Blackwell Reference Online

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Housework, broadly defined, refers to all unpaid labor performed to maintain family members and/or a home. This includes cleaning, buying groceries, meal preparation, and laundry. Sociologists often frame the discussion of housework as part of the division of household labor, and this is where housework is situated within sociological literature. In most studies, housework is defined by its measurement and often excludes childcare, emotion work, and other invisible types of labor. However, sociologists do acknowledge that the construction of “housework” as a concept is a historical process and is thus contingent upon other factors. It was not until industrialization that “housework” was seen as separate from “work.” In the preindustrial economy, women had primary responsibility for the daily needs of all household members and contributed to the productive activities of the household. With industrial capitalism, the household unit was no longer the source of production and by the nineteenth century a division of labor emerged based on the ideology of separate spheres. These boundaries were institutionalized and gendered, especially for the middle class. Housework was embedded with gendered connotations that resulted in its devaluation, and consequently subordinated women who performed these tasks. Ideologically, industrialization gave rise to a “cult of true womanhood” that created ... log in or subscribe to read full text