Gender differences in domestic unpaid work within the home
Authors
Lowndes, Anita
Issue Date
2010
Degree
BA (Hons) in Social Science
Publisher
Dublin Business School
Rights holder
Rights
Items in Esource are protected by copyright. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher/copyright holder.
Abstract
This study looks at the gender differences in unpaid work within the home. It is hypoFinal Year Projected that female participants will carry out more unpaid work in the form of domestic chores than their male partners. This was a quasi-experimental design, in which 107 couples took part in this study, 107 males and 107 females. The sex of the participants was the dependent variable, with individual household tasks being the independent variables on which they were measured. Snowball sampling was used to gather the particpants for this research project, with the only condition being that they lived in the same dwelling so they were able to answer the questionnaire correctly. A questionnaire pertaining to their participation in unpaid domestic chores was distributed to each couple and the results of which have been analysed for this study. Descriptive statisics with frequencies and t-tests were used to analyse the results submitted. It was found that the hypoFinal Year Project was supported in that females did carry out more domestic chores than their male partners in most of the individual household tasks they were asked about. Therefore, there is a gender difference in domestic unpaid work within the home.