IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v19y2005i3p481-502.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘He earns the bread and butter and I earn the cream’

Author

Listed:
  • Nickie Charles

    (Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, UK, n.charles@warwick.ac.uk)

  • Emma James

    (Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Wales, Swansea, UK)

Abstract

This article explores the relation between job insecurity, male breadwinner ideology and family forms drawing on qualitative, in-depth interviews with women and men working in three organizations in a specific travel-to-work area in South Wales. We argue that a modified form of male breadwinner family is still widespread in this part of Britain, but that the elements that constitute male breadwinner ideology and the male breadwinner family are disrupted by men’s job insecurity. There are few signs of the emergence of a dual breadwinner/dual carer family, although the families of 42 percent of our respondents conformed to a dual earner family form. The only circumstance where men took on more of the care work was in a situation of role reversal as a result of men’s job insecurity and/or job loss and was most evident amongst couples where both were on low incomes with insecure jobs.

Suggested Citation

  • Nickie Charles & Emma James, 2005. "‘He earns the bread and butter and I earn the cream’," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 19(3), pages 481-502, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:19:y:2005:i:3:p:481-502
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017005055667
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017005055667
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017005055667?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:19:y:2005:i:3:p:481-502. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.