Assess the Impact That Paid Work Has on Domestic Labour

Although more women work in paid employment than ever before, the position they hold in the household is largely unchanged from that of which it was before. women are becoming increasingly equally employed in comparison to men, but the division of domestic labour in the household is still very much unequal, and women are still expected to undertake the work at home after they've completed their paid work elsewhere, whilst for men this is a time to relax after work.

Throughout recent years, men have taken much more responsibility in the home in terms of domestic chores. At one point in time, it was thought by many that the best place for a women to be, was at home taking care of the house and children. A study has shown that in 2009, 54% of fathers said that they thought it was ideal if they're wife didn't work and stayed home to take care of children and housework, whereas today, only 37% of fathers say this. This decrease could have various explanations, one of which being the introduction of the recession meaning that the average modern family is no longer able to cope on the earnings of one person, therefore requiring the woman of the family to work also. However, women still spend at least twice as much time completing domestic tasks in the home and child rearing as men.

The term 'commercialisation of housework' was used by Hilary Silver (1987) and Juliet Schor (1993) to stress the important economical developments that have eased the burden of housework on women. They argue that housework has become commercialised, as cleaning products are mass produced and marketed for women, electrical appliances have been developed to further aid the process of cleaning and house maintenance, meals can be bought ready prepared instead of having to source the materials and cook from scratch; as a result, women have much more free time than they have previously had. However, these shortcuts to domestic labour come at a cost, which must be paid; silver and Schor believe...