The Institution of Work – Key information

Functionalist theory (Durkheim, Parsons)

key concepts: work as necessary for society and fulfilling for the individual. Status quo, roles, beneficial, men = paid work, women = unpaid work, gendered division of labour…

Conflict theory (Marx, Bell)

key concepts: alienation, industrial revolution, inequality, hierarchy, capitalism, Taylorism, Post-industrial period, manufacturing/service/knowledge industries, casualisation and underemployment…

Feminist theory (See feminist theorists listed for family)

key concepts: double burden, patriarchal dividend, gender pay gap, gendered division of labour, mental load, resistance…

Liquid and late modernity (Bauman, Giddens and Beck)

Precarious jobs, Gig economy, sharing economy, zero hour contracts, destandardisation, individualisation, insecurity, universal basic income…

The Institution of Family – key information.

Key theories:

Functionalist (Murdock and Parsons)

concepts: gender roles (expressive and instrumental), primary socialisation, functions of the family (reproductive, sexual, economic and educative),  stabilisation of adult personalities, mutually beneficial gender roles, nuclear family as ideal…

Conflict (Marx)

concepts: capitalism, safety valve, class reproduction, inequality, power, nuclear family as suited to capitalism…

Feminist theories (de Beauvoir, Oakley, Berger*, Firestone and Crabb**)

concepts: patriarchy, dual burden, domestic labour, emotional work, unpaid work, gendered division of labour, mental load, self-actualisation, inessential, alternative family forms, child birth, marriage, second sex, surveyor, male gaze, wife drought, women entering workforce, “symmetrical families’ (Wilmott and Young, 1972), biological difference/cultural difference, transcendence… 

*Berger’s ways of seeing helps us understand the difference between male and female experience in society and thus their role in family and intimate relationships.

**Crabb is writing recently (2015)

Liquid modernity (Bauman) and Late modernity (Giddens)

concepts: ‘Until further notice’, liquid love, consumerism, intimacy, commitment, fluid sexuality