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The domestic division of labour refers to how household tasks—cooking, cleaning, childcare, eldercare, emotional care—are allocated among members of a family or household.

• When this allocation is structured around gender norms, it is called the gender-based domestic division of labour.
• Typically, it rests on the patriarchal assumption that men are the primary breadwinners and women are the caregivers and homemakers.

Key Sociological Perspectives

• Talcott Parsons’ “instrumental–expressive” roles: Men perform the instrumental role (income generation), while women perform the expressive role (nurturing and household management).
• Feminist Critique: Scholars like Ann Oakley and Arlie Hochschild argue that such arrangements are socially constructed, not biologically determined. Hochschild famously called women’s dual burden the “second shift”—paid work followed by unpaid domestic labour.

Historical Context

In pre-industrial societies, production and reproduction were integrated within the household. Industrialization separated the workplace from home:

• Men moved into waged employment.
• Women were largely relegated to unpaid domestic work.
  This laid the foundation for the modern gendered division of labour.

Contemporary Change: Women in Formal Employment

A. Evidence of Transformation

1. Rising Female Workforce Participation
   • In India, female labour force participation is around 25% (Periodic Labour Force Survey 2023), with noticeable growth in urban professional sectors, IT, healthcare, and services.
   • Globally, dual-earner households have become the norm in many societies.
2. Shifts in Household Arrangements
   • Urban middle-class families increasingly share tasks like grocery shopping, bill payments, or childcare.
   • The growth of nuclear families and migration for jobs often requires men to participate in domestic work.
3. Commercialization of Care Work
   • Paid domestic help, daycare centres, food delivery services, and household appliances reduce women’s unpaid workload, indirectly changing gender roles.
4. Policy Support
   • Maternity and paternity leave, flexible work arrangements, and “work-from-home” options can facilitate more egalitarian arrangements.

B. Persistent Continuities

Despite these trends, studies reveal slow and uneven change:

• Time-Use Data (India 2019):
  • Women spend nearly 4.5 hours/day on unpaid domestic and care work.
  • Men spend only about 1 hour/day, even when both partners are employed.
• Cultural Expectations
  • Patriarchal mindsets still valorize women as primary caregivers.
  • Household help is often hired and managed by women, not men.
• “Double Burden”
  • Women perform paid work and continue to shoulder the majority of household duties, reinforcing the second-shift phenomenon.

Illustrations

• Urban IT Couple in Bengaluru: Both partners earn similar incomes, but the woman typically organizes meals and schoolwork for children, while the man’s household participation is episodic.
• Kerala’s Gulf Migrant Families: Women employed in nursing or education hire domestic workers but retain responsibility for planning and emotional labour.
• Nordic Countries: Strong welfare states and gender-equal norms show relatively balanced domestic work distribution, but women still perform slightly more care work.

Critical Analysis

• Intersectionality: Class, caste, and rural–urban differences matter. Middle-class women may outsource housework, while poorer women cannot, intensifying their double burden.
• Technology’s Mixed Role: While appliances save time, they sometimes raise expectations of cleanliness and care, not necessarily reducing labour.

Conclusion

The gender-based domestic division of labour remains a defining feature of household organization.

• Change is evident: more women work outside the home, some men share chores, and market or state interventions reduce women’s unpaid load.
• Yet the transformation is incomplete: patriarchal norms and unequal bargaining power mean women still perform a disproportionate share of domestic and emotional labour.

For genuine equality, structural changes—including gender-sensitive upbringing, universal childcare, paid paternity leave, and cultural shifts valuing men’s care work—are essential. Only then can women’s increasing participation in formal employment translate into a truly egalitarian domestic sphere.