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This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

DIVISIONS OF LABOUR IN THE HOME:
A CASE STUDY OF TWO-JOB FAMILIES IN URBAN GREECE
presented by

Sofia Mitropoulou

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Masters degree in Sociology

 

 

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DIVISIONS OF LABOUR IN THE HOME:
A CASE STUDY OF TWO-JOB FAMILIES IN URBAN GREECE

BY

Sofia Mitropoulou

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Sociology

1986'

ABSTRACT

'DIVISIONS OF LABOUR IN THE HOME:
A CASE STUDY OF TWO-JOB FAMILIES IN URBAN GREECE

BY
Sofia Mitropoulou
This study explores household divisions of labour in Greece,
of ten urban, middle-class, well-educated, two-job married
couples having at least one child living at home. Separate,
in-depth, semi-structured interviews revealed that couples
in this study are joint-providers in terms of outside work,
but their outside work is perceived differentially, in ways
affected by gender ideologies. Moreover, they have not
taken the step to equal sharing of housework and childcare
because gender beliefs and ideologies intervene and mediate
divisions of labour at home. Women have a double burden,
they work full-time in the labour market and full-time at
home. This is justified by seeing women's paid-employment
as somewhat secondary, even though the income is essential.
The division of labour is also it is justified by various
gender ideologies deeply rooted in Greek culture, such as
ideologies of "motherhood", of women's "natural" domesticity
and weakness, of an "outside/inside" division and of women's

"expertise" and "efficiency" in domestic matters.

To Ioanna
and to all those silent, strong Greek women

who taught us independence,

who used their considerable
strength and determination

to ensure our freedom to study,
who conferred strength and love,
and made us who we are,

this thesis belongs to them.

And
to the memory of
Simone de Beauvoir
(1908-1986)

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my
advisor Dr. Barrie Thorne for her inspiration, guidance and
encouragement not only in completing this thesis, but also
throughout my graduate studies. If this study is of value I
own it to her. Also, I would like to thank my committee
members Dr. Marilyn Aronoff and Dr. Chris Vanderpool for
their helpful suggestions and criticisms. I thank them all
for their patience and support.

I wish to thank the people whom I interviewed for
taking time out of their busy schedules to participate in
this study. Especially, I would like to thank Kaity and
Michalis Karteris for their help.

Special thanks go to my friends Ruben Auger, Maby
Velez, Jo Dohoney, Taffy McCoy, and many others, each for
various reasons. And to my dear friends in Greece, Ntina,
Sofia, Vagia and Fotini, I offer my sincere appreciation not
only for their help in the first stages of this project but
also for their lifelong friendship.

I am deeply grateful to my parents Ioanna and Nikos
Mitropoulos for they have paid a high price which even they
are unable to acknowledge in helping me achieve this goal.
And to my wonderful "brotheraki" Antoni for his patience and
support.

Finally, to Dimitri, who helped in translating, editing
and typing this thesis, and who provided inexaustible
support, patience, ' encouragement and belief in my
potentials, I offer my warmest gratitude.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER:
I. INTRODUCTION
II. POLITICS OF HOUSEWORK

III.

IV.

VI.

A. Divisions Labour by Sex
B. Housework: Who Does What and How Much
(I) In the United States
(2) In Other Western Industrial-
Capitalist Countries

EMPLOYED WOMEN IN GREECE
A. A General Picture of the Position of
Employed Women in Greece
B. Sexual Divisions of Labour at Home

METHODOLOGY
A. Sample Selection and Characteristics
B. Nature of Interviews
C. Analysis of Interviews

A CASE STUDY OF TWO-JOB FAMILIES IN
URBAN GREECE
I- Perceptions of Paid-Work and
Familial Roles
II- Divisions of Labour at Home
A. General Perceptions about
Responsibility for Housekeeping
and Parenting
B. Perceptions of Actual Performance
of Housework & Childcare
C. Ideologies and Beliefs
D. Summary and Discussion of Findings

CONCLUSION
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PAGE

H

coconut:

23

23
37

43
43
48
51
53
54
63
64
71
76
88
96
101
102

107

LIST OF TABLES

Table:

1.

5A.

Employment by Gender and by Age (in thousands)
and Percent of All Employed Men and Employed
Women

Employment by Gender and by Sector of the Economy
in Greece (Percent of All Employed Men and
Employed Women)

Employment by Gender and by Occupation (in
thousands) and Percent of All Employed Men and
Employed Women

Percentage of Employed Women in Part-Time
Employment in Countries of the European Economic
Community

Respondents' Demographic Characteristics
Respondents' Occupation and Income per Month
Respondents' Reports on Performance of Housekeeping

Respondents' Reports on Performance of Childcare

Husbands' Level of Participation in the Home

Page

26

27

'28

30
46

46

74

89

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Divisions of labour based on gender have existed
throughout the history of "anthropos" and have taken various
forms. Sexual divisions of labour in the Western world were
shaped by the development of capitalism.which elaborated a
dichotomy of private and public spheres, i.e., of family and
paid work where women are defined in terms of "private" or
domestic and men in terms of the "public." Ideologies of
"domesticity", "mothering" and "the family" placed women in
the domain of the private sphere. These ideologies were
used later, during industrial-capitalism, to justify sex
segregation in paid work, when women entered into the labour
market. Moreover, because of such ideologies, women's work
in the marketplace has been viewed as secondary and
unimportant and has been restricted to a few sectors with
limited opportunities for advancement and low-pay. In
addition, their responsibility for housework and childcare,
i.e., maintenance of the household, perpetuates women's
financial dependence on men and thus their subordinate
position.

The number of women participating in the labour market
has constantly increased in the western industrial-
capitalist countries. For example, in the United States the

percentage of women in the labour force surged from 29% in

1

2
1950 to 43% in- 1983 (Population Reference Bureau, 1984).
Moreover, during the 1970s there was a rapid increase (more
than 50%) of married mothers entering into the labour
market, and an especially rapid rise in the labour force
participation of mothers with preschool children (Population
Reference Bureau, 1984).

WOmen's increased participation in the labour force
affected the division of labour in the domestic sphere, and
women's responsibilities in the domestic sphere (i.e.,
housework and childcare) affected their position in the
labour market. WOmen's entrance into paid work led to
questions about the legitimacy of beliefs which defined men
as breadwinners (providing income for the household) and
women as homemakers (responsible for maintenance of the
household) within families. The family, then, is an arena
affected by changes in paid labour, and with ongoing
tensions and conflicts. Claudia Mancina (1983:10), an
Italian feminist, has argued,

the family is not a rigorous structure; rather it

is a very flexible one able for deep
transformations, just because it is especially

complex. The family consists not only of a single

relation, but of a sum of relations which are

interrelated.

The study of divisions of labour by sex in both paid
work and families is important in order to understand the
social structure and its possibilities for change. However,

I also think that it is important to take into consideration

variations across different societies, because sexual

3
divisions of labour take different forms within varied
cultural, political and economic contexts. Sexual divisions
of labour in paid work and in the family --and their
interrelations-- have been the focus of extensive feminist
research in western countries, especially during the last
decade.

This study focuses on Greece and seeks to explore how
changing sexual divisions of labour in paid work interrelate
and might affect sexual divisions of labour in the domestic
sphere (including housework and childcare). I grounded my.
research in the extensive research on relations of changing
sexual divisions of labour (in paid labour and housework) in
various western countries (mainly in the United States and
some in Europe) as well on a limited number of studies

_ conducted in Greece.

CHAPTER II
POLITICS OF HOUSEWORK

A. DIVISIONS OF LABOUR BY SEX

The way in which the sexual division of labour is

defined and decided will depend on both the real

relations of sexuality, reproduction and work, and

the attitudes and beliefs about them. The sexual

division of labour is not given in nature but

constant in history. (C. Hall, 1980:44).

In the 14th century feudal societies in Europe, the
family was a self-sufficient, commodity producing unit where
domestic labour included a wide variety of activities.
Women were engaged in a range of household-based productive
activities aimed at productive consumption as well as for
the market. Thus, there was minimal separation between work
and family (i.e., no separation between commodity production
and domestic labour).

With the emergence of capitalism in the late 17th
century, however, the family started losing its importance
as a central unit of production and gradually became
important more as'a center of consumption and as a central
unit responsible for the maintenance and reproduction of
labour power. "With the development of capitalism comes the
separation of the home from the place of work and the
separation of domestic labour and commodity production"
(Hall, 1980). This results in a changed sexual division of

labour with women's position defined as secondary in both

ideological and economic terms.

5

During industrial capitalism which began to emerge in
the early 19th century we observe a more rigid sexual
division of labour with sharp ideological separation of
"work" from "home", and the "public" from the "private". An
ideology of "domesticity" consolidated, which defined
women's position as at "home" (the private) and men's
position is at "work" (the growing realm of paid wage
labour).

The organization of production in capitalist

society is predicated upon the existence of a

certain form of family life. The wage labour

system (socialized production under capitalism) is.
sustained by the socially necessary but private
labour of housewives and mothers. (Zaretsky,

1976).

Household labour is often called "labour of love" (for
example, by Luxton, 1980) because it is rooted in family
relationships which are important and intense. Thus, in
capitalist societies we have two spheres associated with the
work performed by the two sexes: the public world of "work"
based on economic relations and the private world of the
family household based on love relations.

This brief promenade through the history of the sexual
divisions of labour in the West leads to the current period,
that of late industrial capitalism. According to Eli
Zaretsky (1976) "the organization of production around
alienated labour encouraged the creation of a separate
sphere of life in which personal relations were pursued as

an end in themselves." The ideological separation between

"work" and "family," rooted in the 19th century, provides

6
the basis for beliefs such as that the only legitimate
family form is "the monolithic family" (with a breadwinner
father and a“ full-time wife and mother) and that the
existence of the contemporary nuclear family is functional

and inevitable.

Parsons (1959) developed a theory of the functional
inevitability of a division of labour by sex based on
specific roles performed by the husband and the wife in the
nuclear family. He emphasized the husband's "instrumental"
or goal oriented role, mediating in affairs between< the
family and outside world. Men fulfill their role as
breadwinners and thus their sphere is the outside world, the
economic and political arenas, the public life. The wife's
role, on the other hand, is "expressive", one that is
responsible for the family's well-being. Women fulfill
their role as housewives and thus, their sphere is the
inside world, intimacy, reproduction and maintenance of the
family circle, the private life.

Such beliefs conceptualize the family in a consensus-
equilibrium framework where harmony is viewed as the normal
state of family affairs and behaviours such as adjustment,
accomodation and consensus are seen as necessary for the
achievement of that harmony. In addition, this framework
tends to justify the definition of women's work outside the
home as secondary, gender-specific, unimportant, usually

unskilled and therefore, low-paid.

7

Other theorists, however, conceptualize the family as a
system in conflict and question harmony as a "normal" state
of affairs. For example, Jetse Sprey (1969:702) perceives
the family process

as an ongoing confrontation between its members, a

confrontation between individuals with conflicting

interests in their common situation, as an ongoing

peace-making effort which may result in a

negotiated order, a state of affairs which

remains, however, open to continuous re-
negotiation.
He introduces the concepts of cooperation and management of
conflict to explain family behaviour. A

Feminists, as Barrie Thorne (1982) discusses inh her
overview of feminist rethinking of the family, have analyzed
the daily experiences of family members, based on gender and
age structures. In addition, they have questioned the
ideology of the family as a refuge, a haven and a place of
love, emphasizing sources of of tension, conflict and change
within family life.

More specifically, Heidi Hartmann (1981) examines the
family as "a locus of gender, class and political struggle."
Her analysis is based on the marxist-feminist framework
arguing that capitalism and patriarchy shape the
organization of production within and outside the family.
She argues that "our present social structure rests upon an
unequal division of labour by class and by gender which

generates tension, conflict and change" (Hartmann,

1981:368). Hartmann illustrates her argument with the '

8
example of housework indicating power relations and patterns
of sexual inequality within households.

The basic argument is that what women do in the home is
not merely "housework” but it is the production of family
subsistence and the production of labour power. That is,
what women do in the house is "domestic labour" (Luxton,
1980). Meg Luxton (1980), cites a proverb (Canadian, I
assume):

a man's work is "sun to sun"
a woman's work is never done

This simple and quite eloquent proverb describes the basic
nature of domestic labour. It also reflects the
"traditional" beliefs of industrial capitalist societies
locating men's work outside at the labour market and women's

work inside at home.

B. HOUSEWORK: WHO DOES WHAT AND HOW MUCH
(I). In the United States.

The women's movement, along with the increasing number
of women participating in the labour market, have led to
questions about the legitimacy and desirability of
"traditional roles" (male/breadwinner and female/homemaker)
and about issues of equality and the distribution of work,
both paid (labour market) and unpaid (housework). Scholars
coming from various fields in the social sciences have been
concerned with the specific topic of housework and of who is
actually responsible for and performs various household

tasks, especially when both husband and wife are employed.

9

Housework involves all the activities which aim to
maintain the household and service the members of the family
(Luxton, 1980). Nearly all of the research on housework has
been done on husband-wife households, asking about
allocation to the husband, the wife, the children and/or
outside help (either hired or other relatives).

Focusing specifically on the division of labour at home
between husbands and wives, researchers have come to various
conclusions, depending (to a great extent) on the
methodology each researcher used (mail questionnaries,
person or telephone interviews, time-budget). I

The topic of housework was quite unexplored by social
scientists until <the 1970's. There are a few studies prior
to that time which suggest that contemporary divisions of
labour coincide with "traditional" divisions of labour, with
sharp divisions based on gender. Probably the most
important study prior to the 1970's was the one by Blood and
Wolfe (1960). They found that there was a sharp division of
labour along traditional lines, arguing that the ”same bio-
social reasons which shaped the traditional family still
supply differential resources which men and women bring to
marriage." Thus, the division of labour is based on gender-
specific resources, that is, the husband specializes in
”heavy and technical tasks and the wife specializes in
functions correlated with her role in life as childrearer

and childbearer."

10

Mirra Komarovsky (1962) studied working class families.
Her subjects consisted of a homogeneous group sharing some
characteristics: they were all white, native born of native
parents, protestant, not over 40 years of age, parents of at
least one child, blue-collar workers (both the husband and
the wife) with the highest level of education four years of
high school. Komarovsky, too, found traditional segregation
of masculine and feminine tasks: "cooking, laundry and
cleaning emerge as exclusively feminine activities in about
4/5 of the families... almost 2/3 of the husbands hardly
ever help with the dishes." Moreover, she found Ithat
husbands were more active in childcare and childrearing,
especially as children grew older, "with only 10% of the
fathers quite uninvolved." Fifteen years ago, Komarovsky
concluded that the division of labour in the home presented
"few problems" because both women and men accept such a
division.

Margaret Poloma and Neal Garland (1970) studied
families where women were actively participating in the
fields of medicine, law and academia. They wanted to
explore the so called "egalitarian family" and the
possibility of its existence. They found that only one of
the 53 families included in their sample fell into the
”egalitarian family” category, with wives and husbands
dividing the housework equally. Twenty were "traditional
families" (with a male provider and a female homemaker) and-

27 were categorized as "neo-traditional families" (where the

ll
husband and wife were of equal professional status but the
wife did more housework). Their analysis ileads to the
conclusion that "the assumption of a professional role by
the wife does not mean a dramatic change in family roles."
It is a myth that egalitarian families necessarily result
from both spouses being paid professionals.

