Homework and Domestic Work

Homework and Domestic Work
Author(s): Hilary Silver

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Source: Sociological Forum, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Jun., 1993), pp. 181-204
Published by: Springer
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Sociological Fonrm, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1993
Homework and Domestic Work1

Hilary Silver2
This study assesses two competing theories about the extent to which
homework-paid work in the home-helps integratework and domestic roles
for men and women. Contrastingmale and female homeworkers with their
counterpartsworking outside the home, it supports some aspects of both the
resource and role overload theories, but predominantly the role overload
perspective. Homeworkers, especially in the working class, experience less
interferencebetweenjob and family life, butperformmore houseworkand child
care. Theyhave no more leisuretime nor greatermaritalsatisfaction than those
working outside the home, but receive more family assistance with their paid
jobs, suggestingthat they combine tasksfrom their 'first"and "secondshifts."
Workingat home does not break down gender roles in domestic life. Despite
time saved from commuting, male homeworkersperform no more housework
than comparable men workingoutside the home. Thus, the gender division of
unpaid household labor is not simply a matterof resourcesor spatial logistics.
KEY WORDS: homework; housework; child care; women and work.
INTRODUCTION
Sociologists frequently assume that workplace and residence become
spatially segregated in modern industrial societies. However, a small, perhaps growing segment of the work force combines paid and unpaid work
in the home. Does the spatial integration of home and work make it easier
to meet the dual demands of families and breadwinning, or add to tensions
between domestic and economic spheres of life?
1An earlier version was presented at the meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society,
Providence, Rhode Island, April 1991.
2Department of Sociology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912.
181
0884-8971/93/0600-0181$07.00/0 ? 1993 Plenum Publishing Corporation

182
Silver
Two dominant theories regarding the division of household labor suggest very different answers to these questions. One assumes women are
largely confined to the domestic sphere and men to paid employment; the
other emphasizes women's dual roles as homemakers and workers.
The resource theory, as Pleck (1985) portrays it, builds on functionalist sociology, exchange theory, and the new home economics (Becker,
1976; Berk, 1980; Parsons and Bales, 1955). It treats the division of a
household's total productive labor as a rational decision maximizing its
collective efficiency and utility. Women's labor force participation is minimal or secondary to their domestic contributions. Under conditions favoring the earning potential of men, husbands exchange money or
"instrumental" functions for wives' affection, household reproduction, and
"expressive" functions.
The role overload perspective, in contrast, draws on time use studies
compatible with feminist critiques of the family division of labor (e.g.,
Meissner et al., 1975; Hartman, 1981; Sokoloff, 1980). As formulated by
Pleck (1985:24), the role overload hypothesis holds that the division of family work in contemporary two-earner couples, deriving from traditional sex
role ideology and husbands' low psychological involvement in the family,
is inequitable, a source of conscious dissatisfaction to wives, and injurious
to their well-being.
For this hybrid feminist approach, norms and economic relations both
contribute to the inequality of power between the sexes. Traditional gender
ideology, by relegating women to domestic work, has favorable economic
consequences for men both at home and in the labor market. Women are
subjected to male domination in both public and private spheres; their
"double day" overloads their time and energy. However, their disadvantage
is reduced if traditional gender roles break down. Homework, especially by
men, may have such an effect.
Pleck (1985:152) found that employed wives do not suffer from role
overload in terms of time demands, provided they work in typical women's
jobs that are "considerably less substantial than their husbands' in terms
of both the average number of hours worked per week as well as continuity
over time." Working women reduce hours of housework, although there is
some debate about how much men with working wives increase the time
they spend on domestic chores (Spitze, 1988; Thompson and Walker, 1989).
While traditional gender role values have little effect on family work, a
demanding job in terms of hours reduces the time available for both men
and women to do household work. Do these findings hold for homeworkers
as well?

Homeworkand DomesticWork
183
Previous Conceptions of Homework

The resource and role overload perspectives have their counterparts
in approaches to the relationship of homework and family life. In brief,
homework has been viewed, respectively, as flexible and "progressive"-a
reorganization of work responding to social preferences and technological
possibilities-or as inflexible and "oppressive"-a residue or resurgence of
exploitative production practices. Both approaches assume that homeworkers are women, since the home is "their" domain.
The conception of homework as progressive sees it as a strategy to
flexibly combine work and domestic roles. For this reason, futurologists predicted homework would boom (Nilles, 1977; Toffler, 1980), although the
trend has yet to materialize to any great extent (Horvath, 1986; Silver,
1989). The management literature frequently treats employers who allow
staff to work at home as "enlightened," in contrast to those protecting traditional prerogatives and control. In responding to employees' needs for
flexibility, managers benefit from homeworkers' increased productivity. Advocates of "telecommuting" argue that new technologies and the decentralization of production also make it possible to retain highly skilled
employees who might otherwise quit to care for their families (Gordon,
1988; National Research Council, 1985; Olson, 1988; Ramsower, 1985).
Thus, this approach concentrates on highly qualified professionals and managers.
It is primarily the emphasis on the flexibility of homework from the
workers' point of view that gives this approach its "progressive"cast. Homework should provide autonomy and control over work and freedom to balance it with family responsibilities, offering the "best of both worlds."
Although enhanced leisure time saved from commuting is most frequently
cited as an advantage of homework for men (Nilles, 1977; Pratt, 1984), the
recent trendiness of "parenting"suggests homework might also encourage
men to perform more household tasks and child care. Indeed, Toffler
(1980) portrayed the "electronic cottage" as a place where the entire family
works together.
Yet in terms of objective gender relations, homework-and this approach to it-might not appear so progressive. Opponents of homework
regulation have long argued that homework provides both a source of income and a buttress of "sacred motherhood" and "traditionalfamily values"
(Boris, 1985). Indeed, some studies assert that female homeworkers have
more conservative gender role attitudes and do not put careers before family (Nelson, 1988; Kraut 1989; Pratt, 1984). Other studies have found that

