By Sally Raskoff

The journal Social
Forces has published many classic studies in sociology in its ninety year
history. To celebrate,the publisher has offered free
public access. Even better, each of these articles has updates or reflection
articles from the original authors.

While new research is always being pursued, it is important
to realize that classic work still has an important contribution to make –
that’s why you end up reading so much of it in sociology classes. On the other
hand, it is important not to just accept the older work as consistently
applicable but to reflect, reassess, reapply the findings to see if they retain
their power of explanation. If the findings are no longer as relevant, we can  learn about how life has changed or what the
research might have missed, created as it is rooted in a particular time and
place.

I invite you to check out
a pair of articles – the original and the reflection – to learn more about
society and also how the research process works. 

For example, I took a closer look at the Bianchi et al.
article, “Is Anyone Doing the Housework?” and its reflection, “Housework: Who
Did, Does or Will Do It and How Much Does It Matter?”

The original article looked at housework to explore the
domestic aspects of gender inequality. The reflection piece updates their data
analysis, through 2009-2010 presenting a longer period of time to asses
domestic chores and gender. Women are still doing more core housework than men.
Sigh.

However, the authors note that by only looking at housework we may be missing much of the unpaid work
in the home. Childcare and the relationship
between housework and childcare compared to paid or market work are identified
as important factors that help us understand gender inequality.

Their new data analysis includes a focus on mothers and
fathers, not just men and women, and the additional issue of childcare
highlights how caring for family members itself affects how much time people
spend doing household work.

The new analysis shows that women’s market (paid) work and
unpaid household work are inversely related (the more a woman works outside the
home, the less housework she does) while the same
does not hold true for men.
They also find that mothers and fathers have different patterns than men and
women in general. Parenting is an important variable in understanding the
amount of work one does at home.

As the authors say  it’s important to consider contextual factors,
not just individual or couple-level factors. Factors like global full time
employment of women, publicly funded childcare, maternal leave, and egalitarian
gender attitudes gives are central to understanding housework in a cross
cultural context. All of these societal factors affect gender inequality, housework
and childcare work hours.

It is interesting to note that the original research retains
its importance but the updated reflection gives the original analysis more
nuances and explanatory power. It also highlights the importance and ongoing
contribution of replication and continuing research.

Over time people change, it may feel like society is
changing, yet trends may remain the same or change – but we won’t know that
without doing research! Again. And again.

What other classic studies do you think might reveal
different—or surprisingly similar—results if repeated today? This question is
the first step in designing a new study and often motivates researchers to
revisit their own, or someone else’s data.