A study which has become a landmark on the research on
housework, is Joan Vanek's (1974) analysis of 20 time-budget
studies made under the aegis of the 0.8. Bureau of Home
Economics from 1920 to 1960, and of the United States Time—
Use Survey, conducted in 1965 and 1966 by J. Robinson and P.
Converse of the Survey Research Center at the University of
Michigan. Her analysis revealed that employed women devoted
about half as much time as non-employed women in housework
(26 and 55 hours a week, respectively). Furthermore, she
found that employed women made no greater use of paid help
than non-employed women, and the husbands of employed women
gave no more help than husbands of non-employed women.

Berk (1976) conducted a research study in Evanston,
Illinois, using observations and interviews, questionnaires
and telephone interviews. She found that employed and non—
employed women contributed more housework than either their
husbands or their children, including work in areas often
regarded as "husbands'" work.

An interesting questionnaire study with younger
subjects (22 year old college men and women) attempted to‘

explore division of labour among cohabitating and married

12
couples (Stafford et al., 1977). This study illustrates
that although there are variations between the two groups
(married couples were significantly more traditional in the
performance of household tasks than cohabitating couples),
women in both groups still performed and were responsible
for most of the housework.

Personal and telephone interviews of husbands of a
sample over a thousand working—class families were analyzed
by S. Nickols and E. Metzen (1978). Data were obtained from
the Panel Study of Income Dynamics conducted by the Survey
Research Center, Institute for Social Research,- the
University of Michigan. Their analysis indicated that women
contributed 32.4 hours a week to housework and men only 2.4
hours a week. In addition, 65% of the husbands said that
they spent virtually no time in housework. However, the
researchers report that there were a few changes over the
6-year period covered by the study (1968-1973). There was a
slight increase both in the number of husbands who
contributed to housework and in the hours they spent doing
housework; also, there was a four hour decline in wives'
time spent in housework over the years.

Lovingood and Firebaugh (1978) conducted an exploratory
study of 100 families who had just had their first child.
They interviewed the couples separately using 25 identical
'items about who makes and who implements household task
decisions. Their study indicates that husbands and wives.

share in making and implementing task decisions, but they

13

tend to specialize. Wives decide and implement decisions on
the family dinner, shopping, laundry, dishes, childcare,
home decoration etc., and husbands make decisions about
buying the car and life insurance, as well as making
household repairs and housing arrangements. The only shared
decision implementation task was keeping track of the family
income. In this study, the wives were emnployed only part
time.

Kathy weingarten (1978) studied 32 two-profession
couples. In half, the wives were employed full-time and in
the other half they were employed part-time. She found that
couples where the wife was employed full-time (i.e., couples
shared a similar employment history) tended to distribute
family work more equitably than couples where the wife was
employed part-time (i.e., they shared dissimilar employment
histories). Wives of both groups did more childcare than
did their husbands.

An important contribution to the research on household
division of labour was provided by Berk and Berk (1979) who
analyzed data gathered from time-diaries kept by wives, two
interviews with wives (before and after completion of the
diaries), and an interview with the husbands. Their
findings suggest that husbands of employed wives "pick up
some of the burden" but ".. it is still probably fair to say
that the employed wives hold down two full-time jobs, one in
the market and one in the household.” Women remained-

basically responsible for housework and childcare. Husbands

14
were viewed as‘a "reserve source of labour in times of
particular need."

In addition, the work of Berk (1979) and Berk and Berk
(1979), along with the one of Walker and Wbod (1976),
demonstrate that it is possible to obtain detailed
quantitative data on housework. (Miller and Garrison,
1982). They show, for example, that time of the day can
influence activities of husbands related to housework and
childcare: "By considering when activities occur, we have
been able to specify a bit more clearly the mechanisms by
which household work and childcare are allocated to
household members" (Berk and Berk, 1979: 232).

Sara Yogev (1981) explored the question of egalitarian
marital relationships in two-profession couples, finding two
contradictory patterns; on the one hand, women in her sample
assumed most of the responsibilities for housework and
childcare and believed that their husbands were contributing
enough. On the other hand, they perceived themselves to be
basically equal to their husbands.

Among other results of a study on work for the
household, Carmi Schooler et al. (1984) found that women do
a wider range of household tasks and spend much more time
than their husbands do, whether they are employed or not.
Furthermore, both husbands and wives agree about which
spouse has primary responsibility for what specific task,
and they. both perceive the husband's responsibility for.

housework as "delimited."

15

Jane Lott McCullough (1981) in a study on
"contributions to household tasks by Utah husbands’ and
wives" analyzed data collected from 212 two-parent, two-
child families. Wives contributed most of the time required
for household tasks: the minimal contributions of husbands
was limited to performance of ”traditional” male tasks; age,
education, church affiliation and sex role ideology did not
vary significantly with the time contributed to household
tasks.

Jane Hood (1983) in her book Becoming a Two-Job Family,

 

focused on how wives and husbands renegotiate family roles
when the wife returns to paid employment. She conducted in-
depth interviews of 16 lower and upper middle-class couples
and analyzed "the terms of the marketwork/housework bargain
changed after the wives went back to work" (1983:l). She
found that none of the couples shared equally housekeeping
and childcare responsibilities; rather, there were various
degrees of husbands' participation in such responsibilities.
Hood argued that husbands are very likely to assume
household responsibilities when their wives enter into the
labour force under some conditions: when the wife earns 30%
or more of the household income and is defined as
coprovider, when she is work-commited, when she has aquired
bargaining power, increased self-esteem and decreased
emotional dependence upon her husband, when the husband is

family-oriented and not involved in his career and when both.

16
partners relinquish their traditional roles (i.e., the

wife/housekeeper and the husband/provider).

(2). In Other Western Industrial-Capitalist Countries.

Studies done in other countries of the industrial-
capitalist world also have found that women have longer
working days than do men workers. In England, Ann Oakley
(1974) found that women worked an average of 77 hours a
week. As for husbands' level of participation in housework
and childcare, "only a minority of husbands give the kind of
help assertions of equality in modern marriage imply."

Fifteen percent had a high level of participation in

housework and 25% in childcare. She also found that
patterns of husband's participation are class
differentiated; middle class husbands have higher

participation than working class housbands. Moreover, men
in her sample tended to participate more in childcare than
in housework.

In a study of 1960 British graduates, Fogarty et a1.
(1971) found that "clearly, the population, even the most
educated part of it, still regards domestic activities as
overwelmingly a female sphere." Wives did most of household
and childcare activities; husbands did the minor repairs,
and both did gardening and shopping.

In France, Agnes Pitrou (1980), who studied
specifically employed women, came to the conclusion that_

male participation in housework is "sporadic and minor,"

17
with the exception, again, of the "traditional" male sphere
of minor household repairs. Regarding childcare, however,
she found considerable participation of husbands of the
managerial class; younger fathers had higher rates of
participation than working class and older fathers.

We also hear from Norway by Torild Skard and Elina
Haavio-Mannila (1980) that although a great number of women
are employed there, and men have assumed some responsibility
for housework and childcare, the fact is that women “still
bear the main burden of housekeeping and childcare."

More specifically, in Sweden, Linda Haas (1981)
conducted a mail survey of couples where 72% of women were
employed. She found that 17% of the couples shared the
daily home care evenly, 23% claimed that it was done a
little more by the women, 58% said that it was mostly
women's responsibility, and 2% said that men were a little
more or mostly responsible for home care. Haas notes that a
close look at specific household tasks reveals a general
lack of equality between men and women in Sweden, since men
tend to share more tasks which require little skill such as
shopping, and to share less the ones which involve more
skill such as cooking. She concludes that realization of
equality in the home is still far off, despite the radical
sex-role ideology of Sweden.

Martin Meissner et a1. (1975) conducted a time-budget
study of several hundred married couples in Vancouver.

Canada. They analyzed data from one full workday and one

l8

day—off, of couples where both the husband and wife were
employed outside the home. They found that 39% of the
husbands and 97% of the wives contributed to any regular
housework on a weekday and 51% of the husbands and 95% of
the wives contributed on the weekend. One very interesting
finding in this study, when women are employed, is that in
families without children husbands increase their
contribution to housework time by six minutes a week; in
families with children they increase their housework time by
one hour a week. Thus, husbands' contribution to housework
remains ”small and virtually unchanged." Their conclusion,
based on extensive analysis of their data support that "most
married women do the regular, necessary and most time-
consuming work in the household every day" (Meissner et al.,
1975:431).

Armstrong and Armstrong (1978), who reviewed major
Canadian studies on women's work in the home, reveal that
"although research indicates that men help more in the home
when their wives enter the labour force, it also shows that,
in general, the division of labour remains unchanged."

Finally, Szalai (1972) conducted a comparative study of
the use of time in twelve countries including not only
Western capitalist countries but some Eastern European
countries as well. Part of his project was to study the use
of time performing household and childcare activities. He
found that with some minor variations, women in all.

countries, whether they are employed or not "shoulder almost

19
all of the housework burden" while men's contribution
remains with the "peripheral household care activites." One
of his general conclusions regarding childcare is that the
amount of time parents spend with children is greatly
reduced when women are employed. Moreover, men in Eastern
countries and men of higher social classes in both East and
West, tend to spend more time with their children than men
in Western countries and men of lower social classes in both
East and West.
SUMMARY

The studies reviewed above illustrate that‘ the
ideological separation between "family" and "work" rooted
into the 19th century is still alive today. Thus, despite
women's increased participation in the "male sphere" of paid
work, men have not shared a parallel transformation, i.e.,
they have not increased their work contributions to the
"female sphere" of the household. Studies throughout the
Western world conclude repeatedly that work in the house is
still essentially “women's work and that this is true for
both employed and non-employed. women. The most widely
observed finding is that the division of labour follows the
traditional line of sex segregated roles where women assume
responsibility for housework and childcare and men are
responsible for minor repairs and household tasks outside
the home.

These studies suggest that the bottom line of the‘

domestic division of labour by sex is that women continue to

In

a:

20

carry the double burden, but they also show that there are
variations and changes over time. Thus, according to the
studies reviewed, women who experience the double burden
have changed the quality and quantity of housework and
childcare, compared to non-employed women. Employed women
spend less time and give less attention to the maintenance
of the household (especially housework). Non-employed women
used to spend and continue to spend a great amount of time
performing housework and childcare, and they are engaged in
a continuous struggle to achieve a perfect household.
According to Vanek (1974) housewives feel pressured to spend
more time in housework and childcare because their value is
not clear under capitalism, when compared to the marketing
value of wage labour. Some variables which contribute to
some (but not greatly significant) domestic participation by
husbands are class, education, age of the couple and
number/age of children,wife's work commitment, and the
definition of her provider role, as well as her bargaining
power.

In conclusion, studies in the West illustrate that the
two spheres, the public (paid work) and the private
(household) are interrelated. There is a cyclical process
where the one affects the other in the present capitalist
system: women's responsibility for housework and childcare
undermines their position in the labour market and
perpetuates their dependency (i.e., women's work is viewed.

as secondary and thus subordinate to men's position) which

21
in turn reinforces an unequal division of labour at home
(Thorne, 1982).

So far 'I have only dealt with the western industrial
division of labour at home. In the following chapters I
will focus specifically on Greece, and I will attempt to
explore the relations of paid work and the family among two-
job families. Also, I will explore relations of gender and
decisions of labour both in the public and the private
spheres; in addition, I will also examine the ideologies

which shape women's position in the two spheres.

CHAPTER III
EMPLOYED WOMEN IN GREECE

This chapter is devoted to a review of literature on
employed women in Greece and relations of paid work and
family. The review of major studies in the West showed that
there have been changes in paid labour, where the number of
employed women constantly increases, and there have been
changes in the family structure as a result of women's
participation in the labour market. The two areas are
closely interrelated. Factors such as class, education,
age, income, and number of children bring variations in
domestic divisions of labour. But what is the situation in
Greece?

The fact that there is a limited number of theoretical
and empirical studies on women in general and on relations
of paid work and domestic work more specifically,
illustrates that issues about women have not been considered
important by Greek scholars and researchers. As we will see
most of the studies were done after the late 1970s, when
women's participation in the labour force started to
increase.

First, I will deal with a general overview of facts
about employed women's position in Greece and ideologies
involved in perpetuating women's subordinate position and
sex segregation in the marketplace. Then, I will present
the existing limited number of empirical studies dealing‘

with employed women's position in the household. The

22

23
changes observed in the situation of women in the labour
market affect women's participation in households and may

affect domestic divisions of labour.

A. A GENERAL PICTURE OF THE POSITION OF WOMEN PARTICIPATING
IN THE LABOUR MARKET IN GREECE

When they decide to enter into the labour market, women
in Greece experience difficulties including problems in
discrimination and of inequalities in the labour market and
problems of adjusting their responsibilities in the home and
in paid employment.

The situation of Greek women in the labour force is
quite different from the one of women in developed
industrial capitalist countries. Greece has a different
level of development and different social, political,
economic and cultural structure compared to both developed
and developing countries. Women's position in the labour
market is marginal and becomes an extension of their triple
image as a mother-wife-housewife. This image remains the
same not only for non-employed women but for employed ones,
too. Thus, women's employment becomes supplementary to
men's employment (K. Pantazi-Tzifa, 1984).

Greek women's participation in the labour force shows a
different development from the one of women in industrial-
capitalist countries of the west, and especially from the
countries of the European Economic Community (EEC).
According to Ntina Takari (l984),whereas in the western"

countries there has been an increase of women's

24

participation in the labour market during the last 25 years,
in Greece there has been a decrease in participation. In
addition, in contrast with countries like the 0.8, women in
Greece have not made big steps in participating in
occupations which traditionally have been considered male
and "biologically" unacceptable for women. Takari notes
that there is a decrease in participation of women in the
labour force, but if one takes a closer look at the
following figures, it is clear that there have been
fluctuations during the last three or four decades: In
1951, 15.8% of women were in the labour force, in 1961 there
were 32%, in 1971 there were 25.8% and in 1981 there were
31.8%.

I The big increase in women's participation in the
production process occurred in Greece during the decade of
1951-1961. According to Loukia Mousourou (1976), there were
510,580 (15.8%) women participating in the labour force in
1951 and by 1961 the number was elevated to 1,193,863
(32.0%). Iris Avdi~Kaklani (1978) argues that during this
period more and more women became absorbed into industry and
more and more rural women (who were involved in agriculture)
became unskilled labourers in factories. The main reason
for the large increase in women's participation in the
labour market was their cheap labour. Thus, it was not the
result of any structural social changes in ideologies and
beliefs of Greeks about women's position or the recognition

of their importance in the production process.

25

A small decrease in women's labour force participation
occurred during the 1961—1971 decade. The main reason for
that decrease is because a large number of women farmers
migrated to larger urban centers during that decade (there
were 65.51% women farmers in 1961 and 53% in 1971, a
decrease of 13%). Women over 40 years old did not become
active in the labour market after they moved to the cities
(Kaklani, 1978:86). After that period the degree of women's
participation in the labour force went back to the old
pattern of 32%. According to K. Pantazi-Tzifa (1984:30),
"the increase of the 1971-1981 decade is indebted mainly to
the improvement of women's education which is a positive
factor for women's participation and to the growth of the
service sector which absorbs mainly the female labour
force."

It is important to examine both facts related to Greek
women's position in the labour market and ideologies used to

justify their subordinate position.

Women's Participation in the Labour Force By Age:

when we compare the ages of women and men who are
involved in the labour market, as Table 1 shows, we see that
of all employed women, more work for wages during 14-29

years of age compared to men.