184
Silver
female homeworkers value the proximity of family members to their work

(Beach, 1989; Benson, 1989; Kingston, 1983); consider it positive when their
children assist them (Lozano, 1989:117-121); and receive help from husbands with household chores and child care, as well as work (Beach, 1989;
Costello, 1988). Women's homework has long been embedded in a dense
network of nuclear family, extended family, and community relations (Benson, 1989; Fernandez-Kelly and Garcia, 1989).
Taken together, this approach offers what Kraut and Grambsch
(1987) called an "optimistic" view of homework. It allows households to
optimize economic and time resources of their members, especially women.
Although traditional gender roles are frequently assumed necessary to sustain them, "family values" may also be maximized by fathers working at
home.
The "pessimistic"view of homework draws on the role overload theory and labor history (Boris and Daniels, 1989; Johnson and Johnson,
1982). It portrays homework as a form of exploitative sweating that ties
women to the dual demands of family and employers, leaves them little
free time, isolates them socially, and subjects them to their husbands' control (Allen and Wolkowitz, 1987; Beneria and Roldan, 1987; Leidner, 1987).
Homework is sometimes portrayed as part of a growing, dependent "informal" sector of the capitalist economy in which "thirdworld" modes of production are imported, like the immigrant women favored for this work, to
the first world (Morales, 1983; Portes and Sassen-Koob, 1987). This perspective stresses the payoffs of gender inequality to employers, rather than
to households. Thus, research with this orientation frequently focuses on
working-class women in the secondary labor market, holding subordinate
industrial, service, and most recently, lower level white-collar positions.
Lacking a spatial separation of public and private spheres, workingclass homeworkers are doubly disadvantaged. Employers pay low wages and
poor benefits, save on overhead, and avoid unions. They may also benefit
from the unpaid labor of other family members (e.g., Biggart, 1989; Lozano,
1989; Finch, 1983). In addition, husbands enjoy the fruits of an unequal
division of domestic labor. Rather than enjoying greater flexibility, homeworking women have less free time. They discover the "relative inflexibility
of both family members and ... management" (Costello, 1988:143). As Pennington and Westover put it, "The flexibility of homework is that it permits
the worker to overwork, and to extend her working day well past what is
considered reasonable and healthy" (1989:164).
Studies taking this approach report that homeworkers want a clear
distinction between paid and unpaid labor (Christensen, 1988; Nelson,
1988; Pratt, 1984). Working at home eliminates the boundary between work
and family, so that women rarely have time or space to escape either

185
(Costello, 1988). Although the use of outside child care may add considerably to their satisfaction with home-based work (Christensen, 1988),
homeworking women feel guilty about the housekeeping they "let go" and
experience conflict with husbands and children who compete for attention
with their work (Costello, 1988; Kingston, 1983). Particularly pressed are
self-employed homeworkers and those with insufficient time to complete
their work while their families are out of the house (Costello, 1988; Nelson,
1988). Although most working mothers reduce their hours of housework,
homeworkers may find it more difficult (Nelson, 1988). Indeed, one study
(Kraut, 1989) reports that clerical homeworkers, who were predominantly
married mothers of young children, did nine more hours of housework and
child care a week than office workers, but had no more leisure time. They
were also more likely to mix paid with domestic work during the day, and
had less help with specific work and household tasks than office workers.
Yet they reported less role conflict between work and family life and more
social support.
Previous exploratory studies of homework provide empirical support
for some aspects of both these approaches. Nevertheless, contrary evidence
is frequently subordinated to the conclusion that homework, overall, is
either progressive or oppressive. Rather than trying to evaluate whether
the consequences of homework are intrinsically positive or negative, this
study concentrates on resolving contradictory empirical predictions of the
resource and overload theories. By contrasting a nationally representative
sample of homeworkers to on-site workers with the same job and personal
characteristics, it assesses the domestic consequences of combining paid and
unpaid work in the home.
Hypotheses
The resource approach to work-family relations suggests that homeworkers should (1) hold more traditional gender role attitudes, (2) experience less tension between their work and family roles, (3) be more satisfied
with their family lives, (4) have more time for unpaid domestic labor because they do not commute, and (5) receive more help from their families
with domestic and paid work than those who do not work at home. They
should conserve time and energy by successfully integrating spheres of social life that others keep separate. The role overload approach implies the
reverse. In particular, homeworkers' time should be more committed than
that of comparable on-site workers.3
3Although a preexisting "overload" may induce women to accept homework in the first place,

