ABSTRACT
Cleaning, cooking, washing clothes, and caring for children or other family members are just some of a wide range of tasks, performed on a daily or near-daily basis, that are termed ‘household work’. More infrequently performed tasks, such as decorating, car maintenance and gardening, are also types of household work. Whilst a very few households employ a staff of paid workers to complete such tasks, and others may pay a cleaner or a childminder or use a gardening service, evidence shows that, in the great majority of households, daily, routine housework and caring work are completed on a ‘do-it-yourself, unpaid basis. As shown below, historical evidence indicates that, rather than all members of a household sharing routine housework and caring work equally, these are tasks which have traditionally been completed mainly by women. Especially since the Industrial Revolution, paid work outside the home has been associated with men, whilst unpaid household work has largely been the preserve of women. As argued in the previous chapter, however, the historical association of men, rather than women, with paid work has weakened since the middle years of the twentieth century. In 1997, women represented nearly half of all employees. Most women now have a lifetime attachment to the labour market, engaging in paid employment throughout their adult lives with ever shortening periods of withdrawal arising from childrearing. To this extent, it may be argued that there has been a shift in the distribution of paid work between women and men, particularly in comparison to the first half of the twentieth century. In this chapter, I focus on unpaid household work and examine the extent to which change has occurred in its distribution between women and men.