26

 

Table 1: Employment by Gender and by Age (in thousands)
and Percent of All Employed Men and Employed
Women in Greece *

 

 

Employed Employed
Age (years) Men _3 WOmen _%
14 8.1 0.3 4.5 0.4
15-19 98.1 4.0 60.4 5.5
20-24 122.3 5.0 109.4 9.9
25-29 249.5 10.3 120.8 10.9
30-44 863.0 35.6 379.0 34.3
45-64 939.3 38.8 383.3 34.7
64 and above 142.6 5.9 48.4 4.3
Total 2422.9 100.0 1105.8 100.0

 

* Source: Statistical Year Book of Greece (1§§1)

 

This is the age period when men are at school (they attend
school in higher proportions than women) and/or they perform
their service to the army (which is obligatory for all Greek
men). During that period most women are not yet married.
After the age of 29, though, we observe a decrease in
women's participation in paid employment compared again to
men of the same age. The basic reason is that women at that
time begin to have children and thus, they have to perform
their duties as "mothers-wives-housewives" by dropping out

of the labour force (K. Pantazi-Tzifa, 1984).

Women's Participation in the Labour Force by,Sector:
Table 2 illustrates women's and men's participation by
sectors based on the 1971 and 1981 census data. The

agricultural sector, despite its decrease from 55% in 1971

27
to 41.6% in 1981, still includes the largest percentage of

employed women (42%).

 

TabIe 2: Employment by Gender and by Sector of the Economy
in Greece (percent of all employed men and
employed women)*

 

 

 

1971 1981

Sector Men Women Men Women
-Primar : 37.0 55.2 26.0 ' 41.6
Agriculture/Dairy 36.2 55.2 25.6 41.6
Mining - - 0.4 -

-Secondary: 28.5 17.3 36.1 18.1
Industry/Manufacturing 17.5 17.3 20.0 18.1
Electricity - - 4.1 0.3
Construction 11.0 - ~ 12.0 0.2
-Tertiary: 33.1 26.7 37.4 39.9
CommerceaTrade 12.3 8.9 14.8 15.2
Transportation 8.6 1.5 10.2 2.3
Banks 2.4 2.4 0.3 3.4
Services 9.8 13.9 12.1 19.0

 

“Source: Statistical Year Book of_Greece (1971, 1981)

 

Second comes the tertiary sector which includes
commerce, transportation, banks and services, and includes
40% of employed women; the highest increase of participation
of women occurred in this sector. The industrial sector
includes 18% of employed women, almost entirely in industry
and manufacture, specifically in weaving and textile (29%)

and food (25%) industries. (K. Pantazi-Tzifa, 1984).

 

 

28
Women's Participation in the Labour Force by their Position
in the Occupation:
As we see in Table 3 a large percentage of women (36%)
is classified in the category of ”assisting and non-paid

family members”.

 

Table 3: Employment by Gender and by Occupation (in
thousands) and Percent of All Employed Men and
Employed Women*

 

Men _3. Women _%
Employers 214.7 8.8 18.7 1.7
Self-employed 903.1 37.3 200.8 18.1

Assisting and

non-paid family

members 92.2 3.8 402.1 36.1

Salaried employees

and waged workers 1213.3 50.0 486.0 43.7

Others 8.2 0117 4.0 0.4
TOTAL 2431.5 100.0 1111.6 100.0

 

*Source: Statistical Yearbook of Greece (1981)

 

These figures articulate the dominant ideology of the
importance of women's work in the production process: it is
secondary, supplementary and servicing (Ntina Takari, 1984).

This category suggests the exploitation of women's
labour power and perpetuation of their economic dependence.
According to K. Pantazi-Tzifa (1984), 75% of women who
belong to this category are ages 30 to 65, whereas 73% of
men in this category are of age 15 to 29. These figures
mean that women get involved in the family business after
they create their own family and have older children; men
participate in the family business before they create their

own career and their own family. Magda Nikolaidou (1981)

29

adds to the argument that the women who are involved in the
family business have no personal income, no social security,
no insurance and the case of divorce they have absolutely no
rights on the business --they get nothing but alimony. The
specific sectors which concentrate individuals in this
category are: agriculture (80)%, trade/commerce and
restaurants/hotels (14%) and finally, industry/manufacturing
(4%).

It is very interesting to note that the higher the
woman's education, the higher the possibility that she will
participate in the labour market. According to Pantazi-
Tzifa (1984), 69% of women having degree from the university
are employed, 29% of women with high-school education and
23% of women with elementary school education are employed.
Part-Time Employment:

Yet another form of exploitation of women's labour
power is found in part-time employment, which attracts
women, especially married women with children, because it
provides them with some personal income but also "free" time
to devote to their family responsibilities. Of all part-
time labourers in Greece, 90% are women, according to Ntina
Takari (1984).

A survey of the 10 countries of the European Economic
Community (EEC) in 1984, found that percentages of women's
participation in part-time employment varied from country to
country (Table 4) Leading countries with the highest

percentages were Great Britain (46%), the Netherlands (44%)

30
and Denmark (42%). In Greece the percentage was less than
half of the leading countries (18%), but still large enough

not to be ignored.

 

Table 4: Percentage of Employed Women in Part Time
Employment in Countries of the European Economic

 

Community
Country % Country %
Great Britain 46 Ireland 24
Netherlands 44 France 20
Denmark 42 Greece 18
Belgium 29 Italy 17
Germany 24 Luxenburg l7

 

Source: Commission of the European Economic Communities
(European Women in the Paid Employment in 1984)

 

Most women in Greece who are employed part-time work at
home for manufacturing industries or various "small"
businesses. They do "facon" i.e., work by the piece, which
has various forms, such as ready-made clothing, embroidery
and needlework, knitting, and making folk art items. The
Panhellenic Meeting of the Federation of Women in Greece in
1984, presented a number of lectures, testimonies, facts and
suggestions on "work by piece at home" which traced the poor
working conditions of women involved in this type of
employment and who actually benefits from it. It is obvious
that ”facon" has expanded not only in the large urban areas,
but also in towns and islands and has various forms
according to local market (for example, in the islands they

make items such as folk art, linen, embroidery).

31
Obstacles Faced by Employed Women in Greece:

There are .many obstacles which prevent women from
entering into the labour market, developing a career,
remaining employed and expanding in diverse areas of
employment. These obstacles many make women view their jobs
as temporary, secondary and not of major other than
financial importance.

Iris Avdi-Kaklani (1978) has made an excellent analysis
of these obstacles and their negative effects for women.
Often these obstacles are supported by the laws (and
customs) of Greece which have only recenty started to be
abolished. However, despite the fact that some laws have
been changed or are in the process of being changed, the way
to structural change in people's lives is long and
difficult because of deeply rooted ideologies and belief
systems. Kaklani (1978) reviews some obstacles.

According to the law, "The woman resides in the home of
the man [father or husband)" (Kaklani, 1978:59). The law
then dictates that a married or unmarried woman should
remain in the place where her husband or her father lives.
Thus, women in Greece have to choose their employment within
the limited opportunites which might appear in their
specific geographic area. They have to choose jobs which
are not likely to make them move to another area; this
keeps them at lower levels of work hierarchies with limited
career opportunities. It is unthinkable for Greek couples

to move to another place of the country just because the.

32
wife found an excellent job or has been asked to tranfer, in
contrast to the husband who in most cases would move and
take his family, including his wife, who might have had a
good job which she would have to give up.

A second obstacle lies in the division of jobs into
"male" and "female" ones which has developed along the lines
of the dominant ideology that women's position is at home
servicing and caring for the family members. Thus, women
are seen as capable of being only nurses, teachers (but not
principals), salespersons, airhostess, etc. As Kaklani
(1978:64) says, "in the competition in the labour market,
every job that has no future, that requires no specific
qualifications, that as a matter of fact is not claimed by
men anymore, automatically becomes suitable to the 'female
nature'." Men monopolize jobs which are high in status and
prestige and provide upward mobility and high income. If
they attempt to enter any of the “female" jobs such as
secretaries, people might question their masculinity (a very
serious threat for Greek men).

According to Greek law, the husband is the breadwinner
and the wife is not expected to contribute to the family
income. The implications of the auxiliary importance of
women's employment are many; employers use it to justify
paying women lower wages, assigning them posts not wanted by
men and hiring women as temporary workers. This last
implication leads women to have minimal consciousness as.

workers, to abstain from unions, not to claim responsible

33
positions, to remain unskilled and to drop-out with the
first opportunity that appears to them.

Tied to the above factors are men's job aspirations,
coming from the Greek culture and supported by the law.
Women's social status is derivative of that of their fathers
and husbands. Men, then, are pressured to become
successful: success is often measured by education, income
and job achievements. Many men are totally devoted to their
jobs and spend all their energy and time on the job, in
contrast to women who are "known“ for their low job
aspiration, and inability to produce equally well (as a
result of the "female nature").

Women are obliged to have a perfect appearence,
especially women who are employed in the tertiary sector
(commerce, services). This often becomes one of the most
important obstacles for women over 35 years of age to find a
job. It becomes a big problem for married women as well,
because a well-groomed appearence requires time and money.

Lack of time for education, specialization, recreation
and rest for employed women is another obstacle to their
gaining equality with men in paid work. Kaklani describes
the employed woman who has family as being "constantly
broken psychologically and physically and she does not have
the time to engage systematically in her development in her
job and to become informed on her employment problems and on

important issues of social and political life."

34

Bad conditions at the workplace are another obstacle
mainly for women who work in industry and manufacturing.
Ninety-seven percent of women in industry/manufacturing are
classified as unskilled labourers and work under bad
conditions: constant noise, bad lighting and ventilation,
standing, inhalation of harmful gases and chemicals, and
stress produced by the fact that their wage is by the piece
in combination with a specific number required by minute or
hour. To my knowledge, effects of bad working conditions on
the human organism have not been studied in Greece.

Responsibility for the household lies totally on women,
however, although not the decision making, especially on
important matters. Employed women, according to Kaklani,
spend about 25-30 hours per week doing housework. She
argues that despite the technological revolution in the
home, housework is still not "light work." The ideology of
the perfect housewife is deeply rooted in the belief system
not only of others (family members, friends, social network,
Greek society) but also of the women themselves, who
desperately try to keep a perfect home, clean and in order,
despite the fact that they already have worked 8 hours at
their paid employment.

An ideology of "motherhood" with which Greek women
strongly identify also affects the division of labour.
Mothers are totally responsible for both rearing and bearing
their children. Today, the situation is even worse,.

according to Kaklani, because men who ”publically accept"

35
women's intellectual equality with them leave their children
to the total care and control of their wives. Tied to this
is the lack of enough and adequate day care centers. Loukia

Mousourou (1985) in her study on Family and Child in Athens

 

found that children of employed mothers go to day care twice
as much as children of non-employed mothers (30.26% and
6.33% respectively). The differentiation is more dramatic
among infants where the ratio is ten times more for infants
of employed mothers. However, Pantazi-Tzifa (1984)
presented data on day care centres from the "programme on
peripheral development” developed by the Department of
Social Welfare in 1984. These data are quite eloquent. As
Pantazi-Tzifa argues, the data illustrate an immediate need
for day care centers, especially for two-job families with
preschool children. There is a need of an estimated 150,000
positions and what is available is only 45,226 positions
(including public and private centres), i.e., they do not
cover even the 1/3 of immediate needs. These estimates did
not include mothers of preschool children who are not
employed because they do not have the opportunity to leave
their child at a day care centre. As we will see later,
couples in my sample also emphasized the need for more and
better quality day care centres.
S UMMARY

The work of these scholars demonstrates that women in

Greece have always been subject to exploitation. They have

performed unpaid work in the fields, they have performed

36
unpaid housework and parenting, they have received lower
wages than men, they have been considered "auxiliary and
non-paid family members" or have been involved in part-time
work in order to be able to manage everything. The
obstacles women in Greece have to face when they try to
enter into the labour market, the obstacles that give them
limited job opportunities and only in specific fields that
match their "female nature”, the obstacles that make it hard
for women to remain employed, along with the double burden
of work at paid employment and work at home have a strong
effect on women's employment: their market value is
extremely vulnerable. Women are the first ones to be fired
in economic crises, they receive lower wages and they are
denied promotions or jobs with responsibility and interest.
Furthermore, as Papadopoulou (1975/1981:57) argues, "the
more interesting the job women do in the labour market, and
the more satisfactory are the conditions of employment in
combination to the wage they receive, the more women prefer
to remain employed." Thus, women who are white-collar
workers in the various mimistries and banks and the public
sector in general, rarely stop working in the labour market.
Whereas women who are working at industries/manufacturing
and at various services quit their employment with the first
chance appearing to them (i.e., when they get married and

have children).

37

B. SEXUAL DIVISIONS OF LABOUR AT HOME

Thirty-two percent of women in Greece are actively
involved in the labour force, most of them married and most
with children. I earlier emphasized the interrelation of
the spheres of the public and the private: the one affects
the other and both affect women's lives and experiences at
home and at paid work. In the previous section I explored
the effects of the traditional division of labour on women's
position in the labour market. Greek women's position in the
marketplace is subordinate to that of men and becomes an
extension of their identity as mothers-wives-housewives.
The obstacles and problems women in Greece face when they
enter paid work are very similar to the ones women also face
in western industrial-capitalist countries, as we already
saw in the review of the literature of some of these
countries. However, I discovered that there are gaps in
research on household divisions of labour in Greece.

The field of divisions of labour in households is
almost non-existent in Greek literature. In the few
empirical studies which have focused on women, there is
occasionally some reference to the household division of
labour, but it is usually abstract and superficial, with the
implication that "all is done by the mother-wife-housewife.”
Early studies (before the mid-196703) focused on rural Greek
families and often included women's work, both in the fields

and in the household (Mendras, 1961; Friedl, 1962;

38
Sanders, 1962; and Campbell, 1964). Later studies have
focused on urban and mainly working class women (Safilios-
Rothschild, 1970; Nikolaidou, 1981; Voutyras, 1980;
Papadopoulou, 1975/1981; and Loukia Mousourou, 1985). Since
my interest lies specifically on two-job urban families, I

will review only the later studies.

In 1974, Magda Nikolaidou (1981) interviewed 100 women
workers in a large linen factory located in the suburbs of a
town very close to Athens. Her purpose was to explore to
what extent women's participation in the production process
contributes to their emancipation. All the women came from
working class and mainly rural families, 58 were unmarried,
18 were engaged and 24 were married.

One question in her interview focused on household
divisions of labour: "Does your husband help you with
housework?" Of the 24 married women 10 answered "yes," 11
answered "no" and 3 answered ”yes, when it is necessary" --
i.e., in case of illness, pregnacy, etc. The non-married
women (total of 76) imagined what the situation would be in
their household if or when they would be married, and their
answers were: 26 said "yes", 45 said "no", and 5 said yes,
if it will be necessary". The women who answered positively
emphasized the distinction between "male” and "female" tasks
and that their husbands only helped/would help with shopping
and minor repairs at home and never with "women's work" such

as cooking and doing laundry. Nikolaidou found that women

39
in her study. carried a double burden and perceived
themselves as being inferior and dependent, accepting their
position passively and fatalistically. Her study was based
on and extended an earlier (1960) study conducted by the
sociologist Ioanna Lambiri (1963) at the same factory. The
only difference Nikolaidou found in the l4-year period was
that women who worked at the factory were not considered
morally unethical or loose as they were in earlier times.
The women's families were not happy about their wives' or
daughters' participation in the labour market, but they
accepted the fact that those women had to work for financial

reasons.