186
Silver
Both approaches assume homeworkers are predominantly women, but

the evidence is that they are about equally divided by gender (Horvath,
1986; Kraut, 1988; Silver, 1989). Indeed, Olson's (1989) nonrandom sample
of computer professionals who work at home was 84% male. The resource
approach suggests that homeworking men may be more "liberated" in their
family values, do more housework and child care, and experience less tension between work and family roles than men working away from home.
In contrast, the role overload approach suggests that gender relations inside
the household will not change simply because men do their paid work at
home. Traditional gender attitudes will persist, with women performing the
housework and child care while men are the primary breadwinners. The
role overload approach predicts no differences in work/family tensions or
satisfaction with family life between men working in and outside the home.
METHODS
Data
Most prior studies of homework and the family are exploratory. They
draw on nonrandom samples, however large, contacted through the media,
employers, or personal referrals (snowball sampling). Although these studies are a rich source of hypotheses, it is difficult to generalize from their
conclusions.
A possible reason for the contradictory perspectives on homework is
that homeworkers are themselves heterogeneous and have diverse reasons
for, and reactions to, doing homework. Virtually all samples of homeworkers have been limited in some way, whether to nonfarmers or rural workers,
to white-collar, clerical, or home-based day care workers, to those with intact families or children, or most frequently, to women. These restrictions
reflect either unfounded assumptions about who works at home and why,
or a particular research interest, such as computer-based homework (National Research Council, 1985). Moreover, restricted samples tend to preclude important research questions regarding differences in motivation for
homework by social class or occupation, gender, household structure, and
so on.
The greatest deficiency of most prior studies is the lack of a control
group. The absence of a point of reference has not precluded such conthe QES only provides information on current domestic commitments. Thus, this study
considers whether, once individuals are working in the home, role conflict and domestic time
constraints are lower than those experienced by on-site workers.

187
clusions as "overall, homeworkers display more power to remold and recast

work demands to fit family needs than do conventionally employed workers" (Beach, 1989:138). With exceptions (Heck, 1989; Horvath, 1986; Kraut,
1988; Olson, 1989; Silver, 1989), homeworkers are rarely contrasted with
those working away from home.
This study addresses these deficiencies. It is based on a nationally
representative sample of the American labor force, the 1977 Quality of
Employment Survey (QES), which identifies men and women who work in
their home as well as outside it, their household structures, domestic life,
and employment characteristics (Quinn and Staines, 1979). The survey is
representative of those 16 years of age or older currently employed for 20
or more hours a week. It consists of 968 men and 547 women whose average
age is 38 years.
This data set is not ideal. Collecting new data on a phenomenon as
infrequent as homework has always been difficult. If exploratory studies
looked for homeworkers where their preconceptions led them, more systematic studies must rely on large samples in order to find sufficient numbers of homeworkers. Even then, one is constrained by the phrasing of
survey questions designed with particular emphases in mind. The QES is
no exception. The advantage of the survey is the great detail with which
it describes paid and domestic work conditions, and attitudes toward work
and family, as well as providing demographic and household information.
It is well suited to the research questions at hand.
Operationalizing Homework
Any study of homework must first resolve a number of conceptual
issues before operationalizing the notion. Defining homework can seem especially problematic given the controversy over the economic status of
housework (e.g., Hartmann, 1981). The conventional definition of work,
however, is that it is financially compensated. Another definitional problem
has to do with what constitutes a "job." Many would-be entrepreneurs engage in hobbies or avocations that may eventually earn money but are conducted before or after paid work hours. A related issue is whether only
one's primaryjob, or "moonlighting"as well, should count as work at home.
If homework is "oppressive," it may reflect efforts to supplement another
low-paid job performed outside the home. The QES provides complete information solely for respondents' primary job, and it is on this basis that
we define homeworkers. We can control for holding a second paid job, for
the QES did ask about the amount of time devoted to second jobs, although
the location is not specified. Homeworkers generally spend about the same

188
Silver
amountof time on a secondjob as on-siteworkers,and moonlightingconstitutes about one-thirdof total weeklywork hours for both groups.However, female homeworkersdevote almosttwice as muchof theirwork time
to second jobs as male homeworkers,and are more likely to moonlight
than on-site women workers(see Table I).
It has been arguedthat full-time"primary"
homeworkersdiffer draones in terms of socioeconomic
maticallyfrom part-time"supplemental"
characteristics,benefits from workingat home, and reasons for doing so
(Kraut,1988; Ramsower,1985). Primaryhomeworkersare more likely to
work at home in order to mesh desiresfor independencewith familyand
work obligations.Thus, they are the appropriatefocus of this study.
Table I. Logistic Regression Coefficients on Probability of Working Mainly at Home

Total
Sex (1 = Male)
Years worked since 16 (age)
Years of School Completed
Self-employed
Race
Disabled
Working class
Farmer
Hours worked
Has second job
Metropolitan area resident
Married
No. children under 6 years
No. children 6 to 12 years
Spouse works
Gender roles attitudec
Working mother attitude'
Core sectorc
Union member
Firm size
Intercept
-1.655b
.049b
.095
2.373b
.162
.406
-.902a
2.384b
.002
1.046b
-.451
.101
.451
-.400
-.534
.316a
.198
.084
-1.358
-.001
-8.221
Women
-.059
.931b
6.349b
9.029
.762
2.493
.457
.000
2.852a
-.491
.758
.705
-1.522
.216
1.575b
1.592a
-1.631
-7.289
-.091
-39.612
Men
.108b
.080
1.083a
-.061
-.225
-9.266
3.012b
.005b
1.119
-.840
-.965
.395
.014
-.956
-.068
.048
1.090
-.955
-.001
-9.138
p < .10.
bp < .05.
CTraditionalgender roles aptitudes are measured by the extent of agreement on a 5-point scale
(1: strong disagreement;5: strongagreement)with the statement "It is much better for everyone
if the man earns the money and the woman takes care of the home and children." Traditional
attitudes towards working mothers refer to the extent of agreement with the statement "A
mother who works outside the home can have just as good a relationship with her children
as a mother who does not work." This scale also runs from (1) strong disagreement to (5)
strong agreement; thus, a lower value on this variable indicates greater traditionalism. See
Tolbert et al. (1980) for the core-periphery industrial classification.

