Social Change and Family Relationships
What Are Conjugal Roles?
Conjugal roles refer to the roles performed by each partner within a couple relationship. Sociologists distinguish between two broad patterns. Joint conjugal roles describe partnerships where tasks, decision making and leisure are shared between partners. Segregated conjugal roles describe partnerships where male and female partners have clearly defined separate tasks — typically, the man in paid employment and the woman in domestic work and child rearing. Understanding how these patterns have changed — and whether they have genuinely become more equal — is at the heart of the families and relationships topic.
The Domestic Division of Labour
The domestic division of labour refers to how unpaid household tasks and child rearing are distributed within the home. Sociologists study a wide range of activities: cooking, cleaning, laundry, child care, disciplining children, managing household finances, arranging leisure activities and making major household decisions. The central question is whether this division is equal between partners, and whether it has become more equal as women have entered the paid workforce in greater numbers.
Functionalist View: Parsons and Complementary Roles
Talcott Parsons argued that the gender-divided conjugal role pattern — the man performing the instrumental role (breadwinner, financial provider) and the woman performing the expressive role (homemaker, emotional carer) — was both functionally efficient and naturally grounded. From this perspective, segregated conjugal roles are complementary: each partner contributes different but equally important tasks. Parsons presented this division as meeting the needs of modern industrial society, where paid employment demands geographical mobility and one adult must maintain the home while the other moves with work.
Peter Willmott and Michael Young (1973) argued that conjugal roles were becoming more equal over time. Their research suggested the modern family was becoming “symmetrical” — meaning that partners were increasingly sharing domestic tasks and leisure. Willmott and Young described the symmetrical family as one where roles are not identical but broadly equal in the time and effort each partner contributes. They linked this change to the principle of stratified diffusion: lifestyle changes begin among middle-class families and gradually spread to working-class families. For Willmott and Young, the trend towards symmetry represented a positive “march of progress” in family life.
Oakley’s Feminist Critique: The Myth of the Symmetrical Family
Ann Oakley directly challenged Willmott and Young’s optimistic picture. Her research on housework, published in The Sociology of Housework (1974), found that the domestic division of labour remained profoundly unequal despite changes in women’s employment. Oakley argued that the conventional family — with its gender-divided roles — was not disappearing but persisting in new forms. She criticised Willmott and Young’s methodology, noting that their threshold for male domestic participation was very low: men who helped with housework at least once a week were counted as “participating”.
Oakley developed the concept of the double shift to describe the burden on women who work in paid employment but continue to perform the majority of domestic labour at home. Rather than replacing domestic work, women’s entry into the paid labour market added a second shift to their day. Some feminist sociologists have further extended this to the concept of the triple shift — paid work, domestic labour and the emotional management of family relationships — capturing the full range of labour that women typically carry out.
Willmott and Young (1973) argued that conjugal roles were becoming more equal through the “symmetrical family” and the principle of stratified diffusion. Oakley challenged this as a myth — her research showed the domestic division of labour remained unequal and that women performed a “double shift” of paid work plus domestic labour.
Contemporary Issues: Dual Career Families, Decision Making and Leisure
Dual career families — where both partners are in paid employment — have grown significantly. This raises questions about how domestic labour is redistributed when both partners work. Research consistently shows that even in dual career households, women perform more domestic tasks and child care than their male partners on average. Decision making — who has the final say on major financial or household decisions — continues to be gendered in many households, with men retaining greater influence over major financial decisions. Money management patterns vary: in some families one partner controls all finances; in others both have independent access to income. Leisure activities also differ: research suggests men have more free leisure time than women in couples, where women’s leisure is more frequently interrupted by domestic and caring responsibilities.
Child-Centred Families, Boomerang Children and the Sandwich Generation
The specification identifies three further concepts about how family relationships have changed:
- Child-centred families: post-war British families became increasingly organised around the needs and wellbeing of children. Children’s emotional development, education and leisure became central concerns of parenting. This represents a significant shift from earlier generations in which children were expected to contribute economically to the household from a young age.
- Boomerang children: adult children who return to the parental home after living independently, typically due to high housing costs, unemployment or relationship breakdown. High property prices in many parts of the UK have made this trend particularly pronounced, with many people in their twenties and thirties unable to afford to live independently.
- Sandwich generation: people in middle age who face the dual responsibility of caring for both their own (sometimes adult) children and their ageing parents at the same time. The combination of extended life expectancy and delayed childbearing has made this “squeezed middle” experience more common. The caring burden falls disproportionately on women.
The boomerang generation (adult children returning home due to housing costs) and the sandwich generation (middle-aged adults caring for both children and parents simultaneously) are two contemporary features of British family life that reflect both economic pressures and demographic change. Both tend to increase the caring burden on women.
The “New Man” — the idea of a modern father who shares fully in domestic tasks and child rearing — is frequently cited in media and everyday discussion as evidence that conjugal roles have become equal. Feminist sociologists challenge this. Oakley argued that media representations of involved fatherhood are not backed by empirical data: the domestic division of labour remains unequal across most households. More men take paternity leave than in previous generations, but research suggests the distribution of daily, routine domestic tasks (cooking, cleaning, laundry, managing children’s schedules) continues to fall disproportionately on women. The “New Man” may be a cultural ideal rather than a sociological reality.