In Ireland according to the Time Use in Ireland Survey Report 2005, women spend over twice as much time on caring and household work than men (McGinnity et al, 2005:12). The findings when compared to other European countries show that certain groups in the population face a time-squeeze, particularly people who are employed, or those caring for young children (Eurostat, 2004). The research shows that women, in particular, require policies to facilitate work-life balance to lessen the high workload involved in trying to combine paid work with caring (McGinnity and Russell, 2007: 350).
However, according to Gershuny et al (2005), significant levels of change in gendered work are occurring slowly over time due to ‘lagged adaption ‘on the part of men. Their longitudinal study shows a partial reduction in women’s domestic labour when women resume employment together with some increase in men’s overall
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contribution, which is slower, and ‘less reliable’ (Gershuny, Bittman and Brice, 2005: 664).
A recent cross-national study carried out by Kan, Sullivan and Gershuny (2011), of different policy clusters in sixteen countries (not including Ireland), on trends of gender convergence in domestic work over the past forty years, concurs with findings from earlier studies on the slow rate of change. The gender gap is narrowing, albeit slowly, in routine domestic work. Two specific factors are shown to prolong a move towards a more equal sharing. Firstly, a continuing gendered segregation of domestic tasks defined as ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ points to the ongoing significance of gender ideologies and the interactional aspects of gender (’doing gender’) in the performance of domestic work. Yet research in the past indicates that where sex role attitudes and behaviour are altered through engagement by men and boys in
household work this has a positive effect on gender sex roles (Fine-Davis, 1983:128). Significantly however, gendered work schedules also reinforce traditional divisions of labour, particularly in housework.
Secondly, institutional barriers to promoting equal sharing of domestic work are evident in the manner in which policies tend to reinforce existing gender ideologies. Trends vary between different policy clusters with Nordic countries showing a greater drive towards social equality. Kan et al. (2011: 249) argue that promoting change across policy clusters involves; ‘influencing change in the gender ideologies underpinning the different policy clusters…and is completely interlinked with the development of specific public and social policies aimed at promoting greater gender equality’.
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Other studies reveal the complex nature of gendered patterns and aspirations related to equal sharing of domestic work. Aboim (2010) examined cross-national cultural aspects of gender and the division of labour in contemporary Europe (not including Ireland) and the way individuals living in different countries value an equal sharing role as ideal. In a comparison of fifteen of the countries included in the Family and Gender Roles module of the International Social Survey Programme 2002 three attitudinal patterns were identified: unequal sharing within a male breadwinner model, familistic unequal showing a gendered segregated pattern and dual
earner/dual carer model that was favoured by 40 percent of respondents. Despite being the favoured model, this third pattern was unequally distributed across different countries (Aboim, 2010:190). The study showed that the historical pathways giving rise to distinctive gendered cultures, when combined with welfare and social policies, strongly affected outcomes for equality in household roles. When applied to attitudes related to the work of caring in a contemporary context however, perceptions and realities concerning gender roles, equality, and social change are far from clear cut.
Work by O’Connor, Smithson, das Dores Guerreiro (2002), in a European study including (Ireland, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden and Portugal) focused on young people’s understanding of gender roles and choices in relation to work and family life. They found (particularly in Portugal and Ireland) that while participants believed that questions of ‘equality’ were no longer an issue, traditional gendered ideologies persisted in relation to the division of labour in the home, and that there were tensions and contradictions in relation to issues of equality. Irish and Portuguese women respondents also expressed gendered difficulties in relation to paid
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employment and issues of equality. The authors pointed out that contradictions in young people’s views may be understood by the historical period in which they have been brought up …’where young people start from a position of implicitly accepting a discourse of gender equality’ yet lack understanding ‘of structural and cultural inequalities and subtle contradictions beneath such realities and ideologies of choice in the context of limited and confused ideas of equality’, which need to be explored further (O’Connor, et al 2002: 111-112).