189

Table II. Who Works at Home? Quality of Employment Survey
"How often do you do work at home that is part of your job?"
% Total
% Men
% Women
Never work at home

Rarely work at home
A few times a year
About once a month
Frequently work at home
About once a week
More than once a week
Mainly work at home
Professional/managerial
Working-class
N of homeworkers
57.4
15.6
9.9
5.7
23.3
7.7
15.6
3.7
(44)
(11)
(55)
54.3
16.2
10.7
5.5
25.5
8.6
16.9
4.0
(36)
(2)
(38)
63.0
14.4
8.3
6.1
19.4
6.1
13.3
3.1
(8)
(9)
(17)
Total N
1499
959
540
The QES asked "How often do you do work at home that is part of
your job?" and offered six alternatives: never; a few times a year; about
once a month; about once a week; more than once a week; and work mainly
at home (Table II).4 This study defines homeworkers as those who "mainly"
work at home, contrasting them with workers in the other categories.5 Of
the 1499 people responding to the place of work question, 55 reported
working mainly at home-3.7% of the QES sample. This estimate is very
close to those reported by other nationally representative homeworker surveys (Horvath, 1986; Silver, 1989). Similarly, the QES yields a profile of
homeworker characteristics, reported in Table I, that accords with prior
studies (Horvath, 1986; Heck, 1989; Kraut, 1988).
4The QES also asked those who work sometimes but not mainly at home: "is it usually because
you want to, because you have to in order to keep up on your job, or because you are asked
to by others?" Those who rarely work at home are more likely to do so because they want
to or were asked to than those who work at home more frequently. A majority of those who
work at home at least once a week have to in order to keep up on their jobs, although about
half want to work at home as well. Although there is no data on the motives of primary
homeworkers, this finding suggests that the degree of "flexibility"homework offers does differ
to the extent that workers can choose to vary their place of work.
5Although working at home at least once a week might be a good definition of "supplemental"
homeworking, job conditions reported by these workers probably refer to their on-site
workplaces. As in prior studies, QES respondents working "mainly" at home differed from
those doing so at least once a week. The latter are disproportionately in professional and
managerial occupations, strongly committed to their work, and spend very long hours on the
job.

Silver
190
Variable Measures
The dependent variables in this study refer to aspects of domestic
life, including job-family interference, satisfaction with family life, hours of
housework, child care, leisure, and family assistance with one's job. Each
is discussed as the results are presented. Continuous or ordinal dependent
variables are analyzed with ordinary least squares regression6 and categorical ones with logistic regression.
The effect of homework on family-relatedvariables, by sex and household type, is assessed with a dummy variable for working mainly at home.
Because the "oppressive"perspective on homework expects the exploitation
of female homeworkers to be greatest among those in industrial, service,
sales, and clerical occupations (Beach, 1989; Fernandez-Kelly and Garcia,
1989; National Research Council, 1985; Portes and Sassen-Koob, 1987), an
interaction term for being a working-class homeworker was also examined.7
These variables are hypothesized to affect domestic work and other aspects
of family life over and above two sets of control variables.
The first set of controls is derived from a preliminary logistic regression analysis predicting the probability of working at home with a variety
of personal and job characteristics suggested as important in the literature
(Table I). Significant determinants of working at home are held constant
in the equations in order to distinguish the effects of homeworkper se from
those of causes or correlates of homework. They include the following: sex;
years of work since age 16; years of school completed; self-employment;
hours worked per week; moonlighting; farming; working-class occupations;
and as the resource theory would predict, "traditional" attitudes toward
gender roles and working mothers.8
6The analysis of ordinal dependent variables with ordinary least squares regression is
controversial (see Winship and Mare, 1984). Therefore, the equations were reestimated with
polychotomous logistic regression, and the results were substantially the same. However,
ordinary least squares estimators are preferable to maximum likelihood coefficients when
small samples are involved (see Wonnacott and Wonnacott, 1970:399). See also Blalock
(1972:164, 293-294) on significance tests with small samples.
7I refer to them as "working-class"homeworkers for ease of exposition, although they might
as meaningfully be labeled "less skilled" or "secondary labor market" occupations. Analysis
showed they differ from professional and managerial homeworkers, the focus of the
"optimistic," high-technology perspective on homework, in terms of supervision, autonomy,
and other job-related indicators of social class. Yet homeworkers, especially men, are
significantly less likely to be in working-class occupations than on-site workers. Thus, any
working-class homeworker effects are gender specific. However, all of the reported effects
of being a working-class homeworker were found among homeworkers in general, before
the interaction term was added to the equation.
8Farming is usually considered a preindustrial occupation, and many farm workers are
self-employed, rather than wage workers. Therefore, this occupation is controlled separately.
Forty-four percent of the male homeworkers are farmers. The correlation between

191
The second set of controlvariablesconsistsof factorsshownin prior

studies to influence domestic work (see Berk, 1980; Blumstein, and
Schwartz1991;Covermanand Shelley,1986;Hochschild,1989;Ross, 1987;
Voydanoff,1988). These includehouseholdstructure,the relativefinancial
power of the spouses, and as above, sex, gender ideology, and hours of
work.Householdstructurerefersto workers'maritalstatus,havinga working spouse, and the numberof childrenunder 5 and between 6 and 12
Table III. Understandardized Regression Coefficients Predicting Degree of Work-Family

