Homework and Domestic Work

Homework and Domestic WorkAuthor(s): Hilary SilverReviewed work(s):Source: Sociological Forum, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Jun., 1993), pp. 181-204Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/684634 .Accessed: 17/12/2012 14:46

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Sociological Fonrm, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1993

Homework and Domestic Work1

Hilary Silver2

This study assesses two competing theories about the extent to which homework-paid work in the home-helps integrate work and domestic roles for men and women. Contrasting male and female homeworkers with their counterparts working outside the home, it supports some aspects of both the resource and role overload theories, but predominantly the role overload perspective. Homeworkers, especially in the working class, experience less interference between job and family life, but perform more housework and child care. They have no more leisure time nor greater marital satisfaction than those working outside the home, but receive more family assistance with their paid jobs, suggesting that they combine tasks from their 'first" and "second shifts." Working at home does not break down gender roles in domestic life. Despite time saved from commuting, male homeworkers perform no more housework than comparable men working outside the home. Thus, the gender division of unpaid household labor is not simply a matter of resources or spatial logistics. KEY WORDS: homework; housework; child care; women and work.

INTRODUCTION

Sociologists frequently assume that workplace and residence become spatially segregated in modern industrial societies. However, a small, per- haps growing segment of the work force combines paid and unpaid work in the home. Does the spatial integration of home and work make it easier to meet the dual demands of families and breadwinning, or add to tensions between domestic and economic spheres of life?

1An earlier version was presented at the meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society, Providence, Rhode Island, April 1991.

2Department of Sociology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912.

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Two dominant theories regarding the division of household labor sug- gest very different answers to these questions. One assumes women are largely confined to the domestic sphere and men to paid employment; the other emphasizes women's dual roles as homemakers and workers.

The resource theory, as Pleck (1985) portrays it, builds on function- alist sociology, exchange theory, and the new home economics (Becker, 1976; Berk, 1980; Parsons and Bales, 1955). It treats the division of a household's total productive labor as a rational decision maximizing its collective efficiency and utility. Women's labor force participation is mini- mal or secondary to their domestic contributions. Under conditions favor- ing the earning potential of men, husbands exchange money or "instrumental" functions for wives' affection, household reproduction, and "expressive" functions.

The role overload perspective, in contrast, draws on time use studies compatible with feminist critiques of the family division of labor (e.g., Meissner et al., 1975; Hartman, 1981; Sokoloff, 1980). As formulated by Pleck (1985:24), the role overload hypothesis holds that the division of family work in contemporary two-earner couples, deriving from traditional sex role ideology and husbands' low psychological involvement in the family, is inequitable, a source of conscious dissatisfaction to wives, and injurious to their well-being.

For this hybrid feminist approach, norms and economic relations both contribute to the inequality of power between the sexes. Traditional gender ideology, by relegating women to domestic work, has favorable economic consequences for men both at home and in the labor market. Women are subjected to male domination in both public and private spheres; their "double day" overloads their time and energy. However, their disadvantage is reduced if traditional gender roles break down. Homework, especially by men, may have such an effect.

Pleck (1985:152) found that employed wives do not suffer from role overload in terms of time demands, provided they work in typical women's jobs that are "considerably less substantial than their husbands' in terms of both the average number of hours worked per week as well as continuity over time." Working women reduce hours of housework, although there is some debate about how much men with working wives increase the time they spend on domestic chores (Spitze, 1988; Thompson and Walker, 1989). While traditional gender role values have little effect on family work, a

demanding job in terms of hours reduces the time available for both men and women to do household work. Do these findings hold for homeworkers as well?

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Homework and Domestic Work

Previous Conceptions of Homework

The resource and role overload perspectives have their counterparts in approaches to the relationship of homework and family life. In brief, homework has been viewed, respectively, as flexible and "progressive"-a reorganization of work responding to social preferences and technological possibilities-or as inflexible and "oppressive"-a residue or resurgence of exploitative production practices. Both approaches assume that homeworkers are women, since the home is "their" domain.

The conception of homework as progressive sees it as a strategy to flexibly combine work and domestic roles. For this reason, futurologists pre- dicted homework would boom (Nilles, 1977; Toffler, 1980), although the trend has yet to materialize to any great extent (Horvath, 1986; Silver, 1989). The management literature frequently treats employers who allow staff to work at home as "enlightened," in contrast to those protecting traditional prerogatives and control. In responding to employees' needs for flexibility, managers benefit from homeworkers' increased productivity. Ad- vocates of "telecommuting" argue that new technologies and the decen- tralization of production also make it possible to retain highly skilled employees who might otherwise quit to care for their families (Gordon, 1988; National Research Council, 1985; Olson, 1988; Ramsower, 1985). Thus, this approach concentrates on highly qualified professionals and managers.

It is primarily the emphasis on the flexibility of homework from the workers' point of view that gives this approach its "progressive" cast. Home- work should provide autonomy and control over work and freedom to balance it with family responsibilities, offering the "best of both worlds." Although enhanced leisure time saved from commuting is most frequently cited as an advantage of homework for men (Nilles, 1977; Pratt, 1984), the recent trendiness of "parenting" suggests homework might also encourage men to perform more household tasks and child care. Indeed, Toffler (1980) portrayed the "electronic cottage" as a place where the entire family works together.