Data from a larger study on "Family and Fertility in
Urban Greece" were analyzed by Constantine Safilios-
Rothschild (1970). The data were collected in the Greater
Athens Metropolitan Area from July 1966 to March 1967. The
sample consisted of S49 non-employed women and 347 employed
women. Women's work commitment was measured as either high
or low. Safilios-Rothschild explored the division of
labour at home with the following questions: ”Does your
husband ever help you with the house? How often?"; "In
what things does he help you?“; "Who shops for what is
needed for the home everyday?"; "Do you have anybody to
help you with housework? Whom? How many days a week? In

what tasks?”

40

She found that husbands of employed women helped their
wives more often than husbands of non-employed women. She
also found that husbands of wives with high work commitment
do not help often and help in fewer tasks than husbands of
wives with low work commitment. She argues, though, that
the basic reason for such "surprising" results is that 100%
of women with high work commitment have a "resident maid" or
daily help, whereas wives with low work commitment received
only 50% of "outside" help, usually from female family

members (i.e., mother, mother-in-law, sister or daughter).

In 1983 Loukia Mousourou (1985) studied 952 lower-
middle class households of the Athens Metropolitan area.
Her subjects were women, mothers of at least one child under
6 years old. Over 98% of them were married and 31.72% were
employed (75% were working on a monthly salary basis).
Seventy percent of the mothers who had higher education were
actively involved in the labour force. She found that
"mother's employment differentiates significantly her role
in the private sphere of the household" (Mousourou,
1985:33). This occurs in two spheres; first, the husband-
father participates more in housekeeping and childcare (20%
for husbands of employed women in contrast to 12.5% for non-
employed women) and second, there is a greater dependency on
parents/parent-in-laws in managing housekeeping and
childcare (31% for employed women in contrast to 18.5 for

non-employed). In addition they end up using hired help to

41
assist with housework and childcare (13% for employed women
compared to 2.5% for non-employed). Also, the percentage of
children of .up to 3 years old who go to nursery schools is
much higher for the families who have employed mothers
(23.7% for employed in contrast to 2.45% for non-employed).
The percentage was more than double for children over 3
years old (48.2% for families with employed mothers and 29%

or the ones with non-employed mothers).

In her book Struggles and Victories of the Greek Woman,
Koula Papadopoulou (1975/1981) refers to a study she
conducted on attitudes of people about women's participation
in the labour market. Her findings suggest general
perceptions about employed women in Greece. However, there
is no specific information on characteristics of her sample
' other than "the youngest people surveyed were 19 years old."
She found that 80% of young men would prefer to have an
employed wife and they are willing to undertake part of the
responsibilities at home. Men over 30 years old do not
favour women's employment; 30% are "ideologically
persuaded" against employed women. The most often expressed
argument was that "the woman is for the home." Some
believed that employed women face many risks and also it is
"easy for them to go astray."

Of the women, 40%, mainly youger women and university

students, supported the idea of women being employed. They

saw it mainly as a financial necessity (which brings

in;

42
independence) and they argued that at the beginning they
would react against a husband who insisted they quit their
job. A large percentage of these women, though, said they
would comply if their husbands kept insisting. These are
the women who support part-time employment, especially
taking work at home. In addition, 20% of the women in her
study put themselves in the category of "consciously" being
non-employed. The remaining 40% believes that women should
participate in the labour market because it helps women "to
develop their personality"; these women were determined to
struggle to find a job and remain employed no matter what
the obstacles will be.
SUMMARY

These rather scanty empirical studies suggest that
employed women in Greece are responsible for housework and
childcare as their sisters across the Western world are also
responsible for the household. The studies in the west
however, have shown that there are variations among families
based on class, status, age, education, number and age of
children, wife's work comitment and her bargaining power.
Unfortunately, the research studies conducted in Greece
never focused on the issue of household division of labour
by sex per se, in relation to other variables such as class,
race or age. Thus, the empirical studies I reviewed provide
few grounds for knowing whether there are any variations
among two job families or changes over the years and how

these variations and changes occured.

CHAPTER IV

METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this project was to explore --in a
selected sample of middle-class married couples in Greece--
divisions of labour in the home when both partners
participate in the labour market. The area of women's work
in general, and at home in particular is quite unexplored in
Greece, with the exception of some good studies (both
empirical and theoretical) of the social, political and
economic position of Greek, mainly employed women
(Mousourou, 1976 8 1985; Avdi-Kaklani, 1978; Nikolaidou,
1978; Pantazi-Tsifa, 1984; Takari, 1984; Kaklamanaki,
1985; Papadopoulou, 1976 a 1985). Also, there are a few
studies of the Greek family (Mousourou, 1984 and 1985;
Kataki, 1985; Doumanis, 1983). I found no research on
women's experiences at home in relation to paid work. And I
found virtually no research on household divisions of labour
per se. A few studies touched on domestic divisions of
labour, but usually in an abstract and unfocused way. This
study focused on divisions of labour in the home in relation

to women's paid work.

SAMPLE SELECTION AND CHARACTERISTICS
During late summer of 1985, I conducted in depth

interviews with 10 married couples, active in the labour

43

44

force, living .in the two largest cities in Greece: five in
Athens and five in Thessaloniki. Greece has a total
population of 9,740,419. Athens, the capital of Greece, is
located in central Greece and has a population of 3,027,331.
Athens has become the largest urban area in Greece after
WWII, and the development of industrialization has attracted
people from rural areas and smaller towns from all over the
country. Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece,
located at the northern part of the country, and has a
population of 871,580. I chose those two cities because
they concentrate population with the specific
characteristics I was interested in.

Before I started looking for respondents, I made a list
of some characteristics I wanted my sample to include: I
was looking for couples who were married, had at least one
child (under age of 12) living at home, had some higher
education, were middle-class, and were living in two large
urban centers.

The first problem I faced was that I went to Greece to
conduct my study at the wrong time of year. August is the
month when most people go on vacation and I had a hard time
finding both partners in the city.

Since the purpose of the study was exploratory, I
limited the interviews to 20 individuals, i.e., 10 couples,
with separate interviews with wife and husband. I recruited
people 'through friends and aquaintances who gave me

information about couples who had the characteristics I was

45
seeking. I already knew two of the couples I interviewed.
After I had the first interviews, I was able to recruit more
couples through the suggestions of respondents. Once I
contacted people, I had favourable responses; all
individuals were wiiling to discuss their thoughts and
experiences.

As Table 5A shows, the average age of women I
interviewed was 35 years; and of men it was 38 years. The
sample represents the conventional model in Greece of the
husband being a little older than the wife (an average of 3
years difference in age). The couples had been married for
an average of 9.8 years: the youngest couple had been
married for 3 years and the oldest for 17 years. All
couples had at least one child living with them and actually
all of their children were relatively young and still living
at home. All families represented the typical nuclear
family model in contemporary Greece, that is mother, father
and minor children living in a dwelling apart from other
relatives. Only three of the families had "other" persons
living with them: in two cases it was the wife's widowed
parent and in one case the domestic helper was living with
the family. Many couples, though, reported that their
parents visited them frequently (usually they came from
other provinces). The sample was homogeneous by race,
religion, and nationality. All 20 individuals interviewed
were white, 19 were Greeks and one was a Greek-Cypriot who

had been living in Greece for the last 17 years, and all

46
were Greek Orthodox Christians. The Greek population, in
general, is quite homogeneous with very few racial, ethnic

and religious minorities.

 

TaEIe 5A: RespondentsT Demographic Characteristics

 

 

 

 

Pseudonym Age Years Children Education

(couples) married

w m w m # ages(yrs) w m
1. Anna Nikos 35 37 10 3 9,6,lmo. B.S Ph.D
2. Lyto Manolis 39 39 11 2 10,4 M.A Ph.D
3. Athena. Petros 39 44 12 2 10,9 B.S B.A
4. Fotini Pavlos 38 41 12 2 10,7 M.S Ph.D
5. Marina Stamatis 36 44 17 2 16,10 Ass* Ass.
6. Myrto Stefanos 36 40 7 3 6,2,2 B.S B.S
7. Afroditi Kostas 29 33 6 2 5,1 B.S B.S
8. Anastasia Vaggelis 32 34 6 l 5 B.S B.S
9. Katerina Alekos 29 28 3 1 1 Ass. Ass.
10.0lga Markos 35 40 15 3 10,5,2 Ass. Ass.

 

*Ass.=Associate's (2-year) Degree

 

 

 

Table SB: Respondents' Occupation and Income per Month***
Occupation Income Family
w m w m %Contr. Income
Drh** Drh by w Drh
x1000 x1000 x1000
-Dept. of Academia 48(330)* 82(570) 36.9 166(1150)
Foresty
-Academia Academia 50(345) 120(830) 29.4 240(1660)
-Head Nurse. Dept. Commerse 65(450) 125(860) 34.2 200(1380)
-Teacher Academia 60(420) 90(620) 40.0 160(1100)
-Teacher Public Organ. 65(450) 75(520) 46.4 140(970)
Electricity
-Dept. Urban Dept. of 70(485) 70(485) 50.0 200(1380)
Planning Transportation

-Nat. Bank Dept. Economics60(420) 70(420) 46.0 130(895)
-Dept. Urban Dept. Labor 60(420) 60(420) 50.0 225(1550)
Planning

-Dept. of Dept. of 43(300) 60(420) 41.7 106(730)
Interior Transportation
-Own store Own store 50.0 200(1380)

 

*Numbers in parentheses represent the income in American-
dollars; **Drh=Drachmas; ***Coup1es as in Table 5A.

47

I deliberately chose a well-educated sample. It has
often been argued that well-educated people are more open to
accept changes and have more liberal ideas. Most
individuals had received a degree from a Greek university,
five hold a master's or doctoral degree (from British and
American universities), and the rest hold a two-year
Associate's or a four-year Bachelor's diploma' from a
college. Most couples had almost the same level of
education (Table 5A).

The occupations of men and women ranged from academia
to technical work in the public sector --with the exception
of one couple who had their own retail store. Eighteen were
employed full-time (40 hours a week); two women worked for
approximately 30 hours a week. WOmen in this sample had
been actively involved in the labour force for an average of
9 years and men an average of 12 years. Almost all
individuals were employed before they got married and had
never left the labour force, except for the legal pregnancy
and post-patrum leave of 6 weeks which all the women had
taken before and after each birth (Table SB).

Since 9 of the 10 couples were employed in the public
sector, they all had a monthly fixed salary; the one couple
who had their own store gave me a monthly estimation of
their income. The average salary for women was 58.000
drachmas ($400) and for men it was 76.000 drachmas ($520).
There is a gender skew of 16.000 drachmas ($110) but as

Table SB shows, this skew is mainly created by the men who

48
are in academia and who have wives employed at some public
department. An important note is the two wives, each
holding a master's degree, finished their degree while their
husbands finished doctorates; In another case the wife
stayed in Greece while her husband went to England to
finish his graduate studies. These three wives had held
other better paid jobs which they left to follow their
husbands' career. These cases illustrate that women's
education and career are affected by family responsibilities
and are considered secondary. Half of the women provided
40% of the family income and the rest provided over 30%.
The "total” household income shown in Table SB includes
salaries of both partners in addition to other income coming
from second jobs or property. Furthermore, many persons
added that they received products (such as olive oil,
olives, meat, cheese, and fruit) offered by their families
who live in the countryside and produce agricultural and/or
dairy products; these people regarded this is extra income

for their family.

NATURE OF I NTE RVI EWS

I initially contacted each couple by telephone. During
the conversation we arranged the place, day and time of our
meeting. I had no rejections from any people once I
contacted them. Most interviews took place in the houses of
the couples I interviewed, except two cases, where I went to
the husbands' offices. Usually we were sitting in the-

living-room or the kitchen drinking coffee or tea. The

49

presence of the tape-recorder seemed to cause no problem at
all. In each visit, I had to eat some homemade or freshly
bought pastry or sweets --a traditional custom associated
with "Greek Hospitality": the guest has to taste what the
"woman of the house" will offer to her/him. Thus, the
ambiance was comfortable and relaxing. Each individual was
interviewed separately although there were frequent
interruptions by children, especially when I was
interviewing the women.

Before I started the interviews I "tested" the
interview guide by doing an informal interview with a couple
(whose responses are not included in the analysis). I tried
to limit the interviews to about an hour, but in most cases
it took much longer because people discused further thoughts
and experiences, which proved to be extrememly valuable.

All interviews were conducted in the Greek language.
Each interview started with an introduction of myself, and
the study, and with an explanation of the aim of the study:
to explore everyday experiences of families where both the
husband and the wife are employed and especially the ways in
which they divide household labour. Before I started the
specific questions, I gave the individuals a consent form
(in Greek) approved by the Michigan State University
Committee for Research Involving Human Subjects (see
Appendix A). I also asked for permission to use a tape
recorder, and I assured them that their identities would be

kept confidential. In addition, I occasionally took some

50
notes, mainly to describe my observations of body language
and environment.

To avoid biasing their responses, I did not directly
express my ideological and theoretical framework. For
example, the last question in the interview concerning the
women's movement evoked some hostile remarks. Those remarks
showed clearly that if I had asked this question in the
beginning or during the interview, the validity of the
answers would have been shaken.

After obtaining background information such as age,
level of education, income, occupation, I proceeded with the
main interview which was divided into three major parts:
perceptions about their paid work and familial roles;
general perceptions of responsibilities of housekeeping and
parenting; and perceptions about actual performance of 23
specific household tasks and 9 specific childcare and
parenting tasks (see Appendix B). Although I had a semi-
structured interview guide with sets of specific questions,
most questions were quite open-ended and often generated
long discussions (and occasionally monologues).

Although my focus was on the division of labour at home
(specifically women's work at home), I could not ignore the
sphere of paid employment. Paid work and family are
interconnected and one cannot explore the one without
touching on the other. Thus, I included some questions
about respondents' perceptions and opinions of their own and

their partners' employment and I compared responses among

51

couples and among individuals themselves. I wanted to
discover the ways women and men perceive their work( and
their partners'work), both paid and unpaid, at home and at
the labour market. My data were based only on respondents'
perceptions. As I discussed earlier, there is no research
done specifically on Greek employed women's experiences at
home, and there is only a little research on their
experiences at the labour market. Therefore, this study,
despite its exploratory nature, makes a contribution to the
literature on women and two-job families in Greece.
ANALYSIS OF THE INTERVIEWS

During the time I was in Greece, I did not have the
opportunity to go back to my tapes and analyze the
information in detail. I only highlighted things that
impressed me the most and I took some notes. As soon as
returned to the United States, I first transcribed each
interview and then I translated it from Greek to English.

While transcribing the interviews and after the
transcription, I looked for patterns of divisions of labour
at home via self-reports, and patterns in their perceptions
of familial roles and responsibilities for housework and
childcare. I used the method of analytic induction,
introduced by Florian Znaniecki (1934). According to Robert
Emerson (1983:97899),

proponents of analytic induction begin with a

rough formulation of the phenomenon to be

explained and an initial hypothesis explaining the

phenomenon, they go to a small number of cases

(even a single case) to see if the hypothesis fits
the case...[it] asserts that qualitative analysis

52

has a distinctive rigorous systematic quality in
its own right.