Interference
A. By sex
Total
Homeworker
Working class * Homeworker
Sex (1 = male)
Working class
Farmer
Self-employed
Years of school completed
Hours worked
Has second job
Gender roles attitudes
Working mother attitude
Annual earnings
Spouse's annual earnings
Married
Spouse works
Intercept
R2 (adjusted)
-.113
-.755a
-.190
.005
-.328
-.149
-.008b
-.009"
.001
.002b
.017
-.008
-.005
.000005a
-.00001b
-.092
.043
.110b
.141a
1.390
.11
Women
Men
.934a
-1.616b
-.347
.002
-.424a
.0007
.007
.003b
-.002
-.016
-.038
-.0000003
.000007
-.132
.134
.208b
.186
1.228
.11
.004
-.0096
-.136
.003
.002b
.013
-.009
.006
.000005
-.00001b
-.243
.008
.075a
.125
1.438
.11
B. By Family type
Parents
Homeworker
(Covariates not shown)
.301
-1.540b
Married
-.121
-.024
Married Parents
.298
-1.559b
< .10.
bp < .05
self-employment and farming is .34, high but hardly synonymous with entrepreneurship. Years
of work since the age of 16 is strongly correlated with age, precluding the entry of the latter
into the regression equations. After this correction, there is no evidence of multicolinearity.
See notes to Table I for definitions of traditional gender roles attitudes.

192
Silver
years of age. The relative power of the spouses in the household is measured by the workers' own and their spouses' annual earnings (Blumstein
and Schwartz, 1991).
ANALYSIS
The Integration of Separate Spheres?

Resource theory and the "progressive"view of homework credit the
spatial integration of workplace and residence with helping workers balance
their public and private lives and move flexibly between paid and unpaid
work. If this is true, one would expect homeworkers to experience less conflict between their work and family roles. The overload hypothesis and "oppressive" approach to homework imply the opposite. The QES asked
respondents about the extent to which their job and family life interfere
with each other. Table III presents the results of the regression on this
4-point scale ranging from not at all to not too much to somewhat to a lot.
It shows that working-class homeworkers, regardless of family type,
report significantly less job-family interference than those working outside
the home. Insofar as working-class women are concerned, these results appear to support resource theory as against the overload hypothesis. Indeed,
the very homeworkers whom the latter most expects to find homework oppressive appear to perceive fewer tensions between their dual roles. Working-class jobs outside the home offer less autonomy and flexibility than
on-site professional and managerial work. They often have fixed hours, prohibit personal phone calls or brief absences from the job, and are closely
supervised. On a 5-point job "autonomy" scale measuring such items as
control over work speed, co-workers, and break times (Quinn and Staines,
1979:194-195), men and women in working-class jobs score lower than
those in professional and managerial occupations. But working-class homeworkers report much greater autonomy than on-site working-class men and
women. Working-class women averaged a score of 3.3, compared to 3.9
among professional and managerial women, but working-class homeworking women averaged 4.3 out of a maximum score of 5. Thus, homework
may offer domestic benefits exclusively to those in inflexible jobs.
Voydanoff (1988) previously found that longer work hours, more
young children, and such job characteristics as autonomy influence workfamily interference. This study confirms these effects. Yet over and above
these factors, performing work and family duties in the same location ap-

193
pears to reduce the conflict between these roles for those in the working
class.
While male homeworkers do not differ from on-site working men in
their perception of role conflict, female homeworkers in professional and
managerial jobs experience significantly more tension between their work
and family roles than do comparable on-site workers. This suggests that
the overload hypothesis does apply to homeworking women in demanding,
time-consuming jobs.
Furthermore, subjective assessments of job-family interference do not
necessarily reflect behavior. Although female working-class homeworkers
may perceive little conflict between work and home life, they may actually
spend as much time in both paid and unpaid work as their on-site counterparts. Indeed, in analyses not presented here but available from the
author on request, homeworkers, whatever their occupation and gender,
had no more leisure time than those working outside the home, suggesting
that these two groups make different adjustments between paid and unpaid
work. Nor were male and female homeworkers more likely to be satisfied
with their marriages or families, or to value family as the most important
thing in life, than were on-site workers. And they found it no easier to
take time off during the work day to take care of personal or family matters.
These findings appear to contradict the "progressive,"resource perspective
on homework. To adjudicate between these theories, it is necessary to go
beyond attitudes and assess the effects of homework on actual domestic
behavior.
Housework
If working-class homeworkers do not have any more free time than
on-site workers and yet feel less conflict between their work and family,
this may be because they find it easier to fulfill domestic responsibilities.
By eliminating the journey to work, working at home may free up time, as
resource theory suggests. Yet these hours may be filled with "second shift"
duties and result in overload. Do homeworkers spend more time on household chores than their on-site counterparts?
To test this possibility, I analyzed the following QES question: "on
the average, on days when you're working, about how much time do you
spend on home chores-things like cooking, cleaning, repairs, shopping,
yardwork, and keeping track of money and bills?" An analysis of variance
in housework hours, by gender, class, and place of work, indicates that
women perform an average of 2.8 hours of household chores on workdays,

