This article, partly in response to Wheelock's article in Capital & Class (1990), examines the issue of flexibility, with regard to domestic labour, between married couples with different patterns of employment/unemployment. Morris argues that women's role within the home will not be strengthened so long as they are restricted to part-time work–which, in essence, is designed to accomodate their ‘domestic obligations’.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bell, C. and L. McKee (1985) ‘Marital and family relations in times of male unemployment’, in B. Roberts, R. Finnegan and D. Gallie (eds) New Approaches to Economic Life. Manchester University Press, Manchester. pp. 387–99.
2.
Cooke, K. (1987) ‘The withdrawal from paid work of the wives of unemployed men’ in Journal of Social Policy16. pp.371–82.
3.
Dex, S. (1985) The Sexual Division of Work.. Wheatsheaf, Brighton.
4.
Gershuny, J.I. et al (1986) ‘Preliminary analysis of the 1983/4 ESRC time budget data’, Quarterly Journal of Social Affairs2. pp.13–39.
5.
Gershuny, J.I. et al (1987) ‘The changing work/leisure balance in Britain 1961–84’, Sociological Review Monograph33. pp.9–50.
6.
General Household Survey (1988) HMSO, London
7.
Harris, C.C. et al (1987) Redundancy and Recession in South Wales.. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
8.
Joshi, H (1984) Women's Employment in Paid Work. Department of Employment Research Paper 45, HMSO, London.
9.
Laite, J., and P. Halfpenny (1987) ‘Employment, unemployment and the domestic division of labour’, in D. Fryer and P. Ullah (eds) Unemployed People.Open University Press, Milton Keynes.
10.
Marsden, D. (1982) Workless.. Croom Helm, London.
11.
Morris, L.D. (1985) ‘Renegotiation of the domestic division of labour’, in B. Roberts et al (ed) New Approaches to Economic Life. Manchester University Press, Manchester. pp. 400–16.
12.
Morris, L.D. (1991) ‘Women's poor work’, in P. Brown and R. Scase (eds), Poor Work, Disadvantage and the Division of Labour. Open University Press, Milton Keynes, pp. 71–87.
13.
Morris, L.D. (forthcoming) ‘The social segregation of the long-term unemployed in Hartlepool’. Sociological Review.
14.
Pahl, R.E. (1984) Divisions of Labour.. Blackwell, Oxford.
15.
Wheelock, J. (1990) ‘Capital restructuring and the domestic economy’ in Capital & Class40. pp.103–141.