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What is the relationship between the various forms of power held by elites in contemporary society? Using Bourdieu’s notion of the field of power, we address this question by exploring the division of labour of domination among contemporary Danish elites. Via a specific multiple correspondence analysis of 44 variables with 198 categories, we examine the relationship between the volume and distribution of various forms of capital held by 423 individuals at the core of Danish elite networks, arguing that they constitute effective agents in the field of power. We find three major differentiations between: (1) established and newcomers; (2) public and private forms of legitimation; and (3) rural or industrial-based, but nonetheless organisationally well connected, elites and the social elite surrounding Copenhagen state nobility. The legitimising pole of the field of power does not necessarily derive its positions from the cultural field but can also rely on delegated forms of capital.

Despite the importance today of global production networks in linking the international division of labour between the Global North and the Global South, the workers in such networks receive relatively little attention from those interested in the sociology of work. This study applies Glucksmann’s concept of ‘socio-economic formations of labour’ to understand global production networks as an instituted economic process that helps perpetuate an uneven global capitalism, and reveals a specific configuration of macro- and micro-scale labour formations in China’s garment sector. We argue that labour agency is a productive factor negotiating global production networks while under the constraints of capital and management. Taking a bottom–up perspective, socio-economic factors are found to give China’s garment workers significant power in various forms which – to a certain extent – shapes the multi-layered structure of garment global production networks. Workers’ power is conceptualised by sociological tools in order to substantiate the concept of abstract labour.

Few goods are delivered ‘complete’ to consumers as ready for use without further processing. The operation of markets and capitalist production presuppose the work of consumers in searching for, completing and coordinating between goods and services. Yet the critical contribution of consumers in finalising and complementing a division of labour is rarely acknowledged in theories of either work/production or consumption. The article argues for a radical extension of the division of labour, a central and classical concept of sociology, in order to overcome this limitation. Consumption work is defined as ‘all work undertaken by consumers necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods’ and its distinguishing characteristics are delineated. Building on a relational socio-economic perspective, which emphasises the connections between different forms of work (paid/unpaid, formal/informal, production/consumption), an analytical framework for consumption work is developed and then elaborated by reference to comparative empirical research.

Based on in-depth interviews with 24 working couples who hire domestic helpers in Hong Kong, this article examines the hiring of help as an instance of unequal social exchange in which mothers are expected to give up more than fathers. Men view hiring help as a contractual service and as a ‘gift’ to their wives that allows them to ‘buy out’ of housework and childcare. Women, however, are likely to supplement their helper’s contributions with their own labour since they view hired help as ‘less-than-optimal’ childcare. They also feel responsible for the supervision and emotional needs of their helpers by treating them as ‘part of the family’. By examining the gendered meanings attached to paid domestic help, we show how men and women reproduce the traditional division of labour in the home when hiring domestic helpers, rather than relieving the tensions that working mothers face between paid employment and childcare.

The division of labour, an enduring concept of the sociology of work, has yet to receive fundamental critical re-evaluation. The need for this is exposed especially by developments in global work and employment, and the ensuing complexity and variety of contemporary connections and divisions of labour. The aim of this article is to initiate a process of conceptual renewal. Having reviewed classical and 20th-century formulations of the concept, I propose a broader and multidimensional framework. Here, overall socio-economic formations of labour are viewed as constituted through the interplay between three forms of integration and differentiation: the technical division and allocation of labour, interdependencies between work across socio-economic modes, and across overall instituted processes of labour in production, distribution, exchange and consumption. The framework may be used to explore connections and divisions of labour at different scales and levels of generality.

The proliferation of home health care workers is an increasingly important trend in many contemporary societies, and its impact on the division of labour and the social meaning of care work is complex. In this article, these issues are analysed in relation to a new programme of domiciliary postnatal care in Australia. Coupled with early discharge from hospital, the programme is part of a reconfiguration that disrupts existing logics of care.The insertion of paid carers into the division of labour between `functionally diffuse', informal care and the `functional specificity' of professionals' work renders their status liminal, and their spatial location within the home transgresses symbolically important boundaries. Birthing women's responses include unease and a rejection of the workers based on the construction of them as `strangers'. It is argued that these responses demonstrate the lack of a `typification' based on contextual and spatialized knowledge of home health care workers.

Domestic or household recycling has a crucial role to play in meeting EU targets for overall recycling rates. However, researchers have yet to agree on the characteristics of the domestic recycler and how recycling is actually carried out in the home. In this article, recycling is investigated within the context of domestic labour in an attempt to understand how it fits in with or overrides traditional divisions. This brings an important new perspective to the recycling debate and at the same time updates the domestic division of labour literature to include green activities. It is suggested that recycling contradicts prevailing trends towards decreasing time spent on household chores, but that, like domestic labour, it is initiated and largely sustained by women alone or together with a partner. In this sense, recycling follows a similar pattern to more established household chores.

