Conjugal Role Relationships (AQA GCSE Sociology): Exam Questions

Item B

From Item B, identify and describe one way in which Oakley saw the conventional family as being patriarchal, including what you know of her perspective on the family.

Item A

In 1974, Ann Oakley collected information from 40 married women who had one child or more under the age of 5. All of the women were British or Irish born and aged between 20 and 30 years old. Half of her sample were working class and half were middle class. All of the women lived in the London area.

Oakley found greater equality in terms of the allocation of domestic tasks between married couples in the middle class than in the working class. However, in both social classes, she found little evidence of their husbands sharing the housework. Only 15% had a husband who shared domestic work to a significant level.

Source: Oakley, A, The Sociology of Housework (1974)

Identify and explain one factor that may account for differences in the allocation of domestic tasks as shown in Item A.

Identify and explain one advantage of using a mixed methods approach to investigate conjugal role relationships.

Item B

Sociologists Michael Young and Peter Willmott studied family life in Britain over several decades.

In the 1950s, Young and Willmott studied family life in East London, focusing on the traditional working-class community living at that time in Bethnal Green.

In the early 1970s they conducted a large-scale social survey. In this research they interviewed almost 2000 individuals living in the London area. They concluded that family life had become largely home centred with much of the family’s leisure time spent in the home and involving activities such as watching television together. They also concluded that in the 1970s nuclear family, the husband and wife were increasingly sharing their chores around the house, describing this pattern as the development of a ‘symmetrical family’.

Source: Willmott, P and Young, M, ‘Family and Kinship in East London’ (1957) & ‘The Symmetrical Family' (1973)

From Item B, identify and describe the research method used by Willmott and Young in the early 1970s, including what you know of their perspective on the family.

Identify and describe one way in which conjugal role relationships may be segregated.

Item B

From Item B, identify and describe one way in which Oakley saw the conventional family as being patriarchal, including what you know of her perspective on the family.

Describe the double shift experienced by women in marriage.

Identify and describe one example of how patriarchy can affect the power relationship within families.

Describe one characteristic of a joint conjugal role relationship.

Identify and explain one advantage of using unstructured interviews to investigate domestic violence within families.

Discuss how far sociologists would agree that gender roles are equal in families in Britain today.

Discuss how far sociologists would agree that families in Britain today are symmetrical.