“Somebody is thinking about it”: Women as household managers in dual-earner families

Abstract

In this work we focus, through a multi-method approach, on the managerial practices used by working mothers to deal with complex schedules and family needs in domestic life. We know, from previous studies, that dual earner families face substantial reorganizations of their domestic life, but there has been little research on how such reorganizations are accomplished within families. Findings draw on different data sets (focus groups, self-report charts, naturally occurring interactions) and, overall, show the centrality of managerial practices in the everyday domestic life of this kind of families. Results also show that housework is an arena for practical reasoning and thinking, making visible, through a detailed analysis of the sequential unfolding of actions, the managerial practices used by mothers to exploit and interactively coordinate different and competing activities. Finally, we suggest that managerial practices may constitute a form of care work through which mothers guarantee family members’ well-being.
 Zusammenfassung
 In dieser Arbeit nehmen wir mithilfe eines Multimethodenansatzes die Managementpraxis erwerbstätiger Mütter, die diese zur Bewältigung komplexer Zeitpläne und der Bedürfnisse der Familie anwenden, in den Blick. Aus vorausgegangenen Studien wissen wir, dass Doppelverdienerfamilien einer grundlegenden Umgestaltung des häuslichen Familienlebens gegenüberstehen, wobei bisher kaum darüber geforscht wurde, wie eine solche Reorganisation innerhalb der Familien erreicht wird. Die Erkenntnisse beruhen auf verschiedenen Datensätzen (Fokusgruppen, Zeitverwendungstagebücher, Aufzeichnung von Alltagsgesprächen) und verweisen auf die zentrale Bedeutung dieser Managementpraktiken im häuslichen Alltagsleben dieser Familien. Die Ergebnisse zeigen zudem, dass die Hausarbeit eine Arena praktischer Überlegungen und Denkmuster ist. Mithilfe einer detaillierten Analyse der sequentiellen Handlungsabfolgen in der Hausarbeit werden die Managementpraktiken sichtbar, die die Mütter nutzen, um unterschiedliche und miteinander in Wettstreit stehende Aktivitäten für sich zu verwerten und zu koordinieren. Abschließend schlagen wir vor, dass diese Managementpraktiken eine Form von Care- Arbeit darstellt, durch die Mütter das Wohlergehen der Familienmitglieder sicherstellen.

Daily Family Routines of Italian and Ecuadorian Immigrant Mothers in Everyday Life

“…However, the mothers confirmed that the father figure was involved more in affective and emotional dimensions, for example, with bedtime routines and games; this is consistent with recent researches realized in Italian context with working mothers and fathers (Alby & Di Pede, 2014;Alby, Fatigante, & Zucchermaglio, 2014). These results prefigure one area that is associated with affective father figures that in the scientific literature is generally associated with the role of the mother (Scabini & Cigoli, 2012).…”

Negotiating 'Impossible' Ideals: Latent Classes of Intensive Mothering in the United States

“…The survey design also limits available measures for women's time use; because the CDS time diaries were designed to capture children's daily activities, no information is available on mothers' activities when children are not directly engaged. Previous studies indicate such care work is a substantial task for many women (Alby, Fatigante, and Zucchermaglio 2014;Randles 2021), and it remains unclear if certain latent classes invest more time into this type of labor than others. These problems would ideally be fixed with tailored questions added to existing social surveys or new, large-scale surveys that are designed to measure intensive mothering across demographic groups.…”

Negotiating “Impossible” Ideals: Latent Classes of Intensive Mothering in the United States

“…The survey design also limits available measures for women’s time use; because the CDS time diaries were designed to capture children’s daily activities, no information is available on mothers’ activities when children are not directly engaged. Previous studies indicate that such care work is a substantial task for many women (Alby, Fatigante, and Zucchermaglio 2014; Randles 2021), and it remains unclear whether certain latent classes invest more time in this type of labor than others. These problems would ideally be fixed with tailored questions added to existing social surveys or with new, large-scale surveys that are designed to measure intensive mothering across demographic groups.…”