Does the family benefit men more than women?
In this report I'll state weather the family benefits men more than women based on sociological studies.
A research conducted by Young and Willmott in the 1970's suggested that the roles in they family were becoming more symmetrical; I.e. there were joint conjugal roles. Conjugal roles are roles men and women have in relation to housework and childcare in the home.
Feminist sociologists argue that Young and Willmott are wrong, feminists believe that the roles are still not equal. Elsa Fermi and Kate Smith state that women suffer from a dual burden. Women are involved in more housework and childcare than men, as in the equal opportunities report from 2010 gives evidence to support this as women do 2 hours 32 minutes per day of housework and childcare, where as the men do 2 hours 16 minutes, which has a gap of approximately 12%. This may seem insignificant, but this figure shows us that in fact women do do most of the housework. Based on this figure, it shows that relationships are not becoming equal because couples are not sharing equal amounts of time, for caring for the child, and housework. Only a small % of husbands have a high level of participation in housework, (15%) and childcare (25%). Men may “help out” but they rarely take responsibility for domestic tasks. When women work it is mainly low pay and an extension of their housewife role e.g. nursing/childcare/cleaning.
I think that when conducting a survey for 2012, there would be a great difference in the amount of time spent at home because women are now working to support their husbands, and sending their children to after school clubs, or to their grandparents because they know that they can't look after them because they're working for a long period of time. There would also be a decrease in the hours spent on housework because we now have more modern technology that we use, for example dish washers and washing machines to do them for us. Additionally, the time spent on cooking due to the fact that more people are buying take always, like McDonalds, KFC and Dixy for example. There is also