Division of Household Tasks

In this assignment I will be dealing with the division of household tasks within a family. I have chosen to describe the present situation in the Czech Republic. I believe that I can support the facts and figures observed, as I come from this county. The main sources of data were found on the web pages of various “women, feminist organisations“. The most important source on which this assignment is based on comes from a survey carried out in the years 1994 and 2002 by the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). This research focused its questions on the division of household tasks between its members such as washing clothes, taking care of the sick, ordinary repairs, decisions about food and cooking at various family life-cycle stages. This means a family with no children, family with children and a family with parents living alone with grown up children out of the house. Both parents in the family were asked to give their opinions on the time spent of both of them on the household work.

The Czech Republic has undergone many system changes since the year 1989 when the communist party was taken down. I will briefly touch upon the household labour division before 1989 because I believe it can not be separated from today’s impact on family life. Before the year 1989 the participation of men in the household was higher than is today. One of the reasons for this might be that men had no better working, carrier opportunities. This means that they had more free time and could devote it to family life. At that time there were not enough goods and services available, therefore men had to get involved more in household chords. After 1989 there were major transformations in all fields of society which had a major impact on family life. With more opportunities arising for both women and men, less time was devoted to household work.

The prevailing family model in Czech families is the traditional one. The women are exclusively carrying the responsibility for the family and household tasks. Men are concerned with the public issues, mainly supplying the family with income. This fact is reflected in the division of household work, where women are the main decision makers. Women decide what will be done, when, by whom. They explain how the work should be done. So the men are in a position of occasional helpers, their participation in the household is very low. Men usually have more free time and they can devote it to their friends, hobbies and so on. In most cases both parents are fully employed. This means that the women have to deal with a “double load” of work or we could call it a “double shift”. Meaning that she has a regular job and then household duties are waiting for her at home after work. This has a negative effect on the women which are stressed out, nervous, have less time to sleep, have less time for themselves. Women tend to sacrifice their own life for the family.

From the surveys carried out in 1994 and 2002 various information can be deducted. In 1994 the participation of men in a household was 16 hours per week and women 23 hours. The number of hours devoted to household chords by both sexes has decreased by 2002. For women it was 23 hours and for men it was 13h per week. In 2002 men’s and women’s view on the division of household tasks can be observed. Washing clothes is almost entirely a task done by women (over 90%). The participation of men is about 7%. When it comes to doing ordinary repair around the house it is a task mainly done by men (over 75%). Cleaning the house is done by 75% of women. Women also have the main responsibility when taking care for the sick in the family. It was done by 55% women in 2002, in the year 1994 it was about 65%. This decrease might be explained by the increasing participation of men in this issue by about 5%. Both genders agree that