I started with the rough idea that two-job families may --
because of sharing work outside the home-- have somewhat
egalitarian divisions of decision-making, financial
management and responsibility for housekeeping and
childcare). The ten couples in my study were middle-class,
better educated and provided almost equally the family
income; I was mainly interested in exploring how these
characteristics may affect divisions of household labour and
to a lesser extent the financial management and decision-
making. Analytic induction "abstracts from a given concrete
case the features that are essential, and generalizes them"
(Bulmer, 1979:661). My findings therefore at best, may
suggest patterns among urban, middle-class, better educated,

two-job couples employed in the public sector and married

with young children.

CHAPTER V
A CASE STUDY OF TWO-JOB FAMILIES IN URBAN GREECE

Research in various industrial-capitalist countries as
well as in Greece indicate that gender ideologies create and
perpetuate women's subordinate position in the labour
market. Despite this however, women's presence in the
marketplace has been constantly increasing (rapidly in the
west and a little slower in Greece). According to various
studies conducted in the United States and in Europe these
changes in paid work affect women's presence in the family
and often result in changes in the domestic divisions of
labour and the level of their participation in housework and
childcare. The studies, however, conclude that women are
still to a large extent responsible for the maintenance of
the household. The very few studies conducted in Greece
also come to the same conclusion.

What is actually the situation in two-job families in
Greece? How do partners perceive women's financial
contributions? Does their employement have any effect on
women's activities at home?

This study focuses mainly on divisions of labour at
home, with some consideration of women's presence in the
labour market as well as within the family. Thus, I
explored respondents' perceptions on issues such as who is
the provider, who arranges the financial matters of the
family, how are decisions made, how do they perceive their

position within marriage and how is women's paid work

53

54
perceived. As we will see, the responses I received on these
questions were Ldirectly related to respondents' degree of
participation and willingness to share housework and
childcare. Also, their responses brought in focus gender
ideologies which justify divisions of labour within their

family.

I- PERCEPTIONS ABOUT PAID-WORK AND FAMILIAL ROLES

Both partners made almost equal financial contributions
to the family income. Since most couples were employed in
the public sector and were almost the same age, with similar
education and work experience, they did not have ”large
differences in their salaries. A

In Greek culture, however, the term "provider" also
means ”head of the household." Respondents often identified
"provider“ with “head of the family" in their responses.
Nine women claimed that "both of us are providers" and many
of them added that in Greece "the man" is considered the
provider, especially among older couples and in couples
where the wife is not employed. One woman, Olga, said: "I
expect my husband to be the provider." Of the men, nine
said that both are providers, and one (whose wife is the one
I just quoted) said directly that the man is the provider.
Half of the men in my study either stated directly or
implied indirectly that the men should be and is the
provider in terms of "head of the family." One man's
thoughts illustrate the conflict of roles men experience as

a result of old beliefs and today's reality.

55

Today both have to work in order to make a living.

Both contribute, each in his/her own way. The

strength of the family is always the man; he is a

little more energetic than the woman is; the woman

is by her nature weaker and she needs some

support. (Nikos)

Some women were ambvilalent, too, as Anastasia, for example,
confessed; "both are providers; the woman's opinion
prevails, but the man is a support for the woman." Thus,
the couples in my sample shared the provider role in terms
of financial contribution but it seems that when they (and
especially the men) associated the definition of provider
role with "head of the household," they became ambivalent.
Such feelings. become stronger, as we will see later, when
they discussed whether their relationships were equal.

Despite the fact that they were factually joint-
providers, their outside work is perceived differentially,
in ways affected by undermined gender ideologies. All
respondents said that the wife should be employed simply
because they needed the second salary.

Women in my sample reported that the basic reason they
were employed was a two-fold financial one: paid work
provided them with economic independence from their husbands
as well as future security, and a second salary was
absolutely necessary because, as Afroditi put it, "today,
one salary is not enough." All women reported that they
would not like to quit their job and they believed that

their partners had the same opinion --if not for any other

reason, at least because of the necessity of a second

56

salary. When women discussed satisfaction derived from
their employment, they did not seem to be extremely
interested in their job, and none saw it as a career (except
for two women who were interested in work advancement). For
example, Anastasia said "Eh, I do not want to have more in
my head because I have more than enough with the family."

WOmen's husbands, on the contrary, were satisfied with
their jobs and most of them were involved in their careers.
As we saw in chapter III, gender ideologies, deeply rooted
in Greek culture and often justified by laws, place women in
the home and men in the marketplace. Also, ideologies
justify women's position in the ‘1abour market as only
necessary for financial reasons and not for "personal
gratification" and "self-actualization" (reasons often
reported by some of the men in my study). Gender ideologies
make employed women feel ambivalent, as Anastasia described:

Now that I am working, I say that the reasons are

financial. I do not know. Perhaps, if I stayed at

home for a week or a couple of years, I might say

that I am bored. You get tired. The work

outside, the work here at home, makes you wonder

why you are employed. Again... it is better to be

employed. When I graduated from the university and

I was looking for a job, I had an aim, I had some

interest to do something else. When I got married

and I had a child, I realized that the family

needs the mother; I do not pay much attention to

my employment, not as much as I pay to my family.

Most women and men expressed positive views about the
status, nature and "contribution to society" of their
partner's employment. But when they further discussed its

effects, some interesting and differential feelings and

ideologies were expressed. Almost all women said that their

57

husband's employment has positive effects on them and on
their family life. In contrast, men's thoughts about the
effects of their wive's employment were much different from
their general opinion of the employment. Men privately
wished their wives could or would quit their jobs and they
thought these were negative effects of having an employed
wife.. Some of the men's comments articulate this
dissatisfaction: "she comes home very tired, she cannot do
things and thus you have to do them by yourself" (Nikos);
"she has many outbreaks because of the stress generated by
her job, the routine of daily life" (Kostas); "she is not
able/willing to do her duties as a wife" (Petros); "she is
not the person I used to know; the city makes her tired,
the job...I do not know" (Pavlos). Another man, Vaggelis,
said: "if she were at home she would spend only three hours
a day, the home would be in a great condition and she would
not be very tired either." (He thinks it takes only three
hours a day to keep a home in perfect order.) It is very
interesting that none of these men, who complained about
their wive's behaviour and about the nature of their
employment, ever wondered "could it be because she carries a
double burden?"

Most men in this study, therefore, wanted to have an
employed wife mainly because of the financial contribution
and the self-esteem derived from having an educated and
employed wife. But privately they wished to have wives who

would always be ready to fulfill their duties as mothers-

58
wives-housewives -- the subtle three-fold gender ideology
which often appeared during the interviews. It gradually
became obvious that if men --and institutions-- in Greece
would overcome such gender ideologies, they would also have
to give up some of the privileges they enjoy as a result of
these ideologies.

However, if _we compare the wives' and husbands'
responses regarding the financial importance of the wives'
job, and minimal possibilities of leaving employment, we see
that all couples fall in the category of joint-providers, or
what Jane Hood calls "co-providers." According to Hood's
(1981) description for a U.S sample:

In contrast to the secondary providers,

coproviders pooled their incomes and/or failed to

distinguish between types of expenses payable by

each spouse. They had become dependent on the

wife's income and agreed that she should probably

continue to work indefinitely. Husbands defined

as coproviders appreciated the wives'

contributions and felt sorry for men who had to

provide for their families unaided... Coproviding

wives on average earned a larger proportion of the

family income than did secondary-provider wives.
The basic difference between Hood's sample and my sample is
that wives in her study became employed later in their
married life, which led to a redefinition of their roles in
the family, since important structural changes occurred
between the first years of their marriage (when the wife was
only ”homemaker") and the subsequent years of their

marriage, where the wife became employed either part-time or

full-time.

59

People in my sample did not face any such changes,
because all wives were employed before their marriage and
continued to. be employed throughout the years of their
marriage. Women and men then, did not have to rethink their
role in the family since it had always been the same--most
couples kept the same attitudes as the ones they had when
they started their marriage. And although they were
financially joint-providers, they perceived the man as "head
of the household." The fact that the couples were jpoin-
providers seems to bring equal sharing of decision-making
and-management of the family income. Thus, nine couples
said that their income is put together ”in a common pocket"
and that they managed all finances together. There were a
few differential perceptions among couples regarding who is
the manager, but they were not dramatic. The "deviating"
couple had separate accounts and managed their finances
separately, but both contributed equally to the family
expences.

Related to financial management is decision making
regarding family matters, which revealed that despite the
fact that most couples shared financial management,
according to their self-reports, they did not always
experience equal sharing in decision-making. Six couples
stated that the opinion of each spouse counts the same,
although a few wives and husbands mentioned that they have

lots of discussions and arguments before they decide or

 

60
before one of the opinions prevails. Specifically one of
the women told me:

In general, I feel that I am much more oppressed

than my husband is, despite the fact that many

times my opinion prevails; I have always to fight

with him for my opinion and thus I feel oppressed.

(019a)

One couple believed that the wife decides more often
than the husband does, and according to the husband, it is a
65%-45% deal. Another couple believed that the husband was
mostly responsible for decision-making. And finally, one
couple had totally different perceptions about whose opinion
prevails, each spouse believing that ”my own opinion weighs
more." In general though, it seems that both spouses
participate in decision-making and most of the major
disputes are solved because of the compliance of one of the
spouses. Since most of the disputes have to do with
household/family matters, the wife's opinion might weigh a
little more, basically because it is "her sphere"; as a few
of the husbands confessed, "I am not particularly
interested in such matters."

To further explore how individuals perceive themselves
and their partners within their marriage, I asked the
question ”Do you consider your marriage an egalitarian one?"
This question surfaced further subtle gender ideologies and
illustrates that husbands and wives in this study had
conflicting views.

I found that almost all the women responded that they

see themselves equal to their husbands. Two women though,

61

expressed doubts about the burden of responsibilities: one,
Athena, said she and her husband are trying hard to "achieve
a balance." The other, Myrto, elevated her thoughts to the
issue of sharing and discussed the extreme difference
between sharing -- which they do not experience -- and the
"helping" her husband offers. Actually the husbands of
these two women do more housework than the other husbands
do. Yet another woman, Marina, said "Stamatis is a powerful
personality and I am not. And I believe that I am stressed
and oppressed; I feel like that...as inferior to him."

Of special interest are the responses of five women who
consider themselves equal to their partners. They recognize
that they carry the burden of responsibilities for
housekeeping and parenting, but they defend the situation
with the argument that "I might get tired but I do not
consider myself ‘to be anybody's victim." According to both
partners' self-reports, three of the husbands of these women
show minimal participation, and the other two show a little
more, but still minimal. These women "have surrendered the
weapons" according to a folk Greek saying. They show signs
of resignation where one would expect anger and demand for
more participation. The rest of the women do receive more
help from their partners, but only with continual requests
as we will see later when we discuss the division of labour
at home.

Seven men believe that they are equal to their wives --

or rather, according to their articulation, their wives are

62
equal to them.‘ A man's thoughts on this issue illustrate
the attitudes of many men in my sample who directly or
indirectly showed conflicting attitudes about familial roles
which traditionally have been male and which increasingly
tend to disappear mainly because of structural changes
within the family and other institutions:

I think that in the home, I am not the leader
according to the old meaning of patriarchy. I
think that there is a dialogue and I can say that
in many occasions I accept Lyto's suggestions on
various matters. Of course, certain times, I do
not hide it, there is this private feeling --as it
prevails in Greece-- that the woman produces a bit
less. I think that this thought passes through my
mind, not often, but I cannot say that I have
overcome it. But I consider equal this
participation in the home. (Manolis)

Only five men were consistent throughout the interview in
their perceptions of familial roles. The rest kept
contradicting themselves.

Two men stated directly that "the man is something more
in the home" or that they are "equal up to a point, up to
about 90%". It is not surprising then that these two men,
who according to the perception of their partners and their
own statements, participated the least in housework. The
third man, Markos, who participates the least of all men in
the sample, gave me an unclear response to the question
about equality in their marriage. He said that "now I
believe that we are equal; I used to believe though that

the woman is inferior." But towards the very end of the

interview (as well as at some points during the interview)

63
he expressed clearly that "the woman has to be a step lower
than the man" and he added many negative comments.

There is a relation between people's perceptions of
their role in the family and household divisions of labour.
We saw that couples are joint-providers in terms of outside
work, but their paid work is perceived differentially, in
ways affected by gender ideologies. In the next section I
will explore patterns of division of labour at home in
relation to people's perceptions of their position in the
family and the effects of various ideologies coming from the
Greek culture and expressed by respondents during the

interviews.
II-DIVISIONS OF LABOUR AT HOME

This section discusses two types of perception about
domestic divisions of labour. First, I will analyze
respondents' general perceptions of who has or should have
responsibility for housework and parenting, and second,
their perceptions of who actually performs housework and
parenting in their households.

As already suggested, women and men perceive their
marriages differently. When divisions of labour were
discussed, these differences became even more rigorous. I
found that whereas all women and men believed that women in
general are the only ones responsible for the maintenance of

the households when they discussed specific tasks of

64
housework and childcare, they had different perceptions of
who exactly does what and how much. Research in the United
States has found that when wives and husbands discuss their
marriage, they often present different realities. According
to Jessie Bernard "the realities of the husband's marriage
are different from those of the wife's" (l982:8) and
therefore there are "his" and "her" marriages. We can
interpret. partners' different responses "in terms of
selective perception, projection of needs, values,
attitudes, and beliefs, or different definitions of the

situation” (Bernard, 1982:8).

A. GENERAL PERCEPTIONS ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY
OF HOUSEKEEPING AND PARENTING

 

When women and men in my sample were asked to express
their perceptions as to who is responsible for housework and
parenting in general (implying Greek culture and/or
society), and in their family specifically, they provided
some very interesting insights. Women's general responses
are more at odds with their specific responses, than is the
case with men.

All women said that "both should be responsible," but
they said that in their own family they are the only ones
responsible for housekeeping. Some women stressed that they
might "receive help" but they still carry the burden of
being responsible for housekeeping. Additional reflections

include "he is only doing housework when I am ill," or "he

65

is willing to do it but he does not have time; he is not
used to it." One woman, Myrto, "drew” the picture of Greek
reality as to how individuals grow up:

I was raised differently than my husband was,

because I was a girl and he was a boy... We did

not start this way [to cooperate in all

housekeeping and parenting], I considered myself

responsible for all housework; I was the one who

was running to take care of it. And Stefanos was

doing other things, minor repairs, outside chores

and similar things. On the other hand I was

observing an objective difficulty: he did not know

[how to do it]. It would not be difficult for him

to learn, but it was difficult to realize the

necessities of the home. I did know about

household necessities because I was raised in such

a way [to "know" these things]. There are things,

that even today, he can not realize. ”

Women's perceptions of responsibilities for parenting
i.e., childcare and discipline/education, are very similar
to their perceptions of housekeeping. Even though they
believe that both partners should participate in parenting,
they find themselves the main figures responsible for
childcare, with minimal contributions from their husbands
in raising the children. However, despite the fact that
they complain about doing everything by themselves, they
also emphasize that "he is not responsible enough" or "he is
not able to." I was impressed by the degree to which they
do not trust their husbands to deal with the children,
wanting the exclusivity of "mothering." As Anna
articulated, "she [the mother] feels them [the children]
better, she understands them more and so she is closer to

them.... she spends more time with them, more than the

father does." As Pantazi-Tzifa (1984:70) has commented

66
about Greek culture, the mother's attachment to her
child(ren) is ”a result of social alienation when she is not
employed and of guilt for not devoting enough time when she
is employed.” Marriella Doumanis (1983) discusses the
"mother-child pair” in urban Greece, comparing it with the
one of rural Greece. Regarding urban Greece, she found that

Contrary to the trends of the time, the Athenian

women I observed continued to invest a lot in love

and interdependence. Instead of living their

lives by the maxim 'I have only one life to live',

they acted as if they were going to live their

offsprings' lives as well; they thought of future

happiness in terms of their children's welfare

(Doumanis, 1983:101)

Other researchers_ in Greece have found similar behaviour
based on the ideology of mothering which appears to be a
product of urbanization, which in its early stages placed
women in the home. Thus, according to the findings of
research conducted by Doumanis (1983), Kataki (1984), and
Mousourou (1985), urban women's first commitment is to their
child(ren), with the husband occupying second position.

