A double burden (also called double day, second shift, and double dutySuzana Smith and Diana Converse. Double Day Work: How Women Cope With Time Demands . University of Florida, IFAS Extension.) is the workload of people who work to earn money, but who are also responsible for significant amounts of unpaid domestic labor. This phenomenon is also known as the Second Shift as in Arlie Hochschild's book of the same name. In couples where both partners have paid jobs, women often spend significantly more time than men on household chores and caring work, such as childrearing or caring for sick family members, while men spend significantly more time doing paid work. On average, both partners spend roughly the same amount of time working and on leisure. This outcome is determined in large part by traditional gender roles that have been accepted by society over time. Labor market constraints also play a role in determining who does the bulk of unpaid work.
Efforts have been made to document the effects of this double burden on couples placed in such situations. Many studies have traced the effects of the gendered division of labor, and in most cases there was a notable difference between the time men and women contribute to unpaid labor.
Unequal work burdens around the world
In the industrialized world
Pre-World War II The traditional female homemaker–male breadwinner model characterized female employment prior to World War II. At the turn of the 20th century in the continental United States, only 18 percent of women over the age of 15 reported receiving income from non-farm employment. These women were typically young, single, white, and native-born. In contrast, married women in the non-farm labor force were "predominantly blacks or immigrants and very poor". Working mothers often exited the labor force once their children were old enough to earn money.
The outpouring of occupational opportunities in the early 1920s, such as in "cafeterias, nurseries, laundries and other facilities seemed to release women from domestic chores and freed them to participate fully in the sphere of production."
This migration of women into the workforce shook the traditional ideology of gender roles and was the catalyst to the double burden becoming noticeable. The 1930s "encouraged women to fulfill what Stalin termed the "great and honorable duty that nature has given" them. Evident in the Soviet Union, "an officially sponsored cult of motherhood, buttressed by anti-abortion legislation" accompanied by a "depression of living standards" led to industry's immense demand for laborers which got women into the industrial workforce in unprecedented numbers". Urban women thus found themselves assuming the "double burden" (also known as the "double shift") of waged work outside the home and the lion's share of unpaid labor within it." The Second World War is typically seen as a catalyst for increasing female employment. Best exemplified by Rosie the Riveter propaganda of an efficient, patriotic, woman worker, World War II increased demand for female labor to replace that of the "16 million men mobilized to serve in the Armed Forces". While a substantial number of women worked in war factories, the majority of jobs were in the service sector. This caused the gendered expectations for that time to be altered and roles to be both tested and reassigned for the incoming decades.
Post-World War II The post-World War II period is marked by relatively high levels of female participation in the workforce, particularly in industrialized countries. Although a large proportion of women exited the workforce immediately following World War II, the idea of working-class women was able to take root and normalize. "In 2001, 47 percent of U.S. workers were women, and 61 percent of women over the age of 15 were in the labor force." Besides an increased demand for women's labor, other factors contributed to the growth of their participation, such as more educational opportunities and later marriage and childbearing ages.
The idea of the double burden is more evolved with the times concerning both sexes and their newfound roles. The role of a provider and caregiver is sometimes expected of women, but as more women enter the workforce, an 'independent' ideology seems to take effect and forces some women to decide between a career and family. Some may choose strictly one or the other, others may choose to carry the burden of both lifestyles. Some "modern men tend to believe in the principle of equal sharing of domestic labor, but fail to actually live up to that belief." The constant tug of war regarding one's time and where it could, should but will be spent creates a new speed bump that is a little bit higher than the previous ones. Modern times illuminate the dilemma that many dual-income couples face when trying to reconcile unpaid domestic work and paid employment. The burden of encompassing both ideologies plays a toll on both sexes in today's societies.
Latin America Due to globalization in the past thirty years, the power of the unskilled worker has diminished, and thus, the informal economy has flourished. In Latin America, there is an abundant number of workers to help out with domestic work, and consequently, domestic service is cheap, diminishing the family tensions surrounding the issue of domestic work. Currently, about half of the working population is employed in the informal sector, leading to "unemployment, underemployment, and social exclusion". Because of this, there has been a serious delay in providing welfare for the care of children and the elderly because the pressure to provide aid for working families is minimal. In addition, domestic workers, many of them women, often leave their countries to work in the informal sector in northern countries in order to increase income for their families, also delaying the pressure for governments to provide aid to these families. However, there has been a change since the 2000s in thinking about unpaid work due to the influx of paid jobs for women and the shortage of people available to do domestic work.
