Gender Roles and Domestic Labour

The distribution of domestic labour — housework, childcare, and emotional work — within the family remains one of the most debated topics in family sociology. Despite significant social change, research consistently shows that women continue to do more unpaid work in the home than men, even when they are also in paid employment. This lesson examines the key theories, research findings, and debates surrounding gender roles and domestic labour for AQA A-Level Sociology (7192).

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Parsons: Instrumental and Expressive Roles

As discussed in Lesson 2, Talcott Parsons (1955) argued that within the nuclear family, men and women adopt complementary roles based on biological differences:

Role	Performed by	Function
Instrumental	Husband/father	Breadwinner; provides financially; links the family to the wider economy
Expressive	Wife/mother	Homemaker; provides emotional warmth; nurtures children; stabilises adult personalities

Parsons saw this as a functional arrangement — each partner specialises in what they are "naturally" suited to, maximising the efficiency and stability of the family.

Criticisms of Parsons