Blog #1 Historical Perspective on Family and Work

The readings for this week look historically throughout the years at family and work, focusing mostly on women in the work force and marriage. In the past, generally women’s jobs tended to be centered on the household, whether it was manual labor for the household or raising children. Women’s roles became more involved in the market as commercial economy developed. Still, a division in of labor within the home was still prevalent and males tended to control capital and have the primary responsibility of the family. Women’s work at home was seen “necessary for survival” and took many hours to perform. After industrialization waged work became more available to women. The Industrial Revolution transformed domestic tasks into paid labor Even when “real” work was available to them, work at home was still necessary so it was like having two jobs.

In Chapter 2 of “From Marriage to the Market” a black female profession in the 1950s is quoted saying “I am a little fed up,” expressing resentment towards their husbands’ expectation of their domestic labor and having the notion that “woman is the homemaker and man is the breadwinner.” I completely sympathize with her resentment. There is no reason why those roles cannot be reversed and a man “stay at home.” I feel like today it is more common for a “stay a home dad” to exist, and for men to take over some of the domestic duties, especially with more woman at work. In my own experience, my father actually did just as many “domestic duties” as my mother, even though he worked and she didn’t (until she got a part-time job once all us kids were grown up.) My father cooked for us a lot more than my mother ever did, made us breakfast in the morning, and even prepared our lunches for school. My mom was responsible for many other things, but in general they tried to split the domestic duties since that wasn’t really my mom’s forte.

I thought that the statistics on a mother’s median age at last childbirth from Kingsley’s “Wives and Work” was surprising. More recently the age has been decreasing significantly, but the latest age of 27 (1950s) seems extremely young. I’m curious to know what the statistics are for today. I feel like the trend is no longer getting younger and the age is higher. Women seem to be getting married not quite as young as in the 1950s and therefore childbearing happens later.