Table Of ContentWomen's work in East and West
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Women's work in East and West
The dual burden of employment
and family life
Norman Stockman
University of Aberdeen
Norman Bonney
University of Aberdeen
Sheng Xuewen
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing
First published 1995 by M.E. Sharpe
Published 2015 by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint oft he Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© Norman Stockman, Norman Bonney, Sheng Xuewen 1995. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by
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Notices
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stockman, Norman, 1944-
Women's work in East and West: the dual burden of employment and family life/
Norman Stockman, Norman Bonney, Sheng Xuewen.
p.em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-56324-708-9. - ISBN 1-56324-709-7 (pbk.)
1. Women-Employment-East Asia.
2. Women-Employment-Great Britain.
3. Women-Employment-United States.
I. Bonney, Norman, 1944- .
II. Sheng, Xuewen, 1956- .
III. TItle.
HD6196.S76 1995
331.4-dc20
95-4969
CIP
ISBN 13: 9781563247095 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 9781563247088 (hbk)
Contents
List of tables vii
Preface and acknowledgements ix
1 Gender, work and industrial society 1
2 Family, employment and urban society 17
3 Women in paid work in four societies 59
4 Family life in urban societies 99
5 Ideologies of family and women's work 139
6 Patterns of stability and change 185
Bibliography 215
Index 229
v
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List of tables
3.1 Gender difference in labour force participation rates in
four societies (percentage points difference) 62
3.2 Distribution of occupation by gender in China and
Japan (percentages) 66
3.3 Distribution of occupation by gender in Great Britain
(people aged 16 and over in employment 1991) 68
3.4 Occupations of civilian population by gender in
United States, 1983 and 1989 68
3.5 Occupational distribution of women and men in UK
and USA (percentages) 69
3.6 Usual hours worked per week by sex and marital status
(of women) in Great Britain (people aged 16 and over,
Spring 1991) (percentages) 79
3.7 Occupational distribution of full-time and part-time
employed women, UK and USA (percentages) 83
4.1 Husband's role in household work in China and Japan 105
4.2 The division of domestic labour tasks in China, Japan
and Great Britain (percentages of each country) 105
4.3 The division of labour tasks in Japan and Great Britain
by hours per week employed of female partner
(percentages) 106
vii
LIST OF TABLES
4.4 Division of domestic labour tasks in China, USA,
Great Britain and Japan (female partner employed
full-time only) 107
4.5 Household types in China and Japan 112
4.6 Household decision-making in China and Japan 118
4.7 Domestic power by hours of work of female partner
in Japan (percentages) 131
4.8 Domestic power by hours of work of female partner
in Great Britain (percentages) 132
5.1 Opinions on women's work and marriage, China
and Japan 147
5.2 Opinions on the double burden of combining paid
work with household tasks, China and Japan 150
5.3 Opinions on the increase in married women at work,
China and Japan 150
5.4 Opinions on the good points about married women
working, China and Japan 150
5.5 Opinions on mother working while child is less than
3 years old, China and Japan 152
5.6 Who should do the housework? Opinions of wife and
husband, China and Japan 153
5.7 Distribution of reasons for working by country, China,
Japan and Great Britain 179
viii
Preface and acknowledgements
In 1987 the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, following a visit
to East Asia by the then university Principal, George McNicol,
established postgraduate scholarships for students from the People's
Republic of China. That summer, Norman Stockman took with him
details of the scheme on his trip to China to pursue his studies oft he
Chinese language at Beijing Normal University. A chance meeting at
BNU with Stanley Rosen, a social scientist from the University of
Southern California, helped Stockman to pass the information about
the scholarships to a research worker at the Institute of Sociology of
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). Eventually two appli
cations for the scholarship reached Aberdeen, one of them from
Sheng Xuewen, an established researcher in family sociology at CASSo
His research proposal interested members of the Department of Soci
ology at Aberdeen and Sheng was offered a scholarship, but funding
difficulties prevented him coming to Aberdeen until 1990, by which
time he had been awarded a K. C. Wong Research Fellowship by the
British Academy. Sheng brought with him the results of a recently
completed survey on the family and work lives of married women in
China and Japan.
In Aberdeen, Stockman was developing a library-based research
project on changes in the structure of social inequality in Chinese
society, and had particular interests in gender inequality and the
division of labour. At the same time, Aberdeen had been one of the
six centres chosen to contribute to the Social Change and Economic
Life Initiative (SCEU) launched by the Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC). David Oldman and Norman Bonney had been
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