[T]hrowing money at a problem is very rarely a satisfactory solution in the long term. I think of the truly staggering number of marriages I know that were supposed to be ‘saved’ by moving to a new house, or adding a second storey or a new bathroom. If only life was that simple! (Maushart, 2003:232) In the UK, the dishwasher remained a site of tension for Beverley as her husband would not deal with it when she wanted it done. Orla’s 20-year marriage failed despite outsourcing cleaning because her husband felt threatened by her professional success. She was left regretting her choice to remain childless:
he didn’t really want children ... I remember saying this to [him], if we don’t have any children, I am not going to be limited in my ambitions at work … at the time he had started drinking rather more … he didn’t want to do
anything much except drink in the village … our marriage split up, not then but ten years after, I think because … he wouldn’t really play along with my side of that, which was that we had to have an unfettered life where we could both achieve everything we wanted to achieve … he found my work … very threatening ... and the drink I think was the biggest problem. (Orla)
132 In India, Seema, who was separated, Rekha, who was divorced, and Meenakshi, who lived apart from her husband for most of the time, also talked about
negotiating problematic relationships and behaviours (e.g. alcoholism) while outsourcing their housework. In the wider world, in both research sites,
relationship breakdowns among the most visible members of society – who might also outsource cleaning – provide steady fodder for the media (e.g. the anguish of UK celebrity chef Nigella Lawson over the abusive state of her marriage while drawing on paid domestic help (BBC News, 2013; Orr, 2013)). There are scant published data on this topic. Key Anglo-American qualitative studies mostly accept respondents’ comments that outsourcing cleaning improved domestic relations. I found only one that expressed some doubt: outsourcing ‘possibly resolv[es] conflict …’ note Lyonette and Crompton, because the long work-hours culture makes it difficult for men to share the work even if they want to do so (2015:37). Also, most interviewees are women and quantitative studies show that women are more likely to articulate dissatisfaction with relationship quality when routine housework is not shared (Barstad, 2014; Træen, 2010). So are service- users’ claims in interviews proof enough? UK survey analyses show outsourcing is ‘largely insignificant’ in terms of relationship outcome (Schober, 2013; also Figure 11 (Jones, 2004)).
133 East Asian studies looking in detail at the lives of middle-class women alongside those of their primarily live-in foreign domestic workers show the women remain vulnerable in various ways, including sexual insecurity around another woman sleeping in the same house (Chin, 1998; Lan, 2006).
Relationships where housework is shared are also susceptible to
floundering (Barstad, 2014; Cooke, 2004) because once housework is shared – either directly or indirectly through outsourcing – it may lose its significance for relationship quality (Chan and Halpin, 2002). Felicity’s previous ‘egalitarian’ relationship ended after eight years, despite militant efforts to share the housework. She confessed being happier in her present relationship with its fuzzier boundaries around ‘who did what’ in the house. Indeed, ‘[t]he longevity of partnerships seems to be connected with couples’ capacity to negotiate changing circumstances’ (Gabb and Fink, 2015:61) across a range of domestic – most significantly childcare (Cooke, 2004; Schober, 2013; Sigle-Rushton, 2010) – and paid work issues. In Gabb and Fink’s (2015:124–125) study on enduring
relationships, inequitable division of housework was number 3 among 15 items women liked least about their relationship and number 8 among men. But
sharing housework per se did not feature in the lists describing what people liked most about their relationship. Two items mentioned ‘support’ (‘being cared for and feeling supported’ at number 4 for women and number 5 for men and ‘we support each other’ at number 14 for both), but this could include a range of family practices. Indeed, Western couples in intact relationships who report ‘sharing’ housework as an important factor, may be describing a mutually agreed
division of housework: ‘in many ways I was professional on the earning side and
she was professional on the mothering side’ (a male respondent in Walker et al., 2010:52–53). Couples claiming to be egalitarian or ‘anti-sexist’ also often divide housework (see examples of ‘shared’ housework in Blaisure and Allen, 1995; Risman and Johnson-Sumerford, 1998; VanEvery, 1995) and may still outsource some of it for other reasons, such as gaining leisure time (Gregson and Lowe, 1994a) or as a status symbol (Anderson, 2000, 2003; Ray and Qayum,
2009/2010). Many of my respondents said they would continue outsourcing cleaning even after retirement. It may be that non-sharing of housework becomes a significant issue in relationships already under strain (Walker et al., 2010; see also Cooke, 2006).
My findings and previous research show that the notion of outsourcing cleaning as a panacea for relationship conflicts in the dual-career, middle-class
134 household is problematic because of the complexity of the equation that
underpins household (in)equanimity, as well as wider classed notions of work. However, this still leaves one Western academic feminist concern around
outsourcing cleaning unaddressed: that it allows middle-class women to progress in their careers at the cost of their domestic worker’s liberation. Indeed,
housework takes time (Oakley, 1974/1985; see Chapter 5), and Bianchi et al. (2012) claimed about half the weekly time spent on core housework goes on cleaning.