This paper investigates husbands' and wives' perceptions of fairness of the domestic division of labour. Using data from a recent national Australian survey, the paper shows that 59 per cent of women report that the division of labour in the home is fair even though they also report responsibility for the bulk of the work. On the other hand, 68 per cent of men report that the division of household labour is fair. Drawing on Thompson's distributive justice framework, the paper analyses the factors underlying these patterns in relation to perceptions of fairness of childcare and housework. The results show that, for both men and women, the key factor determining perceptions of fairness is the division of tasks between men and women. The amount of time spent on domestic labour is also significant, but is less important than who does what around the home. There is little support for other hypotheses relating to gender role attitudes, time spent in paid work and financial power. The conclusion examines these findings in light of the distributive justice framework and considers their implications for understanding perceptions of fairness in households.

This paper addresses two important questions in the area of the division of domestic labour. Firstly, what change is observable in the patterns of men and women's time spent in domestic labour over the past twenty years, when taking into account structural factors such as employment patterns and social class? Secondly, among which groups of the population of couples can change be identified? One of the problems of this area of research has been that relatively few studies have systematically analysed change over time using directly comparable large-scale data. Here I present a detailed examination of the nature and pattern of change in the domestic division of labour among couples in Britain based on nationally representative time-use diary data collected in 1975, 1987 and 1997. The data are drawn from a cross-national data archive held by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. Notwithstanding the fact that in 1997 women still performed the bulk of domestic work, it is found that, in relation to changes in time use in other areas of life, the increase in men's participation in domestic work (at least as measured in terms of time contributed) should be regarded as significant. In support of this, there had been (i) a reduction in gender inequality in the performance of some of the normatively feminine-associated tasks, (ii) a larger proportional increase in the time contributed to domestic work tasks by men from lower socio-economic strata, to a position of near equality with men from higher socio-economic positions, and (iii) a substantial increase in more `egalitarian' couples.

Recognising the importance of food preparation in divisions of domestic labour, this paper discusses influential literature on the gendering of domestic food preparation. It argues that findings from research on food preparation and food choice carried out in the late 1970s and early 1980s must be seen in their historical context, and outlines major structural changes since then which impact on women's roles. It also argues that the tendency of sociology of food research to focus on the cultural norm of the nuclear family with dependent children ignores more common household structures in Britain today. This is particularly inappropriate since there are a number of reasons why we should not expect men and women at this stage in the life course to be typical, in terms of food preparation and choice, of those at other stages in the life course.

This paper examines men's and women's levels of satisfaction with the domestic division of labour. In most households women continue to undertake the bulk of childcare and housework duties and consequently spend significantly greater amounts of time on domestic labour than men. Men report high levels of satisfaction with these arrangements, but surprisingly we find that almost half of our sample of women also report satisfaction with these arrangements. This finding has been reported in studies from several countries. Our paper attempts to explain this apparent paradox. Using data from a recent national survey in Australia we explore gender differences in levels of satisfaction with the domestic division of labour and examine women's levels of satisfaction with household work arrangements in relation to a number of factors such as labour force attachment, attitudes to gender roles and husbands' participation in domestic labour. Our findings raise implications for the meaning of equity within the household.

In this paper the time-use of diaries of a sample of couples are used to explore the relationship between partners' daily pattern of activities and their enjoyment of those activities. By analysing the diaries of couples together it is possible to assess which activities are undertaken simultaneously, which separately, and whether time spent in different activities is more enjoyable spent separately or together. So, in addition to the usual information obtainable from time diary analysis on the domestic division of labour, these data provide information on the quality of time, and the ways in which couples may manipulate it in order to increase the proportion of enjoyable time (which, it is shown, is more enjoyable when enjoyed together). The wider significance of this approach is that an empirical link is provided between `work-related' debates on the domestic division of labour, and those on the nature of affective relationships between couples found within the sociology of emotions.

The Palestinian citizens of Israel have been concentrating in blue-collar, less well paid, and insecure jobs. This is viewed as a result of two processes: their gradual incorporation into the state/Jewish labour market, and at the same time, the reproduction of an elaborate division of labour within a split labour market. Unlike the bulk of the existing research, which explains the disadvantaged position of these Palestinians by variables relating to the process of stratification, such as education, age, and residential area, it is argued that this subject is better explained by variables relating to the political position of the Palestinian minority in Israel, and the structural changes in the economy and the labour market. This analysis takes into account the dominant role that the state has assumed in managing the economy and regulating the labour market, and the subjugation of the economy to what is ideologically conceived as representing the `common good' of the Jewish majority. The implications of the existence of a split labour market for the Palestinian minority and the Jewish majority is also discussed.

This paper examines the ways in which `between partners' forms of the domestic division of labour within dual career households are influenced by the employment of waged domestic labour. The paper is divided into three main sections. In the first a typology of domestic divisions of labour relating to the employment of waged domestic labour is developed. In the second we consider the forms of domestic division of labour within dual career households in Northeast and Southeast Britain, focusing on how particular forms of the `between partners' domestic division are transformed, modified and replicated with the employment of certain categories of waged domestic labour. In a final section we offer some explanations for the observed patterns, and stress the importance of the categories of waged domestic labour employed, the `between partners' form of the domestic division of labour and specific `trigger situations' to understanding the resultant form of the domestic division of labour. We conclude by offering some more general observations on debate over the contemporary renegotiation of the domestic division of labour and the place of waged domestic labour within this.