Yet in terms of objective gender relations, homework-and this approach to it-might not appear so progressive. Opponents of homework regulation have long argued that homework provides both a source of income and a buttress of "sacred motherhood" and "traditional family values" (Boris, 1985). Indeed, some studies assert that female homeworkers have more conservative gender role attitudes and do not put careers before family (Nelson, 1988; Kraut 1989; Pratt, 1984). Other studies have found that

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female homeworkers value the proximity of family members to their work (Beach, 1989; Benson, 1989; Kingston, 1983); consider it positive when their children assist them (Lozano, 1989:117-121); and receive help from husbands with household chores and child care, as well as work (Beach, 1989; Costello, 1988). Women's homework has long been embedded in a dense network of nuclear family, extended family, and community relations (Ben- son, 1989; Fernandez-Kelly and Garcia, 1989).

Taken together, this approach offers what Kraut and Grambsch (1987) called an "optimistic" view of homework. It allows households to optimize economic and time resources of their members, especially women. Although traditional gender roles are frequently assumed necessary to sus- tain them, "family values" may also be maximized by fathers working at home.

The "pessimistic" view of homework draws on the role overload theory and labor history (Boris and Daniels, 1989; Johnson and Johnson, 1982). It portrays homework as a form of exploitative sweating that ties women to the dual demands of family and employers, leaves them little free time, isolates them socially, and subjects them to their husbands' control (Allen and Wolkowitz, 1987; Beneria and Roldan, 1987; Leidner, 1987). Homework is sometimes portrayed as part of a growing, dependent "informal" sector of the capitalist economy in which "third world" modes of production are imported, like the immigrant women favored for this work, to the first world (Morales, 1983; Portes and Sassen-Koob, 1987). This perspective stresses the payoffs of gender inequality to employers, rather than to households. Thus, research with this orientation frequently focuses on working-class women in the secondary labor market, holding subordinate industrial, service, and most recently, lower level white-collar positions.

Lacking a spatial separation of public and private spheres, working- class homeworkers are doubly disadvantaged. Employers pay low wages and

poor benefits, save on overhead, and avoid unions. They may also benefit from the unpaid labor of other family members (e.g., Biggart, 1989; Lozano, 1989; Finch, 1983). In addition, husbands enjoy the fruits of an unequal division of domestic labor. Rather than enjoying greater flexibility, homeworking women have less free time. They discover the "relative inflexibility of both family members and ... management" (Costello, 1988:143). As Pen- nington and Westover put it, "The flexibility of homework is that it permits the worker to overwork, and to extend her working day well past what is considered reasonable and healthy" (1989:164).

Studies taking this approach report that homeworkers want a clear distinction between paid and unpaid labor (Christensen, 1988; Nelson, 1988; Pratt, 1984). Working at home eliminates the boundary between work and family, so that women rarely have time or space to escape either

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(Costello, 1988). Although the use of outside child care may add considerably to their satisfaction with home-based work (Christensen, 1988), homeworking women feel guilty about the housekeeping they "let go" and experience conflict with husbands and children who compete for attention with their work (Costello, 1988; Kingston, 1983). Particularly pressed are self-employed homeworkers and those with insufficient time to complete their work while their families are out of the house (Costello, 1988; Nelson, 1988). Although most working mothers reduce their hours of housework, homeworkers may find it more difficult (Nelson, 1988). Indeed, one study (Kraut, 1989) reports that clerical homeworkers, who were predominantly married mothers of young children, did nine more hours of housework and child care a week than office workers, but had no more leisure time. They were also more likely to mix paid with domestic work during the day, and had less help with specific work and household tasks than office workers. Yet they reported less role conflict between work and family life and more social support.

Previous exploratory studies of homework provide empirical support for some aspects of both these approaches. Nevertheless, contrary evidence is frequently subordinated to the conclusion that homework, overall, is either progressive or oppressive. Rather than trying to evaluate whether the consequences of homework are intrinsically positive or negative, this study concentrates on resolving contradictory empirical predictions of the resource and overload theories. By contrasting a nationally representative sample of homeworkers to on-site workers with the same job and personal characteristics, it assesses the domestic consequences of combining paid and unpaid work in the home.

Hypotheses

The resource approach to work-family relations suggests that homeworkers should (1) hold more traditional gender role attitudes, (2) experience less tension between their work and family roles, (3) be more satisfied with their family lives, (4) have more time for unpaid domestic labor because they do not commute, and (5) receive more help from their families with domestic and paid work than those who do not work at home. They should conserve time and energy by successfully integrating spheres of social life that others keep separate. The role overload approach implies the reverse. In particular, homeworkers' time should be more committed than that of comparable on-site workers.3

3Although a preexisting "overload" may induce women to accept homework in the first place,

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Both approaches assume homeworkers are predominantly women, but the evidence is that they are about equally divided by gender (Horvath, 1986; Kraut, 1988; Silver, 1989). Indeed, Olson's (1989) nonrandom sample of computer professionals who work at home was 84% male. The resource approach suggests that homeworking men may be more "liberated" in their family values, do more housework and child care, and experience less tension between work and family roles than men working away from home. In contrast, the role overload approach suggests that gender relations inside the household will not change simply because men do their paid work at home. Traditional gender attitudes will persist, with women performing the housework and child care while men are the primary breadwinners. The role overload approach predicts no differences in work/family tensions or satisfaction with family life between men working in and outside the home.

