal level. In other words, three-job families have to continually negotiate rules and invent strategies to deal with contradicting features within and between the macro institutional order and micro interaction order. The value of studying these issues lies in the enhanced understanding of the obstacles encountered by three-job couples in managing their families. By understanding these obstacles it maybe possible for some of the constraints to be reduced or even entirely eliminated.

In Chapter 2, I review relevant literature to find solutions to household work contradictions. In Chapter 3, I discuss a conceptual framework, considering both macro institutional order and micro interaction order, to graphically show how household work contradictions implicate three-job families. Chapter 4 describes research philosophy and methods used in the study on which this book is based. Chapters 5-9 specify the ways in which families deal with the third job in order to manage household work contradictions. In this chapter, I will first establish the increasing presence of household work contradictions in families in which both partners are employed. Secondly, I will discuss how household work has come to be defined as a 'job'.

Household work contradictions are increasing

Significant changes have taken place in the patterns of employment and unemployment in Australia since 1980. Although all women's participation in the labour force has increased markedly (52.9 per cent) the rate of increase of married women's participation (52.5 per cent) in employment is substantial (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1996b: 6-8).

Simultaneous changes in welfare policies may have enhanced women's capacity to enter and stay in the labour force. Until the early 1980s women were perceived as 'legitimate dependants' for welfare purposes (Bryson, 1983). However, during the mid-eighties a change in policy made most entitlements gender neutral. The widow's pension was abolished and efforts were made to direct women who were social security recipients into the labour force (Bryson, 1993: 72). The Australian federal government announced the JET scheme (Jobs, Education and Training) for sole parents in the 1988 Budget. This was a job training programme especially aimed at women (Colledge, 1991: 31).

The Australian government has also made explicit commitments to fostering equality between women and men within families and bringing about a fuller sharing of domestic responsibilities and employment opportunities (Office for the Status of Women, 1992: 3). In contrast, as far as the family domain is concerned, domestic responsibilities have largely remained women's work. Bittman found that over a period of 13 years (between 1974 and 1987) women had reduced their time spent in housework by 4 hours per week, while men had increased their time by 2 hours and 21 minutes (Bittman, 1991: 21). He suggests that even though employed women are reducing their unpaid hours in the domestic sphere, a husband's contribution to housework has only increased by about one hour per week, whether his wife is working 10 or 40 hours (Bittman, 1991: 21).

Bittman and Lovejoy (1993) suggest a contradiction between 'belief' and 'action', or an ethos of equity and a reality of inequality regarding domestic division of labour in families. I think this is a valuable concept in understanding domestic power and the processes of negotiation, allocation and performance of household work in families.

The existing gender-based division of domestic labour within the three-job families can be seen as a result of contradicting features within and between the macro and micro orders of the society, For example, in three-job families contradiction emerges between the need for a flexible re-arrangement of household work and an attachment to traditional divisions and standards. As a result, women find themselves under pressure to bear the responsibility of managing the household in addition to their paid work. This indicates that the unpaid 'job' of household work becomes problematic. It is a problem mainly because the families in the interaction order still work within the framework of a traditional division of labour. Consequently, women bear the household responsibility with fewer resources (time, energy, and money for adequate paid help in household) at hand. Although Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action in the institutional order have enhanced women's representation in the labour market, adequate and accessible child-care and paid parental leave is still a problem for many working mothers. Similarly, there is a discrepancy between men's and women's earnings that reflects the patriarchal wage structure in the institutional order (Bryson, 1993). Arber and Ginn (1995: 40) describe a reciprocal relationship between women's economic disadvantage in the labour market and their domestic role in the family, which in turn limits their full potential in the public sphere.