In men's responses, on the other hand, there are few
distinctions between "in general" perceptions and "specific"
ones concerning housekeeping. Their opinions about what
should happen in general and what is actually happening in
their family tend to coincide. For example, two men replied
"both of us do"; another said "since both are able to help
in the household, both should contribute. My wife is
working two hours less than I do and there are some

specific, immediate chores which have to be done, such as-

preparing the meals." Thus, two hours less for the wife

67
(which she takes because she has a child less than two years
old) are a "blessing." Most men use this as a justification
for not participating in housework and childcare, and they
seriously believe that a woman can do all the necessary
chores during that two-hour period (one hour in the morning
and one hour in the afternoon).

. Most men distinguished between "inside" and "outside"
work, emphasizing that their wife is.responsible for things
inside the house and that they themselves are responsible
for outside matters, such as shopping and paying bills. All
men thought that women should do the housework and~ they
either articulated this perception directly --"the woman is
responsible in the home"-- or they implied it indirectly --
"I offer as much as I can... and in cooking and I can do
vacuum cleaning. I might not do the details, but I offer as
much as I can." Interestingly, men call "details" things
such as cleaning the house, or doing the laundry and
ironing, i.e. all the "dirty work." Another man, as I
mentioned previously, thinks that it takes only three hours
to have a "perfect" home.

Regarding parenting, i.e., childcare and
discipline/education, men in my sample did not distinguish
between what "should be done", as their wives did, and what
is really done. Most men said that their wife is doing most
of the parenting. Only one man said that both should
participate in childcare, but in his family his wife is the

one who actually takes care of the children, according to

68
both partners' self-reports. This particular man also said
that the mother should be, and she really is, responsible

for the way the children will be raised.

At the very beginning of the interview (before I
mentioned the division of specific household and childcare
tasks) I asked respondents how they would like their house
to look and how much it would bother them if it were not
clean or in order. Having a neat and clean home is a strong
value in urban Greek culture and represents the "perfect
housewife". People are hypochodriacs about order and
cleanliness: women because they are socialised with the
idelogy that "a dirty house is a disintegrated person"
(Williams, 1969:115) and men because they grew up in a neat
and clean home. I was interested in finding how women and
men --who are busy with paid employment and also have young
children-- react to and handle this "traditional habit."

All women said that they would like their flat to be
clean and in order ("perfect") but only three women try very
hard to achieve order and cleanliness. The rest said that
they compromise with reality, since they only have evenings
and weekends for housework, childcare, shopping, personal
care, family care, entertainment and social activities.
Most women said that they do not "feel guilty" anymore when
their home is messy, simply because there is
not enough time to try to keep it "in order." One woman
said quite eloquently ”I want it [the flat] to be perfect;

but this is my third priority; first I put my children, then

69
us --my husband and myself, my personal care, our
entertainment, and third comes the household." Of the three
women who want their house to look "perfect," only one
receives help from her husband. The other two struggle
alone to manage things, as Katerina confessed:

It bothers me when the apartment does not look

perfect. I like order. An employed woman can not

always keep the home in a perfect condition. This
makes me nervous. This is bad, I know...

All men (except one, who, by the way, is the husband of
the woman I have just quoted) want their home to look
perfect. Yet only three husbands, by their own reports,
contribute by putting things back where they belong (e.g.
childrens' toys in toybox) or by putting their personal
belongings in their place (e.g. shoes, socks, clothes). The
rest of the men like order and cleanliness, but they do
nothing to achieve it; rather, they expect their wives to do
everything because it is their "job." Pavlo's statement
reveals this ideology:

It bothers me a great deal when the home is messy.

I am thinking that it should be difficult for a

working woman, but I want the apartment to be

clean.. Fotini tries to...

Some men consider themselves lucky for having wives who
agree with them on this issue, "fortunately for me, my wife
has also the same "style" with me." A few others
compromise: "Now that she is 'working' (paid employment) I
do not say anything; if she did not 'work' then I could

even make a fuss about it". A few others complain:

I want everything to be in order, but this a care
that a woman is responsible for. My wife does not

70

care. Her mother comes and fixes things around.
The woman herself should take care of it.

It is obvious from men's responses that this is an issue
that has brought about conflicts and arguments, with men
demanding order because "I have been used to it because of
my mother." Men, then, like a neat and clean home but they
expect their wives to accomplish that.

As I have already mentioned in the methodology chapter,
I visited all the households at least once, since the
interviews took place in their homes. When I visited my
respondents, the flats were all in order and clean. The
women may have cleaned the flats before I visited, which
suggests that the "traditional habit" is still alive despite
the changes in the family life which resulted from women's
entrance in the labour force.

It seems, then, that it is mainly the responsibility of
the women in this study to try to manage the appearence of
the home, take care of immediate needs (such as cooking,
laundry and childcare) and at the same time they participate
in the labour market. Charis Kataki (1984) calls the
contemporary Greek women in the nuclear family "queen in her
prison.” Part of her analysis includes the educated,
employed, middle-class woman whom she describes as follows:

...she has nobody's support. Her husband does not

seem enthusiastic because her involvement in

affairs outside the family keeps her off [the
family] and creates competition. Her children
want her at home. Moreover, the perspectives for
advancement in her job and recognition are not
'rosy'. They do not accept her easily, they block

her way. Her mother tells her often that she
neglects her children, that she is not a good

71

mother --like herself who was devoted to her.
Everybody around her would be much happier if she
quitted her job, if she were devoted to her 'real
destination', that of her role as wife and mother.
The feelings that flood her are sometimes anger,
other times guilt and always bitterness and
disappointment" (Kataki, 1984:138)

B. PERCEPTIONS ABOUT ACTUAL PERFORMANCE OF
HOUSEWORK AND CHILDCARE

 

In the previous sections I have explored respondents'
perceptions of paid work, their position in the family and
responsibility for housework and childcare. A general
finding is that although women in this study are, by
definition, coproviders, this fact affects positively only
their position in household financial management and
decision-making. The general perceptions of respondents
concerning responsibily for housekeeping and parenting
showed that women have a double burden. But I wanted to
explore the situation in detail and find out who does
housework and childcare, according to reports of both wives
and husbands. Thus, I asked about who performs 22 tasks
related to housekeeping and 9 tasks related to childcare.

As Table 6 shows, according to their self-reports,
women are responsible for, take care and perform 15 of the
23 tasks I asked about. They do all cooking (both everyday
and for special occasions), they set' and clean the dinner
table, and they do all the dishwashing. Women do most of
the regular housecleaning everyday (fixing the beds, putting
things in order), weekly (bathroom cleaning, dusting) as
well as seasonal ones (cleaning carpets, walls, lights,

floors). They also do the laundry (both by hand and using a

72

washing machine) and ironing. They take care of the plants

and clothing, they decorate the flat and they do shopping

for their own clothes and the clothes of their children.

 

Table 6: Respondents' Reports on Performance of

Housekeeping

 

Household Tasks Person performing housekeeping

 

 

 

 

 

 

wife both husband
always more +other help equally more always
Preparing meals
Everyday 8(8)* 1 1(1) (1)
Special 7(7) 1(1) 1(1) 1(1)
Setting table 5(4) 3(4) 2(2)
Cleaning table 4(4) 2(4) 2(2) 1 1
Washing dishes 3(2) 3(4) 3(3) (1) l
Housecleaning
Everyday’ 8(8) (1) 2(1)
Once a week 5(6) 2 2(2) 1(2)
Seasonal 5(6) 1 3(3) 1(1)
Laundry
Hand 18(10)
Machine 10(16)
Ironing 6(4) 1(2) 3(3) (1)
Maintenance of
Clothing 8(8) 1(1) 1(1)
Plants 6(5) (1) 1(2) 2(1) 1(1)
House 2(2) 1(1) 7(7)
Car 1 (1) 8(8)
Social planning 1 2(4) 5(4) 2(2)
Bill paying 1(2) 1 1(1) 1 1(2) 5(5)
Interior decor. 6(3) 2(4) 2(3)
Grocery shopping
Supermarket 2(2) 1 4(2) 2(3) 1(3)
Neighbourhood 2(3) 1(1) 1(2) 2(1) 4(1) (2)
General shopping
Clothes
wife'sachild's 8(8) 1(1) 1(1)
husband‘s 2(2) 1(1) 5(5) 1(2) 1
Furniture&
Appliances 1(1) 1(2) 8(6) (1)

 

* number in parenthesis represents husbands responses

73

Men are always responsible for only 3 of these tasks;
they take care of the car (all but one family owned cars)
and minor repairs at home (although often it is the wife who
notices that something needs to be repaired; she tells the
husband, who fixes it or calls a technician). Husbands also
take care of the bills most of the time (but not always and
not all husbands).

Wives and husbands say they share equally social
planning (which includes visits, arranging gatherings with
friends, making various phone calls, planning and writing
letters and cards). They also share general shopping, such
as for furniture or electric appliances, as well as shopping
for mgng clothing (women (by their own clothes). Grocery
shopping is a task which is performed either by the wife or
by the husband. Spouses tend to share more shopping at the
supermarket, which they usually do once a month, (in four
couples husband and wife go together) than shopping around
the neighbourhood which is usually done everyday (bakery,
vegetable market) by whoever is available at the time. Some
families rely on "other help" provided by a family member
(in most cases mother or mother-in-law) or by hired domestic
labour (four families usually hire a domestic labourer to
help the wife with housecleaning) I will discuss this issue

later, in connection with beliefs and ideologies.

As Table 7 shows, women are responsible for and perform

all tasks of child care, such as wake the children up, feed

74

them, bath them, dress them). There is no single task the

men are responsible for. Some fathers mentioned that they

used to help bathe the child when it was a baby. They

occasionally gave the child a ride to English or dance

school or took the child for a walk or a visit to the park

(usually Saturdays or Sundays) while the

 

 

 

 

Table 7: Respondents' Reports About Childcare
Task Person Responsible
Mother Both Father Child Other help
always more more always
Wake-up 5(6) 1(2) 1 (1) 3(1)*
Bathe 7(7) 3(2) (1)
Dress 6(7) 2(2) 2(1)
Feed 6(7) 2(2) (1) l 2
Talk with 5(4) 4(6) 1
Play with 2(4) 5(1) 2(2) 1(2) (1)
Outside
activ. (2) 1 5(3) 2(2) 2(3)
Help w.
homework 1(1) 1(1) l(l) (l) 1 3(3)
Parental
meetings 1(1) 1(1) 3(1) (3) l

 

* Number in parenthesis represents fathersT responses

 

mother

also reported talking and playing with the child.

parents help

almost equally with the

parental-meeting obligations at school.

Szlai

regarding childcare:

activities.

essential requirements such as feeding, clothing, comforting

and caring for the health of children, which while sometimes.

(1972)

"basic"

Basic activites

distinguished two
and

consist of

"peripheral"

types

of

was at home performing the weekly cleaning. Fathers
Both

child's homework and

activites
childcare

"fulfilling these

75

gratifying as activities, represent minimal and fixed
demands on time" (Szlai, 1972:127). Peripheral activities
include ”babysitting, conversation, helping with homework
and playing with the child and tend to have a somewhat
greater admixture of the discretionary or leisurely about
them" (Szlai, 1972:127). Szlai found that fathers in his
study (which included twelve countries) preferred to
participate in the "peripheral" activites. Fathers in my
study clearly preferred such activities, too. Mothers were
left to perform the "basic" activities which are essential
for the child's well-being and ultimately have to be
performed.

These are the general findings coming out of women's
and men's reports. As the Tables 6 and 7 show, there are
differences in reports. Not all spouses agree with each
other about who does what and how much. As Berk and Shih
(1978) found, spouses overreport their own contribution and
they tend to underreport the contribution of the other
spouse to tasks that fall outside of traditional jobs
allocated to their gender. Especially regarding childcare,
men reported that they participate in some "peripheral"
childcare activities more than their wives said the husbands
did. All women believe that they carry the responsibility
for their child(ren)'s well-being and most of childcare,
both "basic" and peripheral."

Women, therefore, carry a double burden: they work

full-time in paid work and full-time at home. This is

76
partly justified --by both partners-- by seeing women's paid
work as somewhat secondary and by giving priority to their
family. In addition, it is justified by other beliefs and
ideologies deeply rooted in Greek culture such as household
division of labour based on "inside" and "outside" tasks,
women's ”natural" domesticity and physical/psychological
weakness, women's expertise and efficiency for domestic
matters, the ideology of "mothering," men's domestic
participation only to the degree of "helping” and not of
”sharing” --all of which will be discussed in the following

section.

C. IDEOLOGIES AND BELIEFS

"Inside" versus "Outside"

Men made clear distinctions between "inside" and
"outside" tasks, based on the traditional sexual division of
labour which allocates men all "outside" tasks --including
providing the living for the family and outside jobs such as
heavy shopping (oil or meat and cheese in quantity), and
bill paying. Women were said to be responsible for "inside"
tasks, including housekeeping and parenting. Thus, despite
women's entrance into "men's world" --the public domain-- by
participating in the labour market and becoming coproviders,
they remain the only ones responsible for tasks associated
with the private domain, the home. Most men emphasized that
they do participate in housekeeping (but not in childcare)_

by performing "outside chores" such as bill paying,

77
shopping, maintenance of the car and similar tasks. Women
on the other hand, did not make any distinction between
inside and outside work, but occasionally, a few of them
complained that

my husband does not do anything around here, not

even the 'masculine' tasks, the ones that other

men do. We fight about it; at some point it

starts bothering me.

It is very interesting, however, that men are willing
to do the "outside" chores which, if compared with the
”inside" ones, are fewer, and require much less time and
energy to be performed. Since all couples interviewed live
in flats, they do not have to take care of the yard, gardens
or any other outside work associated with houses. Thus,
what really remains of the "traditional masculine tasks" are
minor repairs at home which in most cases in my sample were
detected by the wives and were fixed by either the husband
or a technician who, quite often, was called by the wife.

Despite men's emphasis on the distinction between
inside and outside tasks and claims that they do carry out
the "outside chores," and despite women's suggestions that
they expect their husbands to do the masculine tasks, the
fact is that these tasks are no longer the sole
responsibility of the men for couples where both are
involved in the public domain and both provide part of the
family income. Bills are paid by whichever of the partners
happens to pass by the bank or store and milk or bread are

purchased by whoever happens to have the time to stop by the.

bakery on the way back home.

78

Sharing versus Helping

My original aim was to explore the degree of sharing of
housekeeping and childcare among the couples I interviewed.
My definition of role sharing is based on Jane Hood's (1983)
definition

The sharing of responsibilities for a major

household area such as cooking, shopping

dishwashing, housecleaning, parenting and
childcare, providing and financial management; and
maintenance of the marital relationship.

I have already explained that couples in my study
shared providing, financial management and decision-making.
My main focus is on the division of labour at home, i.e.,
the degree of sharing of responsibilities for housework and
childcare. I have discovered, however, that the road to
actual "sharing" is a long one.

