6 - Households, domestic work, market work and happiness

Summary

The ‘breadwinner’ model of the articulation of employment and family life assigned women to domestic work and the family. As described in previous chapters, the naturalism of this gender arrangement or division of labour was extensively challenged by second-wave feminism. Nevertheless, an essentialist ideology of domesticity, that assigns domestic responsibilities and self-sacrificing motherhood to women, has proved to be remarkably persistent (Williams 2000). A major feminist objective that was articulated during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s was to encourage men to play a greater part in domestic work and childcare – summed up in the popular slogan of the time: ‘the personal is political’. As with women's involvement in market work, so men's involvement in domestic work has also changed. However, most of the narrowing of the gender gap in respect of domestic work has come about because of women's declining involvement, rather than men's increased participation, in domestic work. In this chapter, recent trends in time use and the domestic division of labour will be examined cross-nationally. A number of other relevant issues will also be addressed, including the impact of variations in the domestic division of labour on work–life conflict. We will return in particular to the case of France, where, as described in Chapter 5, levels of work–life conflict are relatively high despite good state supports for employed mothers and non-excessive working hours. We will also examine the impact of domestic traditionalism on general and family happiness, particularly for women.