Similar contradictions have been reported by family researchers who turned to measure household task performance. Several large scale overseas studies (Berk and Berk, 1979; Szalai, 1972; Walker and Woods, 1976; Vanek, 1980) reported that women bear the burden of household work Walker and Woods (1976: 44) found that whether women participated in the labour force or not, they performed more housework than their husbands. They also found that young children's presence in the home increased a mother's time spent on housework compared to a father's. This leads to a time availability theory, which claims that a couple's time spent in the housework is taken as relative to their time in the labour market. Some studies report that a husband's participation in household labour is related to a wife's participation in paid work (Huber and Spitze, 1983; Pleck, 1985; Coverman, 1985; Presland and Antill, 1987). However, other research has reported no relationship between household division of labour and a couple's time spent in the labour market (Stafford, Backman and Dibona, 1977; Ross, 1987).

Researchers have also focused on sex role attitudes and their effect on the household division of labour. They have attempted to measure sex role attitudes using structured questionnaires on men's and women's gender roles and role reversal (Pleck, 1985; Coverman, 1985). Although sex role attitudes have contributed much to the understanding of husband-wife relationships, one cannot isolate them from other variables such as class, education, and so forth. Education as a predictor had been studied by Farkas (1976) and Geerkon and Gove (1983). Their results suggest that educational attainment is directly related to egalitarian sex role attitudes. This maybe contradicted from the relative resource theoretical perspective which explains that the spouse with higher level of education has more power to negotiate and consequently may do less housework. Thompson and Walker (1989: 856-867) concluded that 'there is no simple trade-off of wage and family work hours between husbands and wives, nor do partners allocate family work on time-availability.'

Recent research on task allocation and its performance shows that women would rather take on a disproportionate share of housework to avoid conflict than pressure their husbands to contribute more to household work (Berheide, 1984; Hochschild, 1989). Shaw (1988: 333-337) suggested that housework, as caring for other family members, is taken to be an essential part of women's identity, and therefore any conflict over caring for family members maybe interpreted by others as not caring about family members (cf. Able and Nelson, 1990).

Mederer (1993) conceptualised household labour not only as accomplishing tasks, but also as defining them as necessary, creating standards for their performance, and making sure that they are done in an acceptable manner. She surveyed 359 married full-time employed women to test the extent to which task accomplishment versus household management predict perceptions of fairness and conflict. Mederer suggested that when household labour allocation is considered as an independent variable it becomes part of the micro interaction in the family, and implies connections with the macro structure of gender inequality. She found a significant relationship between housework allocation and perceptions of fairness. She also reported 'the more housework women in my sample did, and the more time they spent doing it relative to their husbands, the more conflict they reported' (Mederer, 1993: 142). She further argued that task accomplishment and family life management are different dimensions of family work, and each dimension contributes separately to perceptions of family work. In time-budget research, two studies by Berk and Berk (1979) and Berk (1985) showed that women are still doing 96 per cent of the cooking, 92 per cent of the dish-washing, 90 per cent of the vacuuming, 94 per cent of the bed-making and 94 per cent of the nappy changing as part of child-care. In their earlier survey, Walker and Woods (1976) found that unemployed women spent a higher percentage of total time in housework performance than men. However, they also showed that employed women still carried out the household burden, with only a minor increase in the time spent by their husbands (Walker and Woods, 1976: 45).

In general the overseas and Australian literature on the quantification of household task performance indicates inequalities of task performance between men and women, even when women are employed. Research on household division of labour discussed earlier in this chapter confirms household work contradictions and claims that unequal relations exist in the household division of labour even when both partners are involved in paid work. This draws our attention to the argument presented earlier that there is a conflict over household labour in three job/two earner families. It is a result of contradicting features within and between the macro institutional order and the micro interaction order that merge when women combine paid work and family responsibilities. For example, some of the structures in the macro institutional order such as equal opportunity, gender role orientation, job structure are contradictory as well as incompatible with the needs and resources of the modern family in which both partners are employed. In other words, although efforts of equal opportunity are being made in the macro institutional order and women are entering the labour market in large numbers, the corresponding changes have not yet taken place in the workings of families in which both partners are in the labour force. Similarly, the traditional division of labour, family roles and the identity need of individuals in families are now incompatible with the institutional structures of the society. As a result, there are increasing household work contradictions which the couples in three-job families have to address and resolve. This is problematic not only for families in which both partners are employed but for theorists of gender, family and general social theory.