194
Silver
Table IV. Unstandardized Regression Coefficients Predicting Workday Daily Hours of

Housework (x 10)a
A. By household type
Total
Homeworker
Sex (1 = male)
Working class
Farmer
Self-employed
Hours worked
Hours commuting
Has second job
Gender roles attitude
Annual earnings
Married
Spouse works
Intercept
R2 (adjusted)
1.258
18.826c
-13.232C
2.500C
3.889
-3.069C
-.015C
-.217c
-.020
-.053
-1.007
.486
-.107
-.00003
.O001
.670
1.469c
1.096c
3.448c
29.150
.28
Parents
-1.071
19.016c
-22.047C
.746
5.918
-3.848b
-.023C
-.041
-.092
.123
-1.057
.454
-.508
.00004
.00007
3.670
1.035
.640
1.859
38.414
.43
Married
Married
Parents
1.841
17.470c
-18.964c
2.034b
3.621
-2.662b
-.020C
-.084
-.015
.114
-1.638
.372
-.392
-.00000
.00005
-.079
16.828c
-23.212c
1.044
5.441
-3.658b
-.024C
-.014
-.076
.134
-1.506
.384
-.586
.00006
.00006
1.846c
1.025b
2.348c
35.232
.40
1.495b
.555
1.779
42.834
.46
B. Controlling for homework. gender interaction (same controls as above)

Male
Working class
Homeworker
Male * Homeworker
-13.185c
2.499c
3.240
14.929c
-2.683
-21.928c
.797
2.931
15.185b
-6.027
-18.887c
2.039b
4.830
14.602b
-3.876
-22.968C
1.128
7.396
9.620
-10.286
homeworkersspend
aHoursmetricis two digit. For example,25 = 2.5 hours.Working-class
as well.
significantlymore hourson houseworkon nonworkdays
bp < .10.
Cp < .05.
significantly more than the 1.2 hours devoted by men. However, the gender
gap is even greater among homeworkers: female homeworkers average 3.5
hours, while homeworking men put in only 0.8 hours a day. Distinguishing
women homeworkers by social class further pinpoints the source of this
difference. Professional and managerial women homeworkers do average
slightly more housework (2.6 hours) than their on-site counterparts (2.5
hours). But in contrast with the 2.9 hours of household chores performed
on workdays by on-site working-class women, women working at home in

195
Homeworkand DomesticWork
working-class jobs perform an average of 4.4 hours a day. Such a large

difference is difficult to attribute to chance.9
Second, workday hours of housework were regressed on commuting
time (assigning homeworkers a value of zero), significant predictors of
homework, and factors known to affect domestic work. The results in Table
IV confirm prior findings. Other things being equal, women spend 1-2
more hours in housework on workdays than do men, and their domestic
work time rises with parenthood. Housework rises significantly with the
number of young children and a working spouse. Those in working-class
occupations spend more time on chores, while the self-employed spend less.
The longer one's paid work hours, wherever one works, the fewer one's
hours of housework.
Other things being equal, professional and managerial homeworkers
do no more household chores than comparable on-site workers. However,
working-class homeworkers, most of whom are women, spend about twice
as much time a day on housework, even on workdays, than on-site workers.
Evaluating the equation to control for confounding factors, we see that the
mean professional or managerial on-site worker spends 1.6 hours on housework on workdays. The comparable homeworker spends 1.7 hours. Working-class on-site workers average 1.8 hours, but working-class homeworkers
devote, on average, a whopping 3.7 hours to household chores on workdays.
These effects hold among the entire labor force, working parents, and
married workers. Moreover, working-class female homeworkers do not do
more housework because they save time that others spend commuting.
Time spent in the journey to work does indeed cut into domestic chores,
but the negative effect is statistically insignificant.
To what extent do male homeworkers increase their domestic contributions? An interaction term for being a male homeworker has a negative
but nonsignificant impact and reduces the working-class homeworker effect
by mere minutes.10As the analysis of variance also demonstrated, working
at home does not "liberate" men to do more housework.
Child Care
One might expect homework to have a similar effect on time spent
in child care. The QES asked working parents "on the average, on days
9Outliers are not responsible for this or the child care effects. For example, only 1
homeworker, but 23 on-site workers, report 8 hours or more of daily housework.
1?See Table III(B). In the housework and child care analyses, an interaction term between
gender and homework was entered into the equations for each family type, instead of
analyzing men and women separately by household structure, in order to conserve space.

196
Silver
when you're working, about how much time do you spend taking care of
or doing things with your child(ren)?" Again, the analysis of variance results
are striking. In general, women spend twice as much time on workdays
with their children as men (3.5 vs. 1.8 hours). But female homeworkers
spend 4.5 hours a day with their children, compared to only 2.0 hours
among male homeworkers. Thus, the latter do spend slightly more time on
child care than male on-site workers, but much less than their female coun-
Table V. Unstandardized
RegressionCoefficientsPredictingWorkdayDaily Hours of
ChildCare (x 10)a
A. By familytype
All parents
Homeworker
Workingclass * Homeworker
Sex (1 = male)
Workingclass
Farmer
Self-employed
Hoursworked
Hours commuting
Yearsworkedsince 16 (age)
Has secondjob
Genderroles attitudes
Workingmotherattitude
Annualearnings
Spouse'sannualearnings
Married
No. childrenunder6 years
No. children6 to 12 years
Spouseworks
Intercept
R2 (adjusted)
-1.604
19.160c
Marriedparents
-2.097
20.117c
-8.336c
-9.260c
.448
9.709b
4.386b
-.039c
-.044
-.315c
.075
-2.507
.954
.991
-.0001
-.00004
-4.098
2.384c
.034
2.884
46.114
.269
-.219
8.961
3.706
-.035c
-.050
-.291c
-.187
-1.293
1.232b
.865
-.00006
-.00004
2.737c
.183
3.298
42.559
.250
B. Controllingfor homework. genderinteraction(same controlsas above)

All parents
Marriedparents
Male
-9.852-
-9.U93c
Workingclass
Homeworker
Workingclass * Homeworker
Male * Homeworker
.512
5.238
12.898
-9.852
-.162
3.007
15.195
-7.024
aSee Table II. Spouse'schild care hoursonly askedof marriedparentswith workingspouse.