Only two individuals - in this study seem to
conceptualize the distinction between helping versus sharing
of responsibilities of housekeeping and parenting. One man
sincerely expressed his opinion about the situation of women
who decided to enter into the labour market:

I say that the mistake women made, was that they

came out of their home with the idea that by

getting a job equal to the ones men have, they

would also share the housework. They did get a

job outside, but housework is not shared equally.

Although women work the same hours as men do --my

wife as well as the others, too-- and naturally

housework should be shared, this does not happen;

not only in my family but in others as well.

Sharing of housework does not occur. Thus, the
burden falls on the woman. (Manolis)

This person is one of the very few who do participate in

some housework (according to his own and his wife's report),

79

but he recognizes that he does not fully share any
responsibilities and it is obvious that he is not willing to
ever do so. The other person who distinguished sharing from
helping was .Myrto, who from the very beginning of our
discussion clarified that there is a difference between
"sharing" and "helping." She emphasized that she receives a
great deal of help from her husband, but they do not "share“
any responsibilities for housekeeping and childcare. She
explained that her husband does not want her to be the
”slave of the family" and he insisted on hiring help.

He could not offer this help, of course, but he

also did not want me doing everything.

Systematically, I get 'hired help'.

The rest of the people I interviewed take for granted
the traditional sexual division of labour at home.
Furthermore, women assume any degree of men's participation
as "help." For example, the husband might take the children
"out" during the weekend in order to leave the wife alone at
home to do the housecleaning. It is very important however,
to be cautious about the issue of "help" or "help with,"
which according to Helena Lopata (1971) may have many
meanings, covering various degrees of participation.

Most respondents, both women and men, have stated that
men "help" more with housework than they do in childcare.
One woman, Athena, told me:

You will not hear many women being satisfied with

men's behavior concerning childcare and parenting.

The problem in Greece is this: They [men] have

started participating in everything, but not in

childcare. They can not participate in a right
way.

80

Low degree of participation in childcare is the most
surprising finding of this study. Research in Western
industrial capitalist countries has repeatedly found that
childcare is the area in which husbands make the greatest
contributions (Pitrou, 1980; Haas, 1981; Oakley, 1974;
Hood, 1983; Lopata, 1971). Hood (1983) concludes that
husbands "chose childcare, cooking and shopping over
housecleaning" as a result of bargaining with their wives.
Hood argues that husbands avoid doing things which "do not
have to be done" and can be postponed (such as
housecleaning) and which eventually will be completed by the
wives. Many of Hood's respondents, however, were Iblue-
collar workers who worked in shifts; thus, they were at home
when their wives were out working and so they were forced to
take care of children or cook. The people in my study were
employed in the public sector (except the one couple who
owned their own store) and they were all at the workplace at
the same time and returned home the same time (except the 4
wives who had children under 4 years of age and worked two
hours less, as earlier explained). Thus, husbands were not
forced to take care of the children while their wives were
away, as was the case with men in Hood's study.

Women in my study said that they do not feel guilty for
spending all morning away from their children; they believed
that "it is a need for me to work outside." However, the
fact that they carry the responsibility of taking care of

the children does not seem to bother them. Both partners-

81
believed that the mother should be responsible for the
children. Men expressed more directly the attitude that
”the mother is responsible for taking care of the children"
and they often added "probably both are responsible, but the
mother has the primary role." This finding supports the
theory I discussed previously about the meaning of mothering
in the Greek culture: The mother ("Manna") is considered a
sacred figure. All mothers at some point during the
interview confessed that their child(ren) are the most
important person in their lives (the child(ren) come(s)
first). Women are more angry and more upset about their
husband's low degree of participation in housework. They
want and demand help from their husbands. According to
their reports, demanding help was the only way of making

their husbands participate.

Outside Help

I found that women receive help with domestic chores
mainly from outside their own family. Since the husband is
not willing to share housework and childcare, women seem to
turn towards outside help, which comes either from some
other family member such as a mother or a mother-in-law, or
from a hired domestic worker. It is a common pattern in
Greek middle-class families to hire domestic help (Safilios-
Rothschild, 1964).
Parents' help: This kind of help is very important for the

contemporary Greek couples; traditionally, assistance from-

82

parents has always been vital, rooted in traditional
extended families, which were prevalent in Greece until
early in the 20th century. Almost all couples reported that
at some point or another they had left their child with a
grandparent -- some systematically during the child's early
years and others periodically. Parents also help with other
household chores with an interesting dichotomy appearing
again: Grandfathers usually do the shopping around the
neighbourhood or go to pay the bills or take the child to
the park, i.e., the "outside"/public chores; grandmothers
help with housecleaning, cooking, ironing and childcare,
i.e., the "inside"/private chores. ~

Hired Help: Seven couples in my sample hired a baby-sitter

 

to take care of their children when they were very young.
Six couples still leave their youngest child with a baby-
sitter during the time they are away from home. The pattern
is that they hire a woman until the child is about 2 l/2 -
3 1/2 years of age; then they send the child to a nursery
school. Although this pattern is the dominant one, is not
necessarily considered to be the best solution; indeed, all
couples were very concerned about where to leave their
children, especially when they are under three years old.
Most couples have tried many solutions: grandparents,
nursery school, baby—sitter; they eventually ended up with
the one which was the most convenient for them. However,
concern still remains. Couples said that the only reason

they chose to leave the children with a baby-sitter was-

83

because "we do not have good nursery schools in Greece."
They expressed‘ an urgent need for more and better nursery
schools, with trained personnel and better facilities. Most
respondents believed that the best thing for the children is
to be with a “woman" (i.e., baby-sitter) until they become
around three years old; then they should go to a nursery
school.

Hired help is, then, basic to the life style of middle
class couples in Greece, especially when the wife is
employed. In most cases, they hire a woman (it is always a
woman, usually around 30-40 years old) who comes to the
couple's home everyday during the time they are away. In
most cases she takes care of the children and also helps
with some household chores such as dishwashing and ironing.
Either the same woman or another one will be hired for
housecleaning, sometimes once a month, and twice a year for
the seasonal housecleaning.

One case deserves special notice, because the hired
domestic help was not a Greek woman, but a Filipino. This
woman lived with the family and was the "second hand" of the
wife in housework and childcare. "The basic reason for
choosing a Filipino was financial; Greek women ask too much
because I need them for both the children and for chores
around the house" said Myrto, the wife. During the recent
years there has been an increase in the number of women who

come from the Phillipines and work as domestic workers, an

84
event which I think deserves special attention and

exploration.

Women's "natural" domesticity and weakness

One of the most predominant ideologies which came to
the surface during the interviews was that according to
"nature" women are responsible for housekeeping and
childcare. Emphasis on women as mothers-wives-housewives is
still prevalent even among educated couples whose wives do
participate in the labour force, in jobs equivalent to the
jobs of men.

All of the men referred to "nature" at some point
during the interview. Some evoked nature to justify their
attitudes and behavior and others to prove women's
"weaknesses." One man went even further to say that:

The woman is 'naturally' weak, she needs some

support. She is occupied by some fear which she

carries from the moment of her birth and which can

not expel..., that is what I believe. Both are

providers but the man is more energetic. He faces

some situations more effectively... [Concerning

childcare] The mother [is responsible] first, and

then the father. Because the child --this is due

of 'nature', too-- is always attached to the

mother. No matter how much I offer to him/her,

he/she will love the mother much more. So, I

believe, the mother can be closer to the child.

[Concerning housekeeping] At home is the woman.

This is also due to 'nature'. It is in her nature

to perform and take care of work at home. (Nikos)

In spite of his beliefs, this man does more housework and
childcare than do the other respondents. He does

participate however, because his wife constantly demands it,-

85
since they need both salaries and therefore there is no
alternative. ' Another man, Stamatis, said "the heavy
housework should be done by the man," implying that women
are not strong enough to wash the walls or the lights.

Men claimed to "know" about "nature" and the feelings
and responsibilities of mothering, and performance of
housework, but most women did not express _similar
"knowledge" in connection to "nature." Women did express
having more "knowledge" of how to perform childcare and
parenting, but they did not associate it with "nature" and
"innate abilities and skills." I should note that "nature"
was always mentioned in relation to women and almost
exclusively by men.

Women's Expertise/Efficiencyyon Domestic Work

Women in my sample expressed feelings of superiority
and expertise over men in tasks related to "women's work" --
parenting and housekeeping. Many women said they had
developed this expertise over the years. Everyday
incidents demonstrate such traits; women write down shopping
lists for products needed at home or they remind their
husbands that it is time to to vacuum the carpets or dispose
the garbage. They complain about men's irresponsibility
concerning childcare, as Athena said:

It is difficult for a man to practice parenting

duties. He is not as responsible as a woman is...

He might feed the children, but he will not care

whether they eat well... He can not help in a

positive way. He plays with the children but I am

the one who urges him, I say 'it is time for you
to play with them'.

86

During our discussion, women made comments about men's
inefficiency, inability or ignorance: "Many times, when he
helps me, he messes things up and I have to do them all over
again“ (Marina). "I do the dishes. I wash them because I
get upset. It takes him an hour to do them" (Katerina).
"He does not know how to do the laundry... how to saw a
button" (Anastasia). "If I show him how to do something, he
will do it" (Katerina).

These feelings demonstrate that women are proud of
being "good mothers, wives, housewives," but they also show
that they are angry at their husbands and that they are
tired of the burden of responsibility. I believe that these
feelings are the result of their growing up as females, a
process which makes them look --and feel-- the sole experts
at performing housekeeping and parenting. In addition, the
fact that they are aware that they should not be the only
responsible persons for housekeeping and parenting can be
seen by their constant attempts to justify or "cover-up"
their husbands' limited or nonexisting participation. For
example, one woman, Fotini, told me:

He is willing to help once in a while, but he does

not have the time... Only in cases I can not

manage, only then I will accept his help. He is

not used to do any housework..., but he is willing

to... I might get tired but I do not consider

myself anybody's victim.
And another, Katerina, said: "Because I can manage much
better at home, I do not do any of the outside chores."

Men also attribute to women traits of superiority and

expertise in tasks associated with housekeeping and

87

parenting, which justifies their limited or sometimes non-
existing participation in such tasks. One man said:

I know (how to do) many (household) tasks, but do

not do them the way a woman does. It is kind of

clumsy... I will pay attention to the

outside/superficial. Why does the woman pay

attention to it and I do not? we said to clean

this flat; I do it because I want to do it. (She

tells me) 'You did not dust underneath the vase',

I did it a little bit around, and that's it. It

was not because I did not want to do it, but never

thought to.... Thus, the woman can not be

replaced for housework. (Nikos)
Beliefs such as Niko's were expressed often and the bottom
line was "she manages better, she knows better, so let her
do it herself," an ideology which is wonderfully analyzed by
Pat Mainardi (1968) in her discussion of the politics of
housework. These beliefs, along with the behaviour of some
women who become anxious to accomplish the things that "have
to be done" add to men's unwillingness to do housework. One
man expressed anger, saying his wife was hypochondriac:

What bothers me the most is that she does not like

the work I do. I do not do it 'as good as' she

wants. Many times she goes back and she does it

all over again; and this bother me. (Manolis)

Later he added that he does help her but not to the extent
his wife wants him to. '

Finally, men's responses about their involvement in
housework and childcare demonstrate that they do everything
consciously; they know how much they "offer” and they are
aware that they are the exceptions to the general rule:

Here, in Greece, we have patriarchy. I do offer

as much as I can; I might not do the details, but
I offer as much as I can. (Stamatis)

88
Although they are proud of helping their wives, they do not,
however, directly articulate that they should help or share
because their wives are employed. Rather, they are faced
with the reality that things have to be done, and they
respond (some more and others less) to their wives' constant
demands for ”help.”

Women, on the other hand, do all housekeeping and
parenting almost unconsciously in the sense that they are
constantly aware of their domestic responsibilities. When
at home, they are working constantly, and when at work they
make plans as to what they will do in the evening (or what
they will ask their husband to do). What emerges‘ from
women's responses is that the only thing they know for sure
is that they are responsible for "things to work smoothly"
and that they have to make sacrifices in order to manage

everything.

D. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS AND CONCLUSSIONS

VARIATIONS

 

It can be seen in Table 8 that only three men are
almost totally non-involved in housekeeping and parenting.
These men are greatly involved with their career and have
wives who are oriented more toward the family than their
employment (or a balance between the two). Two of these
couples appear to be satisfied with their roles and they
seem to have a relationship without major conflicts. Both

husbands in these two couples realize that they do not

89

participate a great deal in the home. One of them, Pavlos,

felt quite perplexed at some points, when he kept responding

that his wife is responsible for housework and parenting,

but he wondered "what and how" he could do anymore; the

implication was that "it is too late now." The other man,

Vaggelis, said "all housework is done by her. That's what

we are waiting for now: when we will finish building the

house I will decrease my working hours and we will share the

housework." The third couple experienced a relationship

with conflicts and disputes. The husband, Markos, aware

that his wife is responsible for everything in their

household, believes ”it is her job." He does not show any

concern for his wife's physical and psychological fatigue

and promises no changes in the future, as did the other two

men (despite the fact that those promises were highly

questionable when one takes into consideration their general
idelogies). These three men justified their responses using

all the previously discussed gender ideologies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 8: Husbands' Levels of Participation in the Home

The Most A Little The Least
Housekeeping, Nikos Alekos Pavlos
Manolis Kostas Markos

Petros Stamatis Vaggelis

Stefanos
Parenting Kostas Manolis Pavlos
Alekos Stefanos Markos

Stamatis Vaggelis
Nikos Petros

 

90

In the column of Table 8, appear two men with "the
least participation": Stefanos, who participates the least
in housework but he participates more in childcare, and
Petros who participates the least in childcare but
participates the most in housework. These two men are of
special interest, I believe, because Stefanos showed a great
deal of consideration about his wife's double burden; his
wife, Myrto, said, "he does not want me to be the slave of
the household." For this reason they have always had a
hired domestic labourer to assist the wife with housework
and childcare. Nevertheless, Stefanos is more involved in
childcare than he is in housework. The other man, Petros,
is highly involved in housework but he hardly ever deals
with the children. Both these men evoked gender ideologies,
but not with a high degree of consistency and frequency.
Interestingly enough, these two couples report having a
satisfactory relationship and the wives are greatly involved
with their paid-jobs and hold important positions.

There are three men who participate "the most" in
housework: Nikos, Manolis and Petros, the person just
discussed. The men who said that they help with housework
mainly meant that they help with regular housecleaning
(vacuum cleaning, mopping, dusting etc) more than any other
task. Two men participate "the most" in childcare (Kostas
and Alekos), especially babysitting, i.e., keeping the child
quiet or away from the mother while she does housework.

Nikos and Kostas use gender ideologies a great deal, in-

91
contrast to Manolis, Petros and Alekos who use them
occasionally. An interesting distinction is that the men who
participated the most in housework showed little
participation in childcare and vise-versa.

Finally, there is no man who participates "the most" in
both housework and childcare (it is either one or the other)
and there is no man who shares equally with his wife the
responsibility and performance of housework and childcare.
Contrary to previous studies in Greece (Mousourou, 1985) and
in other western countries such as the United States (Hood,
1983), England (Oakley, 1974), France (Pitrou, 1988), this
study reveals that childcare is a neglected area in Greek
men's work. Most men in my sample did not like to spend
time doing housework but even more, they do not like to
spend time in childcare, except for a few interesting tasks

such as playing with the children or talk with them.

