Jonathan Gershuny

Historical Changes in the Household Division of Labor

A number of studies published in the 1970s asserted that the amount of time women spend doing housework shows no historical decline. This article draws on evidence from time-budget surveys—three from the United States (1965, 1975, and 1985) and three from the United Kingdom (1961, 1974, and 1984)—to investigate the evolution of housework time for men and women over the last three decades. Clearly much other than housework has changed over this period. More women have paid jobs, more men are unemployed, and families have gotten smaller on average. Even having controlled for such sociodemographic changes, we conclude that in the two countries, women in the 1980s do substantially less housework than those in equivalent circumstances in the 1960s, and that men do a little more than they did (although still much less than women). These changes correspond closely to developments in four other countries (Canada, Holland, Denmark, and Norway) for which historical time-budget evidence is available.

Technical Change and the Work/Leisure Balance: A New System of Socio-economic Accounts

The conventional account of long term socio-economic change embodies a quite straightforward view of the relationship between technological advance and the development process. New technologies mean new and more efficient ways of producing the goods and services that people consume. Production of basic commodities becomes more efficient, so more resources can be devoted to the production of luxuries. At first, most of a society’s resources must be addressed to the satisfaction of primary wants; technological advance improves productivity in the primary sector, less labour is required to feed the population. So productive resources are diverted, first to manufacturing and then to services. Consumption and production shift in step from the primary to the tertiary sector. And class cleavages reflect the changing sectoral balance: first the landless oppose the landed, then the industrial labour class opposes capital, and finally the new post-industrial ‘service class’ opposes the old manufacturing interests of unreconstructed labour and capital.

Time Use Research: Subjective Time Use

The quality of life (QOL) or positive subjective benefits of the time people spent engaging in particular daily activities is often not obvious, although social observers seem to concur that increases in daily activities like child care, volunteering, and other potentially altruistic behaviors (as well as overall free time) represent improvements in a persons or societys QOL. In contrast, increases in time spent on routine housework, repair activities, and TV viewing are seen as less desirable. Nonetheless, it is helpful to have empirical support for many of these assumptions, and this is directly provided by the subjective time measures reviewed here.