This page deals with the fourth "bullet point" in the AQA Specification for Module 1: FAMILIES & HOUSEHOLDS. This is

• The nature and extent of changes within the family, with reference to gender roles, domestic labour and power relationships, and to changes in the status of children and childhood.

The most important relationship here (but only because it is most likely to come up in the exam!) is that between husband and wife. Sociologists talk about conjugal roles - the way people play their part in the marital relationship. With regard to conjugal roles, we can distinguish three separate areas (be careful as to which one(s) you are asked about in the exam!). These are

1. Domestic labour or housework. Who does what tasks in the home? Is there a fair division of domestic labour and is there such a thing as the "new man", or are feminists correct when they say that women do a disproportionate amount of household tasks?

   Young & Willmott argued (you will no doubt remember!) that the family had become more symmetrical. Women were now going out to work (The "feminisation of the workplace"), and Y&W's survey showed that men were now doing more housework as the family became "home centred". Anne Oakley, however, argued that their methodology was suspect. Her study showed that women still did a disproportionate share of the housework.

   Against this, we can use the studies done by Gershuny (who said that men's contribution to housework has increased as women's paid employment outside the home has increased) and Pahl, who found that the more hours a women is employed outside the home, the more domestic tasks are shared. Morris, however, found in her study of Hartlepool that even when men were unemployed and women had jobs, cultural factors often meant that women retained the "housewife" role, rather than swapping with the husband.

   Looking spefically at childcare as an aspect of domestic labour, Stephen Edgell found that middle class men in particular were more involved with their children. Mary Boulton, however, points out that men may spend more time with children than before, but women retain the long-term responsibility for the children.

2. Decision-making or power. Who is able to get their own way within the relationship? Are feminists correct when they argue that the contemporary family is a site of patriarchy? Here we can look at studies by Pahl and Edgell to see who makes the decisions, and in what areas of life. Note that this area also relates to the issue of domestic violence and the work done by Dobash & Dobash.
3. Emotions. This is an area once neglected by sociologists, but they now seem to have realised that people usually get married because they are in love, not in order to argue about who does the dishes! Duncombe & Marsden use the concept of "emotion work", and say that this vital aspect of family life is often left up to women, who thus do a "triple shift" of paid work, housework, and emotionwork. DeVault found in her research that providing meals for the family puts women under emotional pressure. Feminists and Marxists might argue that there is an "ideology of romance" which works against women's interests, and also that caring emotions and their expression are seen as being exclusively "female". Hochschild (who coined the phrase "emotion work", but in the context of paid employment) argues that satisfaction within a conjugal relationship is more about giving and receiving appreciation and sharing social time ("economy of gratitude") than the performance of domestic tasks.

There have also been many changes affecting the role of children within the family. Welfare services such as social workers give children more rights as individuals, rather than being the "property" of parents. The 1989 Children's Act gave them the right to have their wishes and feelings respected by courts. Technological changesuch as TV, mobile phones, and the internet gives them more access into "adult" areas of life. Increased full time education has led to a growing number of students.

Again, how would the different perspectives view childhood and these changes? Functionalists would stress that childhood is a period of vital socialisation, where the norms and values of society are transmitted, in order to create value consensus. Feminists might point out the ways in which this socialisation is gendered; and how girls are treated differently from boys. Marxists would show how children and young people are exploited by capitalists, both as casual workers, and as consumers of "must have" toys and fashions. The New Right would argue that the lack of supervision caused by single parent families and working mothers leads to crime and educational underachievement.

As well as changes in childhhod, there is the important issue of changes in the concept of childhood. Aries argued that in Mediaeval times, children were treated as "small adults", with the same work, rights, and responsibilities as grown-ups. Parents were not emotionally close to their children, probably because of high infant mortality rates. So Mediaeval people saw childhood as very different from the way we see it today. In a similar vein, people in different cultures see childhood differently ("child brides" in some countries; many children in the third world have to work or beg for a living). Thus, it could be argued that childhood is a social construct. This means that it is not something that objectively exists in nature; it has to some extent to be "defined into existence" by each culture.

(If you think about it, the same could be said of many things that sociologists study: old age...crime...deviance...illness...food...poverty...beauty. All of them have been defined differently in different societies or at different times in history. They are therefore "social constructs". Understanding this will also be extremely useful in other areas of the specification!)

The relevant pages for this section in Sociology in Focus are p. 258 - 264......