Hiring Help for the Home

Household Services in the Twentieth Century

Bibliographic Data

ID6079657
AuthorsSabino Kornrich (0000-0003-2265-2598, Center for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Juan March Institute, Madrid, Spain, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume37
Issue2
Pages197-212
Publication date2012-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Family History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0363-1990 • E-ISSN: 1552-5473
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0363199011432539
PMID27652411
OpenAlexW2044781899
LanguageEN
Citations received12

The division between home and market has long been a key dimension of family life and shifts across the home/market boundary are important for both gender inequality and the family. Two shifts across this boundary occurred in the twentieth century: women’s movement into paid labor and a decline in household labor. One stylized conception suggests that as women moved into paid labor, they used their new resources to purchase replacements. This article takes up this question, asking whether women’s movement into market labor led to the commodification of the home. It does so by combining evidence from primary and secondary sources about women’s reliance on services to offer a picture of how services have been used. The article argues that household labor is infused with emotional and relational content which has made it difficult to replace

Commodification · Demographic economics · Division of labour · Economics · Inequality · Labour economics · Market economy · Sociology · Stylized fact · Emotional Labor in Professions · Social Policy and Reform Studies · Work-Family Balance Challenges

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