IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v15y2001i4p803-823.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Household Division of Labour: Generation, Gender, Age, Birth Order and Sibling Composition

Author

Listed:
  • Samantha Punch

    (University of Stirling)

Abstract

Many studies have examined the household division of labour from a gender perspective, but comparatively few have considered age and the intergenerational distribution of household work. Using empirical evidence from my ethnographic study of rural households in Bolivia, I argue that whilst adult household labour is highly determined by gender roles, children's unpaid household work often cuts across gender stereotypes and does not merely mirror the adult division of labour. Furthermore, this paper argues that it is not sufficient to include only an intergenerational and gender analysis of household divisions of labour but that other intragenerational issues also need to be considered. Drawing on both children's and adults' perspectives, this paper discusses the nature of generation-specific tasks not only by gender but also by age, birth order and sibling composition. Whilst the paper is based on a case study of a rural community in a low-income country, it highlights the importance of the sibling order which has frequently been overlooked or ignored in household divisions of labour throughout the world. The findings show that the allocation of household labour in rural Bolivia is worked out according to generation, age, gender, birth order and sibling composition.

Suggested Citation

  • Samantha Punch, 2001. "Household Division of Labour: Generation, Gender, Age, Birth Order and Sibling Composition," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 15(4), pages 803-823, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:15:y:2001:i:4:p:803-823
    DOI: 10.1177/095001701400438215
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/095001701400438215
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/095001701400438215?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Victoria Goddard & Benjamin White, 1982. "Child Workers and Capitalist Development: An Introductory Note and Bibliography," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 13(4), pages 465-477, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aimable Nsabimana & Patricia Funjika, 2019. "Mobile phone use, productivity and labour market in Tanzania," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-71, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Lyn Craig & Abigail Powell, 2018. "Shares of Housework Between Mothers, Fathers and Young People: Routine and Non-routine Housework, Doing Housework for Oneself and Others," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 269-281, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Urvashi Soni-Sinha, 2006. "Where Are The Women? Gender, Labor, And Discourse In The Noida Export Processing Zone And Delhi," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 335-365.
    2. repec:ilo:ilowps:307504 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:15:y:2001:i:4:p:803-823. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.