METHODS

Data

Most prior studies of homework and the family are exploratory. They draw on nonrandom samples, however large, contacted through the media, employers, or personal referrals (snowball sampling). Although these studies are a rich source of hypotheses, it is difficult to generalize from their conclusions.

A possible reason for the contradictory perspectives on homework is that homeworkers are themselves heterogeneous and have diverse reasons for, and reactions to, doing homework. Virtually all samples of homeworkers have been limited in some way, whether to nonfarmers or rural workers, to white-collar, clerical, or home-based day care workers, to those with in- tact families or children, or most frequently, to women. These restrictions reflect either unfounded assumptions about who works at home and why, or a particular research interest, such as computer-based homework (Na- tional Research Council, 1985). Moreover, restricted samples tend to pre- clude important research questions regarding differences in motivation for homework by social class or occupation, gender, household structure, and so on.

The greatest deficiency of most prior studies is the lack of a control

group. The absence of a point of reference has not precluded such con-

the QES only provides information on current domestic commitments. Thus, this study considers whether, once individuals are working in the home, role conflict and domestic time constraints are lower than those experienced by on-site workers.

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clusions as "overall, homeworkers display more power to remold and recast work demands to fit family needs than do conventionally employed workers" (Beach, 1989:138). With exceptions (Heck, 1989; Horvath, 1986; Kraut, 1988; Olson, 1989; Silver, 1989), homeworkers are rarely contrasted with those working away from home.

This study addresses these deficiencies. It is based on a nationally representative sample of the American labor force, the 1977 Quality of Employment Survey (QES), which identifies men and women who work in their home as well as outside it, their household structures, domestic life, and employment characteristics (Quinn and Staines, 1979). The survey is representative of those 16 years of age or older currently employed for 20 or more hours a week. It consists of 968 men and 547 women whose average age is 38 years.

This data set is not ideal. Collecting new data on a phenomenon as infrequent as homework has always been difficult. If exploratory studies looked for homeworkers where their preconceptions led them, more sys- tematic studies must rely on large samples in order to find sufficient num- bers of homeworkers. Even then, one is constrained by the phrasing of survey questions designed with particular emphases in mind. The QES is no exception. The advantage of the survey is the great detail with which it describes paid and domestic work conditions, and attitudes toward work and family, as well as providing demographic and household information. It is well suited to the research questions at hand.

Operationalizing Homework

Any study of homework must first resolve a number of conceptual issues before operationalizing the notion. Defining homework can seem especially problematic given the controversy over the economic status of housework (e.g., Hartmann, 1981). The conventional definition of work, however, is that it is financially compensated. Another definitional problem has to do with what constitutes a "job." Many would-be entrepreneurs en- gage in hobbies or avocations that may eventually earn money but are con- ducted before or after paid work hours. A related issue is whether only one's primary job, or "moonlighting" as well, should count as work at home. If homework is "oppressive," it may reflect efforts to supplement another low-paid job performed outside the home. The QES provides complete information solely for respondents' primary job, and it is on this basis that we define homeworkers. We can control for holding a second paid job, for the QES did ask about the amount of time devoted to second jobs, although the location is not specified. Homeworkers generally spend about the same

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amount of time on a second job as on-site workers, and moonlighting constitutes about one-third of total weekly work hours for both groups. How- ever, female homeworkers devote almost twice as much of their work time to second jobs as male homeworkers, and are more likely to moonlight than on-site women workers (see Table I).

It has been argued that full-time "primary" homeworkers differ dra- matically from part-time "supplemental" ones in terms of socioeconomic characteristics, benefits from working at home, and reasons for doing so (Kraut, 1988; Ramsower, 1985). Primary homeworkers are more likely to work at home in order to mesh desires for independence with family and work obligations. Thus, they are the appropriate focus of this study.

Table I. Logistic Regression Coefficients on Probability of Working Mainly at Home

Total Women Men

Sex (1 = Male) -1.655b - Years worked since 16 (age) .049b -.059 .108b Years of School Completed .095 .931b .080 Self-employed 2.373b 6.349b 1.083a Race .162 9.029 -.061 Disabled .406 .762 -.225 Working class -.902a 2.493 -9.266 Farmer 2.384b .457 3.012b Hours worked .002 .000 .005b Has second job 1.046b 2.852a 1.119 Metropolitan area resident -.451 -.491 -.840 Married .101 .758 -.965 No. children under 6 years .451 .705 .395 No. children 6 to 12 years -.400 -1.522 .014 Spouse works -.534 .216 -.956 Gender roles attitudec .316a 1.575b -.068 Working mother attitude' .198 1.592a .048 Core sectorc .084 -1.631 1.090 Union member -1.358 -7.289 -.955 Firm size -.001 -.091 -.001 Intercept -8.221 -39.612 -9.138

p < .10. bp < .05. CTraditional gender roles aptitudes are measured by the extent of agreement on a 5-point scale (1: strong disagreement; 5: strong agreement) with the statement "It is much better for everyone if the man earns the money and the woman takes care of the home and children." Traditional attitudes towards working mothers refer to the extent of agreement with the statement "A mother who works outside the home can have just as good a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work." This scale also runs from (1) strong disagreement to (5) strong agreement; thus, a lower value on this variable indicates greater traditionalism. See Tolbert et al. (1980) for the core-periphery industrial classification.

