Housewife

As a housewife, a woman is called, which primarily focuses on the household and family work and usually does not engage or little wage labor. Volunteers and voluntary activities are not excluded.

There are also uses the terms full-time housewife or plain housewife. With reference to the GDR is sometimes spoken of "Even housewife ". When a mother decided in the GDR, all day to stay at home, this happened sometimes from a conscious, socially but despised decision, " own children of state education and or or herself to escape a socialization within the profession ."

In American English, the term " stay-at -home - mom" ​​is ( still - at-home- mom, abbreviated SAHM ) are common; In French we say "femme au foyer ".

For a man in a similar role Hausmann is used that term.

Historical development

In the traditional bourgeois family model that distinguishes between a " male " world outside the home and a "female" domestic world, the housewife and mother forms the necessary female counterpart to the male "provider ". Until the 1960s in Germany was based on the principles of family policy, the role of housewife and mother as the "natural profession of the woman." It was said in the introduction to the Equal Rights Act of 1957: "It is one of the features of the man that he basically the preserver and breadwinner of the family, while the woman must see it as their main task to be the heart of the family. "

To the extent in which in the industrialized countries of the Western world, this family model egalitarian concepts differs and the reconciliation of work and family life for women - and increasingly men - becomes an ultimate life form, the concept of housewife and mother loses much of its former matter of course. The growing employment of women is a phenomenon that can be observed in all the rich Western countries. The role of housewife and mother is there today often only one of many options between which women can choose. In the Scandinavian countries and France, a greater proportion of women in paid employment than in the German-speaking countries.

Statistical data

Proportion of non-working mothers in different countries:

United States

In the United States, was the dissatisfaction of women with college education who have been suggested in the 1950s to seek their personal fulfillment solely in the role of housewife and mother - what Betty Friedan " the problem with no name " called - a the starting points for the second wave of the women's movement.

Today, when even mothers of infants are mostly employed, not only the image of the stay-at -home -mom is perceived as problematic in the United States, but especially the fact that with the lack of employment of women also eliminates an income.

Japan

In Japan, the role of woman as housewife and mother of great importance, and the lives of men and women differ significantly. Mothers have responsibility for school success of their children in the highly selective school system in Japan.