There is no significanteffect of homeworkon childcare hourson nonworkingdays.
bp < .10.
Cp < .05.

197
terparts. Professional and managerialwomen homeworkers devote the same

amount of time (3.3 hours) to child care as their on-site counterparts. The
source of the high average among female homeworkers is the working-class
women, who report 5.4 hours of child care on workdays, 2 hours more than
on-site working class women.
The difference persists after control variables are added (Table V).
As in the case of housework, professional and managerial homeworkers do
not differ from those working in these occupations on site; if anything, they
do less child care. But other things being equal, working-class homeworkers,
most of whom are women, devote about 2 additional hours per workday
to child care than do comparable on-site workers.
This effect falls below statistical significance when controlling for male
homeworkers. Not only do fathers in general spend less time with their
children, but, other things being equal, so do fathers working at home. Although this coefficient is not significant, its negative sign is consistent with
the housework findings: spatial proximity does not increase men's domestic
contributions.
As expected, the time parents spend on child care increases with the
number of preschool children, but not with the number of children older
than 5. It also declines with the worker's age (years worked). While selfemployment reduces housework hours, it increases child care hours, suggesting that children may accompany parents to work in small family
businesses. As is true of housework, the longer one's work hours, the less
time spent in child care. This relationship is particularlytrue among fathers,
as indicated by a significant interaction effect between gender and work
hours (not shown). But this variable had no impact on the working-class
homeworker effect on child care hours, as most of these homeworkers are
women.
The time-use results support overload theory more than resource theHomeworkers,
ory.
especially women in working-class occupations, spend
more time on domestic chores and child care than comparable on-site workers, holding their work hours and commuting time constant. How can this
be, given that they report as much free time as those working outside the
home?
Family Assistance with the Job

One possibility is that they receive help. For example, assistance with
child care may be forthcoming from someone other than one's spouse. Yet
a logistic regression on the use of nonparental child care arrangements revealed no homework effect. Questions about nonparental child care ar-

198
Silver
Table VI. Unstandardized Regression Coefficients Predicting Family Assistance with Job
(1: Never; 5: More than once a week)
A. By sex
Total
Homeworker
Working class
Farmer
Self-employed
Sex (1 = male)
Hours worked
Has second job
Gender roles
Annual earnings
Married
Spouse works
Intercept
R2 (adjuested)
1.169"
-.048
-.115
.355
1.469"
.082
-.005
.058'
.002a
-.112
-.040
-.017
-.000009b
-.000001
.071
-.104"
-.054
.084
.418
.33
Women
1.119b
.087
-.270
1.432b
-.051
.377
1.491b
.003
.077b
.002"
-.025
-.015
-.079
-.000006
.000001
-.212
-.074
.049
.270
.273
.34
-.008a
.054b
.002b
-.140
-.052
.004
-.000009b
-.000009
.757
-.130a
-.092a
.064
-.017
.32
B. By family type (same controls as above)

Married
Parents
Homeworker
1.000b
-.026
Men
1.167b
-.033
1.153b
Married parents
.989b
-.036
p < .10.
bp < .05.
rangements were asked of dual-earner households only. The probability of

using child care increased with the number of preschool age children, and
declined with the workers's own income and traditional gender role attitudes. Contrary to some studies (Christensen, 1988), homeworkers are no
more likely to use paid or family day care than comparable on-site workers.
However, if no help with housework or child care is forthcoming, there is
another alternative: Assistance with one's paid work. Above, it was reported
that self-employed workers reduce their housework hours and increase their
time in child care. A similar mechanism may be operating among homeworkers. In effect, homeworkers whose families assist them with their job
may consider themselves to be accomplishing two things at once. This hypothesis is consistent with one aspect of the overload hypothesis: rather
than cutting into leisure or sleep, homeworkers' longer "dual day" may reflect a "speedup" on the "second shift" (Hochschild, 1989:8-9)-t hat is,