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Table II. Who Works at Home? Quality of Employment Survey

"How often do you do work at home that is part of your job?"

% Total % Men % Women

Never work at home 57.4 54.3 63.0 Rarely work at home 15.6 16.2 14.4

A few times a year 9.9 10.7 8.3 About once a month 5.7 5.5 6.1

Frequently work at home 23.3 25.5 19.4 About once a week 7.7 8.6 6.1 More than once a week 15.6 16.9 13.3

Mainly work at home 3.7 4.0 3.1 Professional/managerial (44) (36) (8) Working-class (11) (2) (9) N of homeworkers (55) (38) (17)

Total N 1499 959 540

The QES asked "How often do you do work at home that is part of your job?" and offered six alternatives: never; a few times a year; about once a month; about once a week; more than once a week; and work mainly at home (Table II).4 This study defines homeworkers as those who "mainly" work at home, contrasting them with workers in the other categories.5 Of the 1499 people responding to the place of work question, 55 reported working mainly at home-3.7% of the QES sample. This estimate is very close to those reported by other nationally representative homeworker sur- veys (Horvath, 1986; Silver, 1989). Similarly, the QES yields a profile of homeworker characteristics, reported in Table I, that accords with prior studies (Horvath, 1986; Heck, 1989; Kraut, 1988).

4The QES also asked those who work sometimes but not mainly at home: "is it usually because you want to, because you have to in order to keep up on your job, or because you are asked to by others?" Those who rarely work at home are more likely to do so because they want to or were asked to than those who work at home more frequently. A majority of those who work at home at least once a week have to in order to keep up on their jobs, although about half want to work at home as well. Although there is no data on the motives of primary homeworkers, this finding suggests that the degree of "flexibility" homework offers does differ to the extent that workers can choose to vary their place of work.

5Although working at home at least once a week might be a good definition of "supplemental" homeworking, job conditions reported by these workers probably refer to their on-site workplaces. As in prior studies, QES respondents working "mainly" at home differed from those doing so at least once a week. The latter are disproportionately in professional and managerial occupations, strongly committed to their work, and spend very long hours on the job.

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Variable Measures

The dependent variables in this study refer to aspects of domestic life, including job-family interference, satisfaction with family life, hours of housework, child care, leisure, and family assistance with one's job. Each is discussed as the results are presented. Continuous or ordinal dependent variables are analyzed with ordinary least squares regression6 and categori- cal ones with logistic regression.

The effect of homework on family-related variables, by sex and household type, is assessed with a dummy variable for working mainly at home. Because the "oppressive" perspective on homework expects the exploitation of female homeworkers to be greatest among those in industrial, service, sales, and clerical occupations (Beach, 1989; Fernandez-Kelly and Garcia, 1989; National Research Council, 1985; Portes and Sassen-Koob, 1987), an interaction term for being a working-class homeworker was also examined.7 These variables are hypothesized to affect domestic work and other aspects of family life over and above two sets of control variables.

The first set of controls is derived from a preliminary logistic regression analysis predicting the probability of working at home with a variety of personal and job characteristics suggested as important in the literature

(Table I). Significant determinants of working at home are held constant in the equations in order to distinguish the effects of homeworkper se from those of causes or correlates of homework. They include the following: sex; years of work since age 16; years of school completed; self-employment; hours worked per week; moonlighting; farming; working-class occupations; and as the resource theory would predict, "traditional" attitudes toward

gender roles and working mothers.8

6The analysis of ordinal dependent variables with ordinary least squares regression is controversial (see Winship and Mare, 1984). Therefore, the equations were reestimated with polychotomous logistic regression, and the results were substantially the same. However, ordinary least squares estimators are preferable to maximum likelihood coefficients when small samples are involved (see Wonnacott and Wonnacott, 1970:399). See also Blalock (1972:164, 293-294) on significance tests with small samples.

7I refer to them as "working-class" homeworkers for ease of exposition, although they might as meaningfully be labeled "less skilled" or "secondary labor market" occupations. Analysis showed they differ from professional and managerial homeworkers, the focus of the "optimistic," high-technology perspective on homework, in terms of supervision, autonomy, and other job-related indicators of social class. Yet homeworkers, especially men, are significantly less likely to be in working-class occupations than on-site workers. Thus, any working-class homeworker effects are gender specific. However, all of the reported effects of being a working-class homeworker were found among homeworkers in general, before the interaction term was added to the equation.

8Farming is usually considered a preindustrial occupation, and many farm workers are self-employed, rather than wage workers. Therefore, this occupation is controlled separately. Forty-four percent of the male homeworkers are farmers. The correlation between

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The second set of control variables consists of factors shown in prior studies to influence domestic work (see Berk, 1980; Blumstein, and Schwartz 1991; Coverman and Shelley, 1986; Hochschild, 1989; Ross, 1987; Voydanoff, 1988). These include household structure, the relative financial power of the spouses, and as above, sex, gender ideology, and hours of work. Household structure refers to workers' marital status, having a working spouse, and the number of children under 5 and between 6 and 12

Table III. Understandardized Regression Coefficients Predicting Degree of Work-Family Interference

