Arlie Hochschild The Second Shift Essay

Arlie Hochschild challenged the traditional family construct in 1989 with her idea of the “second shift.” In her book, The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home, Hochschild describes the working woman in terms of the responsibilities--beyond her occupation--which she assumes in the home. However, society has changed since Hochschild, making it easy to question if the concept of the second shift is still applicable. In an article from the National Science Foundation, Chore Wars: Men, Women and Housework, Bobbie Mixon creates a present day representation of the extra housework women undertake compared to men. Unlike Hochschild, Mixon compares married and unmarried couples as well as couples without children; his concept

provides a new view on the Hochschild’s “second shift.”
Hochschild compiled a mountain of evidence in order to display the vast difference in housework between working mothers and their working husbands; from her findings, Hochschild emphasized how the second shift affected mothers.

In 1986, two-thirds of all mothers were in the workforce, two-thirds of which worked full-time. Beyond the job, however, women spent an entire month a year on average devoted to housework (Hochschild 1989). Hochschild compared mothers to their male counterparts to display their difference in time spent beyond work. While women were often responsible for daily task such as cooking and getting the children ready for school, men were responsible for less daunting tasks. Men were often responsible for chores unconstrained by time--repairing appliances, changing the car oil, gardening--as they could be put off until tomorrow if need be. Similarly, Hochschild pointed out the inequality in the desirability of parent responsibilities. While mothers were often responsible for housework in general, fathers were able to invest the majority of their time into childrearing. With their cyclical routine of tiresome housework, it was no wonder that women in the 1980s felt they were working a second

shift.
Mixon takes a similar approach as Hochschild, along the lines of the second shift, but instead focuses on what is defined as “core chores,” or the undesirable chores like washing dishes, vacuuming, and doing laundry.

Mixon’s data show that, although the amount of hours spent on core chores doubled for men since 1976 and women’s hourly investment decreased by nearly a third, core chores still consume four more hours of women’s time than men’s. Mixon also compared the hours of housework between both genders and marital status, but with no children; his results display that men actually work an hour less after marriage while women work seven hours more per week (Mixon 2008). Mixon’s findings display integral trends between genders; while men are working more and women are working less, there still remains a vast difference between their responsibilities. Although trends may suggest that gender differences in housework are lessening over time, women are still working the second shift.

The idea of the second shift--though to a lesser extent--is still very prominent in today’s society. Women continue to work harder than men, regardless of the amount of children either have. While egalitarian relationships are becoming common, such a distinct contrast between genders is a shocking find. As the idea of the second shift illustrates, it is degrading to women to be expected to hold the majority of the household slack after a hard day’s work. These degrading expectations are a blatant

form of gender inequality.
Hochschild’s idea of the second shift was brought into light several years ago but remains a large part of today’s society, as Mixon has shown. Although women and men have begun to bridge the gap between the amount of housework shared in the home, women still assume the majority of the responsibility. Women disproportionately perform the everyday chores of married life, although many work full-time jobs alongside their husbands. With numbers so obviously unjust, it is a wonder how the gender inequality that coexists with the second shift is in its third decade since its definition.