LANGUAGE USED BY THE RESPONDENTS

The language used by the respondents is a good
indicator of their ideologies and perceptions of their
selves and their partners. For example, men's reference to
women as mothers reflects their identification of
"womanhood" with "motherhood."

Often women were called "Mother" by their husbands,
whereas women called men either by their first name or "my
husband." Women referred to their husbands as "father" only

when they were discussing parenting, whereas men referred to'

92

their wives as “mothers” not only when they were discussing
parenting but also tasks associated with housework: "the
mother does the dishes" Vaggelis said for example.
Motherhood identifies women more strongly than any other
characteristic, i.e., wife, partner, housewife or employed
woman. Georgiou-Nilsen (1980) studied grade school textbooks
and she found that

the Greek woman is always presented as mother,

never as wife...She is always justified and often

glorified for her maternal role...The mother of
grade school textbooks rejects her role as wife.

During the interviews, I observed differences in the
body language, tone of voice and vocabulary women and men
used. Men used words such as "always”, "certainly";
”absolutely", "definitely" and "I believe". They stressed
the "I", "me", and "myself" (which in the Greek language are
used only for emphasis, otherwise they are redundant). All
men I interviewed projected a sense of superiority, of
objectivity, of having "knowledge" of things, of having
control over situations and of having trust to themselves.
The words of Vaggelis articulate my observation:

she does most of the shopping for clothes -- hers,

the child's and mine-- not because I do not have

good taste, but because I do not want her someday

to tell me that I made an unsuccessful purchase.

Women, on the other hand, did not demonstrate any feelings
of superiority, and control over things. Most expressed
confusion, conflict and physical and psychological fatigue.

They experience heavily the burden of responsibility to run

the home and take care of the children as well as the burden-

93
of their full-time paid employment. Olga, a woman who works
in a store her and her husband own, said to me in despair:

My role is a confusing one. I make plans for the

kids, for our job, for the home. Generally I feel

a burden...I try to bring everything to a point

above average.

An expression used by both women and men when they were
referring to the notion, "to stay at home,“ was "to sit at
home." Very often the implication was that when someone
stays at home they waste their time; they are not
productive inside the home. Most times this notion was
associated with women "sitting at home." Athena said that
once in a while she and her husband discuss the possibility
of her quitting her job; she added immediately, "of course,
not to sit in the home but to do something else, for
example, to open a store." Another woman, Afroditi,
connected her husband's involvement in childcare with the
following statement: "usually their father sits with them
[the children] so that I can do the housework. He is the
one who sits; rarely you do see the mother sitting." Thus,
fathers do the babysitting, a task that women see as waste
of time when there are so many other things at home which
have to be done. Moreover, Stefano's thoughts demonstrated
what many people imply when they refer to the issue of
"women sitting at home":

The woman who has some vitality, who is an active

person and sits in the home, is locked inside it,

will become neurotic. This energy has to
externalize.

94

OPINIONS ABOUT WOMEN'S MOVEMENT

I was interested in finding how people view
contemporary women's movements. This was obviously a
feminist interest on my part; I wanted to explore how the
more educated people perceive and react towards women's
movements. Almost all; the respondents showed general
ignorance concerning women's movements in Greece and in
other countries, as well. The most common answer was "I do
not know much about it."

Most men showed an obvious indifference to the topic
and hurried to finish their response, as for example did
Alekos: "there are many women's associations; I think that
they do not serve many things, as they are." Almost all the
men showed that they have minimal knowledge of the movement.
This however, did not prevent them from expressing some
strong negative comments about "feminists" and about "those
intellectuals who appear on T.V. and show their hatred
against men." Only three men were favourable towards the
movement, but it was not clear that they had some knowledge
about it since they responded with theoretical and abstract
comments. For example, Manolis said: "it has achieved a
lot. The struggle must continue." A few others commented
that "it should occur because the woman was oppressed," but
they immediately added strong negative comments without
providing any justification. Moreover, two men used the
question to demonstrate their prejudices and feelings of

superiority and domination.

95

Women also were quite ignorant on the issue, except
three women who discussed some of the achievements of the
movement and its future. In general, almost all the women
were favourable towards the movement. Two or three seemed
ambivalent; as Fotini said:

I believe that the woman certainly is capable of

many things. I believe that a man could not

manage with a job, a household and with two

children as a woman does. He would be lost...We

are talking about equality: I believe that we have

many, many capabilities but because we are a bit

overloaded with the family, perhaps we do not
produce as much; except certain women who plan to

have a career. Now, concerning the movement, at

some points they overdo it. Perhaps because of the

oppression that existed and still exists. Of

course, it was good that the state finally
intervened.

In a study conducted in 1983 by the Commission of the
European Economic Communities, on the situation of women,
women and employement, and their role in society, there was
a section on "attitudes about feminism." Greece showed the
most liberal attitudes and was the most favourable to the
movements than any of the ten member countries. The
findings of this survey are much different from my findings,
especially in terms of knowledge of what the movements
actually are all about. It would be very interesting to
know more about the nature of the interview and about

specific characteristics of the sample (especially class,

sex, age and level of education).

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

This study sought to explore division of labour at home
in two-job, educated, middle-class, urban families. The
couples in my sample were joint-providers, in the sense of
contributing almost equally to the family income. But
despite their sharing of the income, they did not .share
domestic responsibilities, except for decision-making and
financial management, a finding which supports earlier
studies on the issue. For example, Safilios—Rothschild
(1967) found that in Greece, the higher the husband's
employment status and the higher his education, the less he
exercises power in the family, the more the couple
cooperates, and the higher becomes the wife's participation
in decision-making. Furthermore, she found that women's
power in decision-making when they earn an independent
income "is restricted to the more 'feminine' decisions and
does not directly threaten the husband's position in the
family."

Most couples seem aware that the women carry a double
burden --women either try to justify men's "absence" from
domestic labour or they constantly demand help from their
husbands and men sometimes show feelings of guilt and defend.

their actions using various gender ideologies. But they

96

97
have not moved towards an equal division of labour at home.
Loukia MousourOu (1984), in her study of Greek families,
argued that
the family preserves more or vigorously
'traditional' elements than the society does. More
specifically -and despite the advances- the family
maintains in higher degree than society the rigid
divisions of roles according to characteristics
which are given and objective -such as sex and
age. (Mousourou, 1984:101)

This argument might explain why sexual divisions of
labour appear to be so resistent to changes. The family
transmits "traditional" values based on stratification and
inequalities among classes, genders, races, religions and
nationalities. Sexual divisions of labour at paid work and
at home are part of this transmitted belief system and are
justified by gender ideologies. Changes have occured in the
overall sexual divisions of labour with the increase in
women's participation in the labour market. Thus, 32% of
women in Greece have entered the paid-work and a few now
shared the 'male' role of breadwinner. However, women's
employment is viewed as somewhat secondary. All women in my
study perceive themselves and are perceived by their
partners as mothers-wives-housewives. The family remains
their primary responsibility with their work occupying a
second position. Gender ideologies and beliefs intervene
and mediate divisions of labour at home. The
”inside/outside" dichotomy where women are responsible for

tasks inside the home and men for tasks outside the home, is

an extension of the dichotomy of the "inside/outside"‘

98
division of "female-homemaker/male-breadwinner." The
ideology of women's ”nature" as psychologically and
physically weak relates to traditional emphasis on male
protection and support.

The double burden employed women experience negatively
affects both spheres of their involvement, and their
attempts to manage both, under the pressure of the limited
time available to them. Women in my study often complained
that it is not easy to work full-time in paid work and full-
time at home. They accomodate their burden by lowering
their standards of housework and by not becoming fully
involved in their paid work (which often has a negative
outcomes in their position in the labour market). Sometimes
they accept their position and do nothing to change it
because they feel heavily the responsibility of maintaining
family stability and happiness (often at their expense).
Most women in my sample, receive some help from their
husbands. Such help is limited but obvioulsly more than the
help husbands of non-employed wives offer. People in my
sample often compared themselves with previous generations
and with families where the wife is non-employed, saying
that things are "different" in their families. Women argued
that ”women have learned to demand help” (Athena). Jane
Hood (1983) found that the means to role sharing is
bargaining. According to Hood,

a woman's entry into the labor force will most likely

result in her husband's assuming more housekeeping and

parental responsibility when some combination of the-
following are true:

 

99

1. she is work committed

2. she chooses(by preference or necessity)to relinquish

some of her housekeeping and parenting responsibility

3. she earns 30% or more of the household income and is

defined as a coprovider

4. he is family—oriented and sees his work as a job

rather than as a career

5. he is willing to relinquish part of his provider

role

6. she has acquired more bargaining power due to her

provider role rights, increased self-esteem and

decreased emotional dependence upon her husband. (Hood,

1983:197)

In short, women's entry into paid labour may lead to
changes within the realm of the family. Most studies of
two-job families, including this one, showed clearly that
couples do not start their marriage with common consent that
they will share roles. In Greece, there are fewer employed
women than in the United States and in most of the European
countries, and their paid work --although essential for the
family income-- is viewed as secondary. Women in Greece
carry a double burden as their sisters across the western
world do. However, as Avdi-Kaklani said of women in Greece:

it's never discussed that perhaps some of her many

responsibities could be shared with her husband or

with the State (Avdi-Kaklani, 1978:87-88).

Divisions of labour at home can be changed if gender
idelogies, such as those discussed in this study, are
undermined. Several theorists in the west (Sprey, 1969;
Hartmann, 1981; Lutrell, 1979; Hood, 1983) who conceptualize
the family as a locus of tension and conflict, have argued

that changes can occur within the family. For example,

Lutrell (1979:19) describes the dynamics of the family:

106

People can be seen as historical agents acting

both independently as individuals and dependently

as family 'members. This dual process, fuels

tensions and conflicts within the family arena and

creates one potential for social change.

However, it is not only a family issue. Changes also
have to occur at a macro level. State policies can help
relieve women's double burden. The need for day care is a
major problem for two-job families in Greece. There is a
large number of women (especially working class women) who
do not get involved in the labour force because they do not
have access to day care and can not afford to a hire baby-
sitter. During recent years some changes have been
implemented concerning the position of Greek women, mainly
under the pressure of women's organizations towards the
State, but many more changes have to take place. It is
important to be sceptical for any changes that "favour"
women may perpetuate ideologies, such as the ideology of
"motherhood," which in the end work against women.

There is an immediate need for more empirical research
on employed women and the dynamics of the family in Greece.
we need further understanding of the family in general, and
women's position at home in relation to their experiences in
the labour market, according to variations in class and
urban/rural situations. The sexual division of labour at
home is an area that, according to this study and many

studies in the west, appears to be resistent to change; and

this is why its study is important.

APPENDICES

A,

APPENDIX A

101

APPENDIX A

 

Michigan State University
Department of Sociology

l. I freely consent to take part in a research project
being conducted by Sofia Mitropoulou, a sociology graduate
student, under the supervision of her faculty advisor, Dr.
Barrie Thorne.

I understand that:

a) This research is designed to study household
division of labour and childcare in two-job families, and
involves interviews with married couples who have at least
one child living with them,

b) the interview will take 1- 2 hours, depending on my
preferences, and will focus on such activities as
housekeeping, childrearing, household financial management
and paid work,

c) I am not required to answer any questions against my
will and that I am free to discontinue the interview at any
time without penelty,

d) the interview will be recorded on tape but the tapes
will be heard only by the interviewer and her advisor,

e) portions of the interview may be included in the
written results of the research project, but my name will be
kept in confidence and will remain anonymous,

f) further explanation of the research and/or the final
results of the study will be made available to me at my
request.

I have read and understood this form:

 

Signature

 

Date

APPENDIX B

102
APPENDIX B

DRAFT INTERVIEW GUIDE

I-INTRODUCTION

Rapport building.

Introduce myself and the research project.

Explain the focus of interview: Husbands' and wives'
everyday experiences at work and home; main focus on
divisions of labour at home (housework and childcare).

Explain use of tape recorder and notes.

Explain: Confidentiality of interviews; consent form;
future use of information and anonimity.

Explain limits of the questions, invite additional topics,

comments on questions.

II-BACKGROUND INFORMATION

1. Age.

2. Years of marriage.

3. Level of education; years, degrees, certificates.

4. Household; number and ages of children and adults in

household.

5. Income: —Personal income and source
-other income earners in household
—estimate of total household income

6. Employment status.

7. Occupation: -Current job

-years in current job

103
-job before marriage

. -intervals without a job

II I-GENERAL PERCEPTIONS ABOUT PAID-WORK/FAMILY ROLES

Providing:

l. Whom do you consider as provider in your family?

2. How is your money used?

3. Why do you work?

4. Do you enjoy your job?
[If she/he does not like her/his job] What kind of job
would like to have?

5. Would you like to quit your job? Under what
circumstances would you quit?

Children

1. How do you feel about parentimg?

2. What do you like most/least?

3. Ages of children you enjoy them more. Why?

4. Who do you think is responsible for childcare and
parenting, in general? In your family?

Housekeeping

1. Who do you think is responsible for housework, in
general? In your family?

2. What do you like the house to look like?

3. How much does it bother you if it is not clean and

things are not in order?

 

104
IV-PERCEPTIONS ABOUT ACTUAL RESPONSIBILITY 0F HOUSEWORK
Who in your household is responsible for:

preparing the meal —everyday
-on special occasions

setting the table
cleaning the table
washing the dishes

regular housecleaning -everyday
- -weekly

seasonal housecleaning (cleaning carpets, lights,
walls, cabinets, etc.,)

grocery shopping -supermarket
-around the neighbourhood

general shopping (clothing, appliances, furniture,etc.)

laundry —washing by hand
-washing machine

ironing
maintenance of clothing
maintenance of yard, car, home
social planning -thinking
—actually doing (phone calls, letters,
invitations, etc.,)
bill paying

interior decorating

other

Can you briefly describe when and how this work gets done?

Have things changed during the past few years? If yes, why?

105

V-PERCEPTIONS ABOUT ACTUAL RESPONSIBILITY OF CHILDCARE
Can you describe how your children are cared for? By whom?
Include responsibilities such as:
wake up children
bathe them
dress them
feed them
spend time helping them with their homework
talk with them
play with them
attend parental meetings at school/ ask for progress
do other things with them outside home (i.e., give a
ride to English, dance, music lessons, go to the
movies, to the park, to birthday parties or other
events)
other?
With whom do your children stay during the time you are at

paid work? When you go out?

VI-MARITAL RELATIONSHIP

Would you consider your marriage an egalitarian one?
How do you define egalitarianism?

Do you consider your partner's job an important one?

What do you think of your partner's opinion about his/her
job? About your job?

Does your partner's job affect your life? How?

106
How should decisions regarding your household be made? How
are they actually made?
Could you give me some examples of major disagreements and
the way were settled?
Do you discuss with your partner your everyday experiences
at your workplace? The problems? The pleasures?

What do you think about women's movements?

VII-CLOSING

That is the end of the questions I have for you.

Are there any important issues that we have not covered?
Would you like to discuss them?

Do you have any suggestions for improving the interview?
Anything that is not clear? Any additional topics?

Do you have any questions for me?

Would you mind giving me the names of other two-job couples?
Would you mind if I contacted them for an interview and I
mentioned that I got their names from you?

Would you like to receive a summary of the research results
when the project is complited? I will be glad to share
my findings with you.

Thank you very much for your cooperation.

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107

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