A. By sex

Total Women Men

Homeworker -.113 .934a -.347 Working class * Homeworker -.755a -1.616b Sex (1 = male) -.190 Working class .005 .002 .004 Farmer -.328 - -.0096 Self-employed -.149 -.424a -.136 Years worked since 16 (age) -.008b .0007 -.009" Years of school completed .001 .007 .003 Hours worked .002b .003b .002b Has second job .017 -.002 .013 Gender roles attitudes -.008 -.016 -.009 Working mother attitude -.005 -.038 .006 Annual earnings .000005a -.0000003 .000005 Spouse's annual earnings -.00001b .000007 -.00001b Married -.092 -.132 -.243 No. children under 6 years .043 .134 .008 No. children 6 to 12 years .110b .208b .075a Spouse works .141a .186 .125 Intercept 1.390 1.228 1.438 R2 (adjusted) .11 .11 .11

B. By Family type

Parents Married Married Parents

Homeworker .301 -.121 .298 Working class * Homeworker -1.540b -.024 -1.559b (Covariates not shown)

< .10. bp < .05

self-employment and farming is .34, high but hardly synonymous with entrepreneurship. Years of work since the age of 16 is strongly correlated with age, precluding the entry of the latter into the regression equations. After this correction, there is no evidence of multicolinearity. See notes to Table I for definitions of traditional gender roles attitudes.

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years of age. The relative power of the spouses in the household is measured by the workers' own and their spouses' annual earnings (Blumstein and Schwartz, 1991).

ANALYSIS

The Integration of Separate Spheres?

Resource theory and the "progressive" view of homework credit the spatial integration of workplace and residence with helping workers balance their public and private lives and move flexibly between paid and unpaid work. If this is true, one would expect homeworkers to experience less conflict between their work and family roles. The overload hypothesis and "oppressive" approach to homework imply the opposite. The QES asked respondents about the extent to which their job and family life interfere with each other. Table III presents the results of the regression on this 4-point scale ranging from not at all to not too much to somewhat to a lot.

It shows that working-class homeworkers, regardless of family type, report significantly less job-family interference than those working outside the home. Insofar as working-class women are concerned, these results appear to support resource theory as against the overload hypothesis. Indeed, the very homeworkers whom the latter most expects to find homework oppressive appear to perceive fewer tensions between their dual roles. Work- ing-class jobs outside the home offer less autonomy and flexibility than on-site professional and managerial work. They often have fixed hours, pro- hibit personal phone calls or brief absences from the job, and are closely supervised. On a 5-point job "autonomy" scale measuring such items as control over work speed, co-workers, and break times (Quinn and Staines, 1979:194-195), men and women in working-class jobs score lower than those in professional and managerial occupations. But working-class homeworkers report much greater autonomy than on-site working-class men and women. Working-class women averaged a score of 3.3, compared to 3.9 among professional and managerial women, but working-class homeworking women averaged 4.3 out of a maximum score of 5. Thus, homework may offer domestic benefits exclusively to those in inflexible jobs.

Voydanoff (1988) previously found that longer work hours, more

young children, and such job characteristics as autonomy influence work- family interference. This study confirms these effects. Yet over and above these factors, performing work and family duties in the same location ap-

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pears to reduce the conflict between these roles for those in the working class.

While male homeworkers do not differ from on-site working men in their perception of role conflict, female homeworkers in professional and managerial jobs experience significantly more tension between their work and family roles than do comparable on-site workers. This suggests that the overload hypothesis does apply to homeworking women in demanding, time-consuming jobs.

Furthermore, subjective assessments of job-family interference do not necessarily reflect behavior. Although female working-class homeworkers may perceive little conflict between work and home life, they may actually spend as much time in both paid and unpaid work as their on-site counterparts. Indeed, in analyses not presented here but available from the author on request, homeworkers, whatever their occupation and gender, had no more leisure time than those working outside the home, suggesting that these two groups make different adjustments between paid and unpaid work. Nor were male and female homeworkers more likely to be satisfied with their marriages or families, or to value family as the most important thing in life, than were on-site workers. And they found it no easier to take time off during the work day to take care of personal or family matters. These findings appear to contradict the "progressive," resource perspective on homework. To adjudicate between these theories, it is necessary to go beyond attitudes and assess the effects of homework on actual domestic behavior.

Housework

If working-class homeworkers do not have any more free time than on-site workers and yet feel less conflict between their work and family, this may be because they find it easier to fulfill domestic responsibilities. By eliminating the journey to work, working at home may free up time, as resource theory suggests. Yet these hours may be filled with "second shift" duties and result in overload. Do homeworkers spend more time on household chores than their on-site counterparts?

To test this possibility, I analyzed the following QES question: "on the average, on days when you're working, about how much time do you spend on home chores-things like cooking, cleaning, repairs, shopping, yardwork, and keeping track of money and bills?" An analysis of variance in housework hours, by gender, class, and place of work, indicates that women perform an average of 2.8 hours of household chores on workdays,

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Table IV. Unstandardized Regression Coefficients Predicting Workday Daily Hours of Housework (x 10)a