Although the increase in jobs for women has had benefits in policy changes for families with working parents, there have been debates about the conditions of the workplaces. In Mexico, there is an influx of the maquila industry, which produces products that will be sold in the developed nations. The mostly female workforce is often exploited by having unsafe working conditions, and stress is a major cause of many illnesses of these women.
Another increasing issue is the rise in conditional cash transfer programs in Latin America, such as the Oportunidades program in Mexico. Although this program is meant to provide poor families with an increase in income, the conditionalities has led to a time poverty for the family members who are in charge of fulfilling the conditions, most oftentimes the woman. This has increased the inequality of work burden within the family.
Western Europe Since the 1960s, Western Europe has been participating in a series of political debates to increase women's rights in the workforce. In the 2000s, there has been a change from considering women's rights to a mother's rights, focusing on the rights of pregnant women as well as mothers. However, there have been issues with creating laws specifically for mothers. There is still the inherent gender bias that women are the ones to care for children.Roberta Guerrina (2002). Mothering in Europe: Feminist Critique of European Policies on Motherhood and Employment, European Journal of Women Studies 9(1). doi: 10.1177/1350506802009001381
Some parts of Western Europe, especially Scandinavian countries, have been creating family-friendly policies that have aided them in equalizing the gender difference in participation in the work force. Nordic countries have the highest female participation rates in the work force in the world and salary differences are among the lowest.(2013). The Global Gender Gap Report, World Economic Forum. Government aid in providing care to the elderly and the young have enabled women in Scandinavia to be a part of the working population at nearly as high a rate as men. Examples of government aid include paid parental leave and benefits and post maternity re-entry programs. Such programs have led to a greater participation of women in the workforce, as well as a higher birth rate, and a robust economy.
Eastern Europe Under communism, everyone was guaranteed employment. However, women suffered the double burden of paid and unpaid work, leading to lower birth rates. The commitment to social equality and the issue of declining birth rates allowed women to have some rights, such as child care and child allowances. For example, in the Soviet Union, maternity leave was extended to three years and part-time work was introduced. With the collapse of communism, many of these rights have been revoked due to the new largely male oriented democracy that has been put in place. Although there has been an increase in female workers, their need for welfare support such as child care has not been met, and has been ignored.
Asia In Western and Southern Asia, women represent only a third of the work force.Martha Chen, Joann Vanek, Francie Lund, James Heintz with Renana Jhabvala, Christine Bonner (2005). Progress of the World's Women. UN Women. Many of them, even women in more modernized Asian countries, are involved in the informal sector, in traditional jobs for women, such as caring or teaching, without benefits such as employee health insurance or pension plans.Jeemol Unni, (2004). Globalization and Securing Rights for Women Informal Workers in Asia , Journal of Human Development, 5(3). doi: 10.1080/1464988042000277233
The issue of the double burden is exacerbated in Asian countries due to the large cultural norm of women doing care work held by both men and women. In many developed countries, women drop out of work when they have children in order to have more time to take care of them.(2012). Women Matter: An Asian Perspective, McKinsey & Company.
In countries where women have to do paid work in order to feed their family, there is a lack of regulation and safety standards regarding female workers due to the large amount of informal work available. In Thailand for example, due to the severe economic crisis in 1997, many women have jobs in the informal industry, and often do home-based work so that they can do their domestic jobs concurrently with their paid jobs. This increases the work intensity by women doing more than one job at a time, and has been shown to have deteriorating effects on women's health.Maria S. Floro & Anant Pichetpongsa (2010). Gender, Work Intensity, and Well-Being of Thai Home-Based Workers, Feminist Economics, 16(3), 5-44, doi: 10.1080/13545701.2010.499657
Causes
Gender ideology "Gender ideologies are linked to beliefs about appropriate behaviour for men and women". Socialization plays a major role in determining gender ideologies and what's valued in one time and culture may not necessarily transcend to another. Traditional gender ideologies have contributed to the double burden because it posits women as caretakers, men as providers, and each gender occupying their own sphere of influence. Although research has shown that attitudes about gender roles have become more egalitarian over the past few decades, "these changes in gender attitudes have not been accompanied by corresponding changes in the allocation of housework".
Labor market constraints