WAGED AND FAMILY WORK : GENDER AND CLASS PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

This study examines the ways in which men and women from dual-income marriages approach waged and family work. Of significant interest are the reasons accounting for the similarities and disparities between the attitudes and behaviours of men and women with regards to these two commitments. The socialisation and the gender perspectives were used in this study. The former emphasises the experiences of childhood, while the latter is based on the premises that gender is created and recreated in daily adult experiences as well, and that certain actions are "engendered" and symbolic meanings are given to the roles of "provider" and "manager of the home". The data collected can testify that although childhood socialisation had an important role to play in the majority of the cases by setting the mould in how men and women view their waged and family work roles, it was not totally deterministic in some cases. The gender perspective makes its contribution at this point when it brings attention to present situational factors (social class viewed in terms of the wives' occupation being an important one in this case) and negotiations between the couples that play a vital role in moderating, maintaining, deconstructing as well as reconstructing gender boundaries.