A. By household type

Married Total Parents Married Parents

Homeworker 1.258 -1.071 1.841 -.079 Working class * Homeworker 18.826c 19.016c 17.470c 16.828c Sex (1 = male) -13.232C -22.047C -18.964c -23.212c Working class 2.500C .746 2.034b 1.044 Farmer 3.889 5.918 3.621 5.441 Self-employed -3.069C -3.848b -2.662b -3.658b Hours worked -.015C -.023C -.020C -.024C Hours commuting -.217c -.041 -.084 -.014 Years worked since 16 (age) -.020 -.092 -.015 -.076 Years of school completed -.053 .123 .114 .134 Has second job -1.007 -1.057 -1.638 -1.506 Gender roles attitude .486 .454 .372 .384 Working mother attitude -.107 -.508 -.392 -.586 Annual earnings -.00003 .00004 -.00000 .00006 Spouse's annual earnings .O001 .00007 .00005 .00006 Married .670 3.670 No. children under 6 years 1.469c 1.035 1.846c 1.495b No. children 6 to 12 years 1.096c .640 1.025b .555 Spouse works 3.448c 1.859 2.348c 1.779 Intercept 29.150 38.414 35.232 42.834 R2 (adjusted) .28 .43 .40 .46

B. Controlling for homework. gender interaction (same controls as above)

Male -13.185c -21.928c -18.887c -22.968C Working class 2.499c .797 2.039b 1.128 Homeworker 3.240 2.931 4.830 7.396

Working class * Homeworker 14.929c 15.185b 14.602b 9.620 Male * Homeworker -2.683 -6.027 -3.876 -10.286

aHours metric is two digit. For example, 25 = 2.5 hours. Working-class homeworkers spend significantly more hours on housework on nonworkdays as well.

bp < .10. Cp < .05.

significantly more than the 1.2 hours devoted by men. However, the gender gap is even greater among homeworkers: female homeworkers average 3.5 hours, while homeworking men put in only 0.8 hours a day. Distinguishing women homeworkers by social class further pinpoints the source of this difference. Professional and managerial women homeworkers do average slightly more housework (2.6 hours) than their on-site counterparts (2.5 hours). But in contrast with the 2.9 hours of household chores performed on workdays by on-site working-class women, women working at home in

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working-class jobs perform an average of 4.4 hours a day. Such a large difference is difficult to attribute to chance.9

Second, workday hours of housework were regressed on commuting time (assigning homeworkers a value of zero), significant predictors of homework, and factors known to affect domestic work. The results in Table IV confirm prior findings. Other things being equal, women spend 1-2 more hours in housework on workdays than do men, and their domestic work time rises with parenthood. Housework rises significantly with the number of young children and a working spouse. Those in working-class occupations spend more time on chores, while the self-employed spend less. The longer one's paid work hours, wherever one works, the fewer one's hours of housework.

Other things being equal, professional and managerial homeworkers do no more household chores than comparable on-site workers. However, working-class homeworkers, most of whom are women, spend about twice as much time a day on housework, even on workdays, than on-site workers. Evaluating the equation to control for confounding factors, we see that the mean professional or managerial on-site worker spends 1.6 hours on housework on workdays. The comparable homeworker spends 1.7 hours. Work- ing-class on-site workers average 1.8 hours, but working-class homeworkers devote, on average, a whopping 3.7 hours to household chores on workdays.

These effects hold among the entire labor force, working parents, and married workers. Moreover, working-class female homeworkers do not do more housework because they save time that others spend commuting. Time spent in the journey to work does indeed cut into domestic chores, but the negative effect is statistically insignificant.

To what extent do male homeworkers increase their domestic contributions? An interaction term for being a male homeworker has a negative but nonsignificant impact and reduces the working-class homeworker effect by mere minutes.10 As the analysis of variance also demonstrated, working at home does not "liberate" men to do more housework.

Child Care

One might expect homework to have a similar effect on time spent in child care. The QES asked working parents "on the average, on days

9Outliers are not responsible for this or the child care effects. For example, only 1 homeworker, but 23 on-site workers, report 8 hours or more of daily housework.

1?See Table III(B). In the housework and child care analyses, an interaction term between gender and homework was entered into the equations for each family type, instead of analyzing men and women separately by household structure, in order to conserve space.

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when you're working, about how much time do you spend taking care of or doing things with your child(ren)?" Again, the analysis of variance results are striking. In general, women spend twice as much time on workdays with their children as men (3.5 vs. 1.8 hours). But female homeworkers spend 4.5 hours a day with their children, compared to only 2.0 hours among male homeworkers. Thus, the latter do spend slightly more time on child care than male on-site workers, but much less than their female coun-

Table V. Unstandardized Regression Coefficients Predicting Workday Daily Hours of Child Care (x 10)a A. By family type

All parents Married parents

Homeworker -1.604 -2.097 Working class * Homeworker 19.160c 20.117c Sex (1 = male) -8.336c -9.260c Working class .448 -.219 Farmer 9.709b 8.961 Self-employed 4.386b 3.706 Hours worked -.039c -.035c Hours commuting -.044 -.050 Years worked since 16 (age) -.315c -.291c Years of school completed .075 -.187 Has second job -2.507 -1.293 Gender roles attitudes .954 1.232b Working mother attitude .991 .865 Annual earnings -.0001 -.00006 Spouse's annual earnings -.00004 -.00004 Married -4.098 No. children under 6 years 2.384c 2.737c No. children 6 to 12 years .034 .183 Spouse works 2.884 3.298 Intercept 46.114 42.559 R2 (adjusted) .269 .250

B. Controlling for homework. gender interaction (same controls as above) All parents Married parents

Male -9.852- -9.U93c Working class .512 -.162 Homeworker 5.238 3.007 Working class * Homeworker 12.898 15.195 Male * Homeworker -9.852 -7.024

aSee Table II. Spouse's child care hours only asked of married parents with working spouse. There is no significant effect of homework on child care hours on nonworking days.

bp < .10. Cp < .05.