This paper discusses the role of ideologies of love and intimacy in heterosexual coupledom, and examines the applicability of theories of the gender division of `emotion work' to the field of intimate personal relationships. Research on the private sphere of the family has recently focused on quantifying instrumental aspects of relationships, such as financial management, the domestic division of labour and informal care. However, although fruitful, such approaches neglect the expressive or emotional; particularly the experiences of love and intimacy, which many people say they regard as a key element in their personal relationships. We suggest reasons for British sociology's neglect of what is almost a cliche in everyday discourse. And we present evidence (including preliminary findings from our own research on heterosexual couples) that - despite dissatisfaction with gender inequalities in domestic tasks and finance - many women express unhappiness primarily with what they perceive as men's unwillingness or incapacity to `do' the emotional intimacy which appears to them necessary to sustain close heterosexual couple relationships. We illustrate how similar discussions of gender differences in emotional behaviour have emerged elsewhere (including in the new masculinity literature), raising questions about how far men's and women's emotional behaviour can and should change. The exploration of socially-regulated or `managed' gender divisions in intimate emotional behaviour entails two related but distinct questions: are men and women equally `susceptible' to the emotions or discourses of love and intimacy; and, do they handle such emotions in similar ways in the context of close personal relationships. We suggest how research findings on heterosexual couple relationships can be linked to work on the social regulation of emotion, which argues that there is a `gender division of emotion work' where it is assumed that women will take responsibility for the management of emotion in the private sphere.

This paper is programmatic in its intent. I have avoided extensive literature-citations and, in some areas, resorted to rather tendentious assertion rather than thorough argumentation. My purpose is to `place on the table' a project for re-conceptualising the relationship between sociology (together with related social science disciplines) and the biological sciences. Of course, this relationship has a lot of history behind it, some of it not at all pleasant. Necessarily, therefore, I will have to preface my positive proposals with a brief account of that history, and my own interpretation of its significance. Before I try even to do that, however, I will say something about our present situation in the social sciences, and what seem to me the pressures within it towards a recasting of the established division of labour between biology and the social sciences.

Most stratification studies exclude from the scope of their analysis the study of inequalities based on the division of labour between women and men. In this paper an attempt is made to identify ambiguities which arise from the ad hoc treatment of this issue in the literature, at both individual and aggregate levels of analysis. A systematic approach to the problem requires reconsideration of the assumption that the class position of the family is determined by the occupation of the male head of household. Evidence on the inadequacy of this assumption for the analysis of occupational stratification in contemporary Britain is presented. It is unnecessary to adopt a multi-dimensional approach to stratification or to treat women as a distinct `class'. But it is essential to examine the collective effects of women's employment on the occupational system. This in turn requires consideration of the processes by which women's work in the household and labour force articulate. The analysis of inequalities based on gender can be integrated with the study of class-based inequalities if a dynamic approach, one which focuses on the causes and effects of changes in the occupational division of labour, is adopted.

This paper explores the pre-conditions of the images of normal family relations which inform contemporary discourse on truancy. It locates these pre-conditions within state intervention into nineteenth century schooling. This structured the kind of school relations which were to become fundamental to state-authorised schooling. It illustrates the way in which this intervention fostered the generation of one particular model of family relations as `normal' and rendered alternatives deviant. It argues that a theory of correct family relations was embedded in the model of good schooling which was being structured by the state. Any given social division of labour involves a particular scheduling of social identities. A division of labour involving the family as a unit of production meant a scheduling of identities such that schooling and work would intersperse with each other. State intervention into schooling undermined social relations of families in occupations characterised by this form of organisation. It is argued that both the form and the content of schooling were implicated in fostering a particular scheduling of social identities and in marginalising alternative patterns of living.

In recent analyses of the class structure of Britain and other modern western societies, arguments have been advanced relating mobility patterns to class formation and modes of class action. Three specific theses-those of `closure' at the higher levels of the class structure, of a `buffer-zone' around the division between manual and non-manual occupations, and of `counter-balance' in rates of inter- and intragenerational mobility-are critically examined on the basis of a survey inquiry into occupational mobility carried out in England and Wales in 1972. The sources of the various discrepancies which emerge between the three theses and the results of the enquiry are discussed, and major importance is attached in this respect to the evolution of the occupational division of labour in Britain over recent decades.

This paper provides the first detailed study of lower white-collar workers in Soviet society. It traces the historical development of this social category during the Soviet period, gives a general social profile of the stratum now and locates it in the Soviet system of social stratification. Comparisons are made with equivalent strata in Western society, and both divergences and commonalities are identified. The former are explained by reference to the different economic, political/ideological and cultural factors which have shaped the system of social stratification and movement within it. Similarities are seen to be a consequence of the fact that the same division of labour characterises both types of society.