This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Dempsey, K. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Exploitation in the Domestic Division of Labour: An Australian Case Study

Department of Sociology La Trobe University

This article emanates from an Australian rural community study. It draws on data from formal surveys and direct obser vation conducted over a period of 14 years. The principal pur pose is to demonstrate that during each major stage of the life course females have an inequitable share of domestic labour. Adult women are shown to have entire responsibility for house hold management and major responsibility for child care. The inequity is of such a nature and sufficiently extensive to warrant describing it as exploitative. The exploitation is most apparent among wives engaged in paid work and wives married to men who themselves have left the paid workforce. Edgell's thesis that men may make a different but equal contribution to domestic labour is examined and refuted. A major aim of the article is to show that during adolescence girls begin preparing for their future subordinate and servant activities as wives by servicing brothers and fathers. In the process they are often exploited by their brothers who enter their own marriages committed to the view that women exist primarily to serve as carers and nurturers of men and their offspring.

Journal of Sociology, Vol. 24, No. 3, 420-436 (1988)
DOI: 10.1177/144078338802400304


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?