Perceptions of household work are changing

Influenced by women's movements in the 1960s and 1970s, researchers began to examine women's position in the family and to question the notion of companionship in marriage. Friedan (1963) perceived women as prisoners in the family home. This was further supported by Gavron (1983), who highlighted the socially constructed meaning of paid and unpaid work from a study of 96 London housewives, and argued that women have the choice to work or to stay at home. Staying at home, however, does not involve equal recognition, even if women are spending twice as much time doing the housework. She further examined the impact of technology on household tasks, and she concluded that it had increased both the actual time and expectations to meet the standards of ideal housewives and successful career women (Gavron, 1983: 127-128). In other words, signs of gender inequality began to appear in the analysis of men's and women's family roles, which indicated the need for a recognition of work done by wives.

Oakley (1974: 24-25) attempted to overcome the invisibility of women in sociology, by examining the nature of housework. Her prime concern was to conceptualise housework as work, rather than simply as an aspect of the feminine role in marriage (Oakley, 1974: 181-182). She argued that society assigns role definitions to men and women in terms of their paid work, and in this sense men are seen to do the 'real' work Women do not, since housework is not defined as work (Oakley, 1974: 25). Her study was based on interviews with 40 housewives revealing their attitudes and perceptions of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with housework chores. In studying their husbands' participation, she concluded that only a few husbands equally shared housework with their wives. Further, their participation depended upon their social class position, and they were more involved in the child-care tasks than the menial chores. She further indicated that with women's increased labour force participation, husband's task performance increases.

Oakley (1974) also explored how women felt about their housewife role. She learned that women were not so much dissatisfied with their role as housewives as with their chores which were monotonous, boring, and repetitive. Oakley believed that gender socialisation defined women as housewives and mothers and therefore they feel pressured to be 'good housewives and mothers.' Although Oakley has made a significant contribution to sociologists' knowledge of housework, her research is not without problems. The used to study housework and industrial work maybe problematic. Smith (1979) argued that the concepts used to study the relations between bourgeoisie and proletariat may not be adequate to study the social relations between husband and wife. In other words, household activities such as caring for others (husband and children) cannot be perceived as similar to proletarian work for the capitalist. As Game and Pringle (1983: 126-128) argue, housework is not only the performance of several chores, it is also an important part of women's identity.

Lopata (1971) studied women's many roles, and identified the various demands on them and their ability to cope with them. She also pointed out that although some women dislike housework, many find it to be creative and autonomous. She illuminated the contradictory aspects of being a mother 'tied down' by the responsibilities of children, versus the freedom of working unsupervised as a housewife. What I am suggesting here is that housewife and mother roles are imposed by the macro structural patterns of society, and therefore women still carry out the responsibility of household management in addition to their paid work commitments. In other words, unlike men, when married women work outside the family home they are still responsible for household management.

Sharpe (1984) explained this through sex role socialisation which requires men and women to perform specific household tasks. She argued that men tend to see their homes as places to return to and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Assessment of Household Work Contradictions
• 2 Solutions to Contradictions over Household Work
• 3 Conceptual Framework and Central Claim
• 4 Research Philosophy and Methodology
• 5 How Do Families Handle External and Internal Constraints?
• 6 How Do Women Handle Personal Goals, Role Definitions and Dilemmas?
• 7 Are the Perceptions of Ground Rules and of Self and Other, Flexible or Inflexible?
• 8 Effective Management Versus Household Crisis
• 9 Is the Style of Household Management Flexible or Rigid?
• 10 Managing Household Work Contradictions
• Bibliography
• Index