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terparts. Professional and managerial women homeworkers devote the same amount of time (3.3 hours) to child care as their on-site counterparts. The source of the high average among female homeworkers is the working-class women, who report 5.4 hours of child care on workdays, 2 hours more than on-site working class women.

The difference persists after control variables are added (Table V). As in the case of housework, professional and managerial homeworkers do not differ from those working in these occupations on site; if anything, they do less child care. But other things being equal, working-class homeworkers, most of whom are women, devote about 2 additional hours per workday to child care than do comparable on-site workers.

This effect falls below statistical significance when controlling for male homeworkers. Not only do fathers in general spend less time with their children, but, other things being equal, so do fathers working at home. Al- though this coefficient is not significant, its negative sign is consistent with the housework findings: spatial proximity does not increase men's domestic contributions.

As expected, the time parents spend on child care increases with the number of preschool children, but not with the number of children older than 5. It also declines with the worker's age (years worked). While self- employment reduces housework hours, it increases child care hours, suggesting that children may accompany parents to work in small family businesses. As is true of housework, the longer one's work hours, the less time spent in child care. This relationship is particularly true among fathers, as indicated by a significant interaction effect between gender and work hours (not shown). But this variable had no impact on the working-class homeworker effect on child care hours, as most of these homeworkers are women.

The time-use results support overload theory more than resource theory. Homeworkers, especially women in working-class occupations, spend more time on domestic chores and child care than comparable on-site workers, holding their work hours and commuting time constant. How can this be, given that they report as much free time as those working outside the home?

Family Assistance with the Job

One possibility is that they receive help. For example, assistance with child care may be forthcoming from someone other than one's spouse. Yet a logistic regression on the use of nonparental child care arrangements re- vealed no homework effect. Questions about nonparental child care ar-

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Table VI. Unstandardized Regression Coefficients Predicting Family Assistance with Job (1: Never; 5: More than once a week)

A. By sex

Total Women Men

Homeworker 1.169" 1.119b 1.153b Working class * Homeworker -.048 .087 Working class -.115 -.270 -.051 Farmer .355 - .377 Self-employed 1.469" 1.432b 1.491b Sex (1 = male) .082 Years worked since 16 (age) -.005 .003 -.008a Years of school completed .058' .077b .054b Hours worked .002a .002" .002b Has second job -.112 -.025 -.140 Gender roles -.040 -.015 -.052 Working mother attitude -.017 -.079 .004 Annual earnings -.000009b -.000006 -.000009b Spouse's annual earnings -.000001 .000001 -.000009 Married .071 -.212 .757 No. children under 6 years -.104" -.074 -.130a No. children 6 to 12 years -.054 .049 -.092a Spouse works .084 .270 .064 Intercept .418 .273 -.017 R2 (adjuested) .33 .34 .32

B. By family type (same controls as above)

Parents Married Married parents

Homeworker 1.000b 1.167b .989b Working class * Homeworker -.026 -.033 -.036

p < .10. bp < .05.

rangements were asked of dual-earner households only. The probability of using child care increased with the number of preschool age children, and declined with the workers's own income and traditional gender role attitudes. Contrary to some studies (Christensen, 1988), homeworkers are no more likely to use paid or family day care than comparable on-site workers. However, if no help with housework or child care is forthcoming, there is another alternative: Assistance with one's paid work. Above, it was reported that self-employed workers reduce their housework hours and increase their time in child care. A similar mechanism may be operating among homeworkers. In effect, homeworkers whose families assist them with their job may consider themselves to be accomplishing two things at once. This hypothesis is consistent with one aspect of the overload hypothesis: rather than cutting into leisure or sleep, homeworkers' longer "dual day" may reflect a "speedup" on the "second shift" (Hochschild, 1989:8-9)-t hat is,

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they do both paid and unpaid work during the same "accounting unit" of time. Indeed, there is evidence that on average, women report doing three domestic tasks at a time (Berheide, 1984; Thompson and Walker, 1989:855).

To illustrate, consider the effect of homework on family assistance with things that are part of one's job, a variable available for workers living with a family member over age 12. Table VI demonstrates that, other things being equal, all homeworkers, whatever their social class or household structure, receive family assistance with their jobs much more frequently than on-site workers. While having young children reduces family aid, having more teenage children tends to increase it, although not significantly. Gender exhibits a meaningful, though statistically nonsignificant pattern: married women receive less family help with their jobs, while married men receive more.

In sum, homework is a family affair. Homeworkers may accomplish more domestic work per hour of paid work without diminishing their leisure time because their families, especially older children, help with their paid jobs.

CONCLUSION

In the 1930s, social reformers argued that homework "commercializes the home," turning bedrooms into workspaces and young children into workers. The consequence was the "demoralization of the home as the family shelter from the stress and strain of the outside world" (Belville, 1935:33). Only by abolishing homework would the separation of social spheres be complete. Opponents of homework regulation also appealed to family values, but argued, in contrast, that some women had to work to support their children as well as care for them at home (Boris, 1985). To- day, as before, homework is at the center of a debate over the relationship between social spheres and women's proper role in them. What is the effect of men and women working at home on family life? And does the spatial integration of paid and unpaid work confirm the expectations of resource theory or the overload hypothesis?