Contradictions are also evident in studies focusing specifically on Ireland. An examination of changes in Irish gender role attitudes in the period 1988-2002 was carried out by O’Sullivan (2012), using data from the International Social Survey Programme module ‘Family and Changing Gender Roles’. She argued that attitudes are socially constructed rather than fixed attributes of individuals and as such may change as opportunities or constraints arise. In general, the trend has been towards increasingly positive attitudes towards women’s participation in the paid workforce, but this has been coupled with concerns about possible effects on young children. Younger and more educated respondents express less support for traditional household roles, while men tend to be more conservative about gender. Overall, trends increasingly show positive attitudes in support women’s participation in the workforce, where shifts in behaviour in relation to work roles appear to follow a period of attitudinal change but there is also variation and unevenness in this process (O’Sullivan, 2012:231).
Moen and Yu (2000) used a life course approach to explore the strategies that dual- earner families use to affect a work life balance in what is increasingly seen as an issue for couples in their daily lives. Focusing on work/life strategies of dual earner families using three theoretical strands; the life course; the social construction of
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gender, and structural lag, they examine indicators for quality of life through the use of adaptive strategies in a nationwide random sample. They found that trying to manage two full-time careers along with work in the domestic sphere was a
disadvantage to women’s career as they tend to take on the gendered domestic role reinforcing existing division of labour, structures, and career paths. They argue that flexibility of work arrangements and support are conducive to good work life balance and well-being and that the diversity of work and family lives amongst dual-earner couples suggests the need for a variety of arrangements to enhance quality of work/life balance. Their conclusions revealed that all dual earner couples trying to manage the diverse strands of their lives ‘are constrained by existing structural patterns, cultural norms, and cognitive frames about work, family and gender’ indicating that both social structures and social lives are interdependent and entwined ( Moen and Yu, 2000: 315-6).
European research exploring the implications of work-family conflicts for dual-earner parents’ with children, found that family meals represent an important shared time promoting well-being, particularly for children. Measurement of frequency of family meals in the context of the WHI (work home interference) indicated that they are affected by the levels of support that supervisors and colleagues give, along with provision of flexible working conditions, which influence work/life balance and improve employee work satisfaction (Lane et al, 2011:141,148).
Recent studies suggest that levels of well-being and work life balance are increasingly dominating concerns for families as greater numbers of women continue to work full- time and dual-earning families are a growing trend. There are signs that change in the way work is organized to provide for a balance between work and home life are
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indicated, but the implications are as yet far from worked out. In a legacy from the historical past, there remains a strong social and cultural bulwark within the family sphere of gendered role assignment.
Further, from a State perspective, Lewis et al. (2002), assert that across European social systems there remains an endorsement, to a greater or lesser extent, of a male breadwinner model through taxation and social welfare policies. Despite the introduction of individualisation in the tax system, Ireland, they point out, was
considered an exemplar of the ‘conservative’ welfare state regime (Esping-Anderson, 1990), with traditional gendered roles supporting a strong male breadwinner model (Lewis, Smithson, and das Dores Guerreiro, 2002:143-4). For Williams also, changing the balance between paid work and caring is fraught with inconsistency at policy levels particularly for women where their paid work is mediated by their care responsibilities (Williams, 2004: 39-40). In analysis of a policy moves towards an adult worker model Lewis and Guillari (2005) argue that there are limits to this model regarding issues of care and gender equality. For Daly (2011), looking at the
comparative welfare regime approach from a gender and family perspective, she argues that it is complex and ambiguous leading to varied reforms in several directions within different countries.
The findings of large scale studies present an overview of how trends in gendered work are complex and evolving, influenced by historical, cultural, and structural constraints, leading to slow patterns of change. These studies show that while both structural and individual attitudes are changing in relation to family roles’, bringing about gender equality is hampered by entrenched positions based both at personal and
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policy level, with variable opportunities to effect substantial change. From a
quantitative perspective these studies present an overall picture of what is occurring in relation to families. This research from a qualitative perspective reveals the processes at the level family practices through which a lag in equality in the division of labour is perpetuated.
Focused on participants contributions in relation to family practices, this chapter explores how individuals interpret, engage with, and negotiate their specific attitudes and decision making in relation to work both paid and unpaid. The work of caring for and feeding others provides a lens to explore these issues within the context of
divisions of labour in their daily working lives.