199
they do both paid and unpaidwork duringthe same "accountingunit" of

time. Indeed, there is evidencethat on average,women reportdoing three
domestic tasks at a time (Berheide, 1984; Thompson and Walker,
1989:855).
To illustrate,consider the effect of homeworkon family assistance
with thingsthat are partof one'sjob, a variableavailablefor workersliving
with a familymemberover age 12. TableVI demonstratesthat,other things
being equal, all homeworkers,whatever their social class or household
structure,receive family assistancewith their jobs much more frequently
than on-site workers.While havingyoungchildrenreducesfamilyaid, having more teenage childrentends to increaseit, althoughnot significantly.
Gender exhibits a meaningful,though statisticallynonsignificantpattern:
marriedwomen receiveless familyhelp with theirjobs, while marriedmen
receive more.
In sum, homeworkis a familyaffair.Homeworkersmay accomplish
more domesticworkper hourof paidworkwithoutdiminishingtheirleisure
time because their families,especiallyolder children,help with their paid
jobs.
CONCLUSION
In the 1930s,social reformersarguedthat homework"commercializes
the home," turning bedrooms into workspacesand young children into
workers.The consequencewas the "demoralization
of the home as the famshelter
from
the
stress
and
strain
of
the
outside
world" (Belville,
ily
homework
would
the
1935:33). Only by abolishing
separation of social
be
of
homework
spheres complete.Opponents
regulationalso appealedto
but
in
that
some
women had to work to
family values,
argued, contrast,
their
children
as
well
as
care
for
them
at
home
support
(Boris, 1985). Toas
homework
is
at
the
center
of
a
debate
over
the relationship
before,
day,
between socialspheresandwomen'sproperrole in them.Whatis the effect
of men and women workingat home on familylife? And does the spatial
integrationof paid and unpaidwork confirmthe expectationsof resource
theory or the overloadhypothesis?
The attitudinalfindingsare mixed.Homeworkers,especiallywomen,
hold more traditionalgenderrole and parentingattitudes,and the perception of conflictbetweenjob and familyis significantlylower amongworking-classhomeworkersthan it is amongcomparablewomenwho go out to
work. These findingssupportresourcetheory and the "progressive"perspectiveon homework.In contrast,professionaland managerialhomeworking women experiencemore tensionbetweenthese roles,in conformitywith

200
Silver
the overload thesis. Moreover, homework has little effect on subjective assessments of one's personal life. Homeworkers are no more satisfied with
their marriages or family lives than are on-site workers.
As for time use, the findings are more consistent with overload theory.
Other things being equal, working-class women homeworkers spend more
time on housework and child care than do their on-site counterparts. While
resource theory suggests that homeworkers-both
male and female-should accomplish more domestic work because they avoid a journey
to work, commuting time did not account for homework's effect on the
length of the dual day.
The role overload hypothesis suggests an alternative reason for working-class women homeworkers' greater domestic contribution. Although
homeworkers sacrifice no more free time than do equally hard-working onsite workers, they appear to do more than one thing at a time. In support
of this explanation, it was found that homeworkers-whatever their occupations, gender, or family type-receive more assistance with their jobs
from other members of their households. Without reducing their hours in
paid work or leisure, they marginally increase their time in domestic labor
by working with their families. Help from family members may also explain
why working-class homeworkers perceive less conflict between their job and
family roles.
Some may find these results consistent with Toffler's (1980) vision of
the homeworkers "electronic cottage" and the family's integration of separate spheres. Family assistance may express solidarity and responsibility on
the part of older children, as well as enhance homeworkers' productivity
and the household's earnings. But from the overload perspective, help from
family members may augment employers' profits or a self-employed husband's control over family labor, making it possible to have two or more
workers for the price of one (Finch, 1983; Lozano, 1989; Biggart, 1989). If
this is so, homeworkers' families are exploited on the job even if the dual
days of homeworkers themselves are no more significantly overloaded.
Homeworkers' speedup occurs in their paid work as much as it does in
their domestic duties. Furthermore, family assistance with homework may
have troubling policy implications. When the Department of Labor recently
lifted its ban on industrial homework (Iverson, 1988; duRivage and Jacobs,
1989; Herod, 1991), it may have insufficiently considered that child labor
violations may result from homeworkers' attempts to balance paid and unpaid roles (see Kilbor, 1990, 1989).
Homework is not only a women's issue. Although a majority of homeworkers are male, working at home has little effect on men's gender role

201
attitudes,perceptionsof work-familyinterference,or contributionsto domestic work. The resourcetheoryimpliesthat men workingat home, like
those in preindustrialtimes, no longer face the physicalbarrierto participation in houseworkand parenting,and shouldhave more free time, saved
from commuting,to do householdchores.Yet the resultssupportthe overload hypothesisthat-based on the assumptionof persistentlyunequalgender relations-expects no increasein male homeworkers'participationin
domestic labor. Men workingat home, whatevertheir occupations,spend
no more time in houseworkor child care than men workingelsewhere.
Yet male homeworkersenjoysignificantlymore familyassistancewith
their job than do men workingon-site. In their case, there is little doubt
that gender inequalityin the labormarketand in the familyreinforceeach
other.When men workat home, so, mostlikely,do theirwivesand children
without paid compensation.
Not all homeworkersare marriedor have children.Time spent in
domesticlaboris itself a functionof householdsize and structure.Yet whatever one's familytype,gendercontinuesto determinewho performsunpaid
domesticwork.
Furthermore,this gender inequalitypersistsregardlessof workplace.
This studysuggeststhat the separationof spheresis not a spatialor logistic
matter, as the resource approachimplies.Whereverjobs are performed,
they connect individualsto social institutionsthat take little account of
workers'familyand privatelives, to the particulardisadvantageof women.
Althoughworking-classwomenhomeworkersperceiveless tensionbetween
their dual roles, they do so in partbecausetheir familiesjoin in theirjobs.
Whether other familymembersperceivetension between their home life
and this indirectconnectionwith homeworkers'employmentis a question
for future research.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author is gratefulfor the very helpful commentsof FrancesK.

Goldscheiderand Greg Elliott.
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Homework and Domestic Work

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Homework and Domestic Work

Author(s): Hilary Silver

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Sociological Fonrm, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1993