Ökonomien der Liebe

Using the terms »reproductive labour« and »care«, the contribution traces the feminist discourse on (domestic) labour. The focus is on two publications from 1977 and 2019 that, despite different theoretical traditions, refer to love as a justification for gendered social inequalities. However, love is conceptualised here one-dimensionally as an inequality-creating variable. For this reason, the contribution argues for an integration of emotion-sociological approaches into the current care debate.

Gendered Division of Domestic Labour and Childbearing Intentions in Tehran, Iran

Objective: Changes in the gendered division of domestic labour are often assumed to influence childbearing intention, but existing evidence is varied and less examined in the Asian context. This paper aims to investigate the association between the gendered division of domestic labour and the intention to have another child. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Tehran on 455 married women aged 18-40 years who were selected through a multi-stage cluster sampling. Results: Domestic labour is still a feminine role and the majority of women are satisfied with the division of domestic labour. Women’s satisfaction with the division of domestic labour is a predictor of their tendency to have another child, but the actual division of domestic labour has not a significant effect on women’s desire to childbearing, in the multivariate model. Conclusion: Women’s desire for having another child is positively impacted by their satisfaction with the gendered division of labour in their household. To achieve more fertility, gender equality in the family and identifying the factors affecting women's satisfaction with the division of domestic labour is suggested.

Mrs Hinch, the rise of the cleanfluencer and the neoliberal refashioning of housework: Scouring away the crisis?

This article extends sociological and feminist accounts of housework by examining the social significance of the rise of the ‘cleanfluencer’: online influencers who supply household cleaning and organization tips and modes of lifestyle aspiration via social media. We focus on ‘Mrs Hinch’; aka Sophie Hinchliffe from Essex, the ‘homegrown’ Instagram star with 4.1 million followers who shares daily images and stories of cleaning and family life, and has a series of bestselling books, regular daytime TV appearances and supermarket tie-ins. We argue that, within neoliberal culture, housework is now often refashioned as a form of therapy for women’s stressful lives: stresses that neoliberalism and patriarchy have both generated and compounded. The argument is developed through three sections. First, we locate Mrs Hinch in relation to longer classed, gendered and racialized histories of domestic labour and the figure of the ‘housewife’, and the re-writing of domestic narratives to find new ways of ensuring women’s willingness to participate in unpaid domestic labour. Second, we analyse the contradictions of cleanfluencing as a form of ‘digital identity labour’ representing offline housework, which in this case is precarious and classed. Finally, drawing these themes together, we show how ‘Hinching’ recasts housework as part of a neoliberal therapeutic promise to ‘clean away’ the instabilities, anxieties and threats of contemporary culture.

Changing Dynamics in the South African Labour Market

Fundamental features of the post-apartheid South African economy include persistent and increasing unemployment alongside extreme levels of household income inequality. These well-established welfare challenges are strongly shaped by the nature of employment and earnings outcomes in the domestic labour market. This chapter reviews some of the major new developments that have occurred in the labour market since 2000. At a macro level the authors document the changing structure of the economy’s sectoral growth trajectory, which has resulted in a relative contraction of the primary and industrial sectors amidst a rapid expansion in the services economy. The latter in turn has delivered an employment path in South Africa, which has been almost exclusively services based. This sectoral shift has occurred alongside a pattern of skills-biased occupational change, and substantial wage growth for those at the top of the earnings distribution. At the same time, the public sector and a corresponding unionized class have expanded and continue to command significant wage premia, while returns to education are declining for specific qualifications. From a policy perspective there have been a series of important labour market interventions aiming to support low-wage workers, with the expansion of minimum wages a notable development in this regard. However, levels of non-compliance with both wage and non-wage labour market regulations are high. We conclude by drawing attention to several active employment policies that have been pursued by the state in an attempt to tackle the unemployment crisis, with mixed results.

Making others (un)equal: The social ethics of Scandinavian enclaving in Maputo, Mozambique

This article explores practices and ideologies of equality as the central mechanisms through which cosmopolitan Scandinavians in the capital of Mozambique simultaneously build themselves as a community and sever relationships with locals, thereby constructing a socioeconomic, cultural and moral enclave within the city. Scandinavian sociality is predicated upon the absence of overt signs of social differentiation and these practices are reproduced in their interactions in Maputo. Egalitarian values, paradoxically, allow Scandinavians to mask the structures of inequality inherent to local society and engage in structurally unequal relations in which they act as if all interactions were between autonomous equals, possessed of equivalent social and economic capital. Specifically, the article explores the ways through which Scandinavian expatriates justify the use of domestic labour while refusing to recognise the implication of this structurally unequal employment in the local context. By insisting on equality and autonomy as the basis for social interactions, Scandinavians reject local forms of constructing relationships that are predicated upon the recognition of unequal positions and an obligation of responsibility towards dependents. They thereby refuse to engage with local expectations and understandings of labour relations and fail to recognise the implications of their position within the Mozambican social hierarchy.

Production and Experience

The chapter assesses the tools used for spinning fibre that survive in the Petrie Museum collection and how these artefacts shaped the daily experiences of their users. It first discusses spinning whorls, with data on the materials, diameters, and weights of these artefacts. The chapter identifies a correlation between different decorative designs and different weights, which would have helped spinners to select the most appropriate tool. There is also discussion of the apotropaic functions of whorl decoration. The chapter goes on to discuss pendants in the shape of weaving combs, which appear to be a distinct artefact type from Roman and late antique Egypt. This leads onto discussion of the cultural and religious function of spinning, through its association with the Virgin Mary and her cult in Egypt. A newly identified finger distaff in the Petrie Museum is presented in terms of its social and functional value, with reference to examples found elsewhere in the empire. Analysis of wear on the object suggests that it was a functional tool, rather than symbolic possession. The chapter also assesses the daily reality of spinning compared to that represented by cultural traditions, the role of women in spinning, and the complicated relationship between professional and domestic labour.

‘A very exclusive experiment in communism’: the radical origins of the Manhattan co-op

Though it has long been the residence of choice for Manhattan's rich, the co-operative apartment building has an intellectual lineage that originates in pre-Marxian communitarian socialism. In the early nineteenth century, radical philosophers Charles Fourier and Robert Owen first theorized a multifamily dwelling owned in joint stock by its residents that could deliver economies of scale in the production and delivery of household necessities. Using previously untranslated French sources and archival material (New Harmony Working Men's Institute), this article demonstrates how early socialist ideas about housing, domestic labour and ownership evolved into the idea for the New York City co-operative apartment building.