The attitudinal findings are mixed. Homeworkers, especially women, hold more traditional gender role and parenting attitudes, and the perception of conflict between job and family is significantly lower among working-class homeworkers than it is among comparable women who go out to work. These findings support resource theory and the "progressive" perspective on homework. In contrast, professional and managerial homeworking women experience more tension between these roles, in conformity with

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the overload thesis. Moreover, homework has little effect on subjective assessments of one's personal life. Homeworkers are no more satisfied with their marriages or family lives than are on-site workers.

As for time use, the findings are more consistent with overload theory. Other things being equal, working-class women homeworkers spend more time on housework and child care than do their on-site counterparts. While resource theory suggests that homeworkers-both male and female-should accomplish more domestic work because they avoid a journey to work, commuting time did not account for homework's effect on the length of the dual day.

The role overload hypothesis suggests an alternative reason for working-class women homeworkers' greater domestic contribution. Although homeworkers sacrifice no more free time than do equally hard-working on- site workers, they appear to do more than one thing at a time. In support of this explanation, it was found that homeworkers-whatever their occu-

pations, gender, or family type-receive more assistance with their jobs from other members of their households. Without reducing their hours in paid work or leisure, they marginally increase their time in domestic labor by working with their families. Help from family members may also explain why working-class homeworkers perceive less conflict between their job and family roles.

Some may find these results consistent with Toffler's (1980) vision of the homeworkers "electronic cottage" and the family's integration of separate spheres. Family assistance may express solidarity and responsibility on the part of older children, as well as enhance homeworkers' productivity and the household's earnings. But from the overload perspective, help from family members may augment employers' profits or a self-employed hus- band's control over family labor, making it possible to have two or more workers for the price of one (Finch, 1983; Lozano, 1989; Biggart, 1989). If this is so, homeworkers' families are exploited on the job even if the dual days of homeworkers themselves are no more significantly overloaded. Homeworkers' speedup occurs in their paid work as much as it does in their domestic duties. Furthermore, family assistance with homework may have troubling policy implications. When the Department of Labor recently lifted its ban on industrial homework (Iverson, 1988; duRivage and Jacobs, 1989; Herod, 1991), it may have insufficiently considered that child labor violations may result from homeworkers' attempts to balance paid and unpaid roles (see Kilbor, 1990, 1989).

Homework is not only a women's issue. Although a majority of homeworkers are male, working at home has little effect on men's gender role

200 Silver




attitudes, perceptions of work-family interference, or contributions to domestic work. The resource theory implies that men working at home, like those in preindustrial times, no longer face the physical barrier to participation in housework and parenting, and should have more free time, saved from commuting, to do household chores. Yet the results support the overload hypothesis that-based on the assumption of persistently unequal gender relations-expects no increase in male homeworkers' participation in domestic labor. Men working at home, whatever their occupations, spend no more time in housework or child care than men working elsewhere.

Yet male homeworkers enjoy significantly more family assistance with their job than do men working on-site. In their case, there is little doubt that gender inequality in the labor market and in the family reinforce each other. When men work at home, so, most likely, do their wives and children without paid compensation.

Not all homeworkers are married or have children. Time spent in domestic labor is itself a function of household size and structure. Yet whatever one's family type, gender continues to determine who performs unpaid domestic work.

Furthermore, this gender inequality persists regardless of workplace. This study suggests that the separation of spheres is not a spatial or logistic matter, as the resource approach implies. Wherever jobs are performed, they connect individuals to social institutions that take little account of workers' family and private lives, to the particular disadvantage of women. Although working-class women homeworkers perceive less tension between their dual roles, they do so in part because their families join in their jobs. Whether other family members perceive tension between their home life and this indirect connection with homeworkers' employment is a question for future research.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is grateful for the very helpful comments of Frances K. Goldscheider and Greg Elliott.

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Article Contentsp. 181p. 182p. 183p. 184p. 185p. 186p. 187p. 188p. 189p. 190p. 191p. 192p. 193p. 194p. 195p. 196p. 197p. 198p. 199p. 200p. 201p. 202p. 203p. 204

Issue Table of ContentsSociological Forum, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Jun., 1993), pp. 157-336Front MatterInstitutionalizing Dissent: The United States Structure of Political Opportunity and the End of the Nuclear Freeze Movement [pp. 157 - 179]Homework and Domestic Work [pp. 181 - 204]Broadening the Enclave Debate: The Labor Market Experiences of Dominican and Colombian Men in New York City [pp. 205 - 220]Tradition and Novelty in Concert Programming: Bringing the Artist Back into Cultural Analysis [pp. 221 - 242]Symbols and the World System: National Anthems and Flags [pp. 243 - 271]Notes and InsightsSigns of Status in Bridal Portraits [pp. 273 - 283]Revisiting "Street Corner Society" [pp. 285 - 298]

Review EssaysPreface [pp. 299 - 301]Feminism, Families, and Family Sociology [pp. 303 - 315]How Should Sociologists Treat Becker's "Treatise on the Family"? [pp. 317 - 329]

Back Matter [pp. 331 - 336]

Documents

Homework and Domestic Work