The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of household appliances and the division of labor in accomplishing household tasks in the family. It investigated the relationship between ownership of specific items of household equipment and the performance of directly related household tasks and the overall ownership of household equipment and the overall division of labor in the family. Data for this study came from "Determinants and outcomes of Household Time Use," which is part of the S-206 Regional Research Project. Data from 214 two-parent, two-child households were analyzed to determine the relationship between ownership of household equipment and time spent in three categories of household tasks by husbands, wives and children. Ownership of household equipment was determined by means of an equipment inventory. The ownership of appliances and their relationship to the performance of directly associated tasks included: (microwave oven and time spent in food preparation; (2) dishwasher and garbage disposal and time spent in dishwashing; and (3) power garden and/or yard equipment and power shop tools and time spent in maintenance of home, yard, car, and pets. The total time spent in household production by husbands, wives, children and its relationship to the total number of household appliances owned was also studied. The t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Kruskal-Wallis were used to analyze the differences in proportion of time spent in the various household tasks by wives, husbands, and children by ownership of related household equipment. No significant differences were found in the proportion of time spent in food preparation, dishwashing, and maintenance by wives, husbands, and children in households that did and did not own the related household equipment. The correlation between level of equipment ownership and husbands' and children's proportion of total family time spent in household work was not significant indicating that as more equipment is acquired husbands and children do not contribute a smaller proportion of total family time in household work.

This thesis aims to investigate the role of domestic technology in daily life. It focuses on the impact of household technologies upon women&rsquo / s lives and attempts to address the questions of how women could create an agency through technology to transform their lives and how a technological appliance could act to empower women. Of all household technologies, Singer sewing machine was chosen owing to its representative nature. Accordingly, the thesis provides a brief history of Singer Company in order to describe the major aspects of both the Singer Company and the sewing machine technology. It is argued that sewing machine technology became a convenient tool for women to transform their lives both economically and socially. The testimonies of the women interviewed for this thesis show that their technological skills were a significant part of their identity. Furthermore, middle-class Turkish women used this technology to meet middle class standards whenever they and their families aspired to.

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The nineteenth-century English middle class was strongly influenced by science, industry, and capitalist managerial techniques. These trends also made their way into the domestic space, where women negotiated their application, particularly in the kitchen. This thesis examines domestic life in the context of the popularization of science and the history of technology and management to come to a fuller understanding of how middle-class women ran their homes between about 1800 and 1880, a period of broad industrialisation and business growth. The values of fact, precision, rationality, and order influenced the practice of cookery, the physical technologies in the home, and the management of people, time, and money. The middle-class male workspace celebrated the same values; women were the domestic counterparts of their husbands. Although the prescriptive literature was not always slavishly followed, adherence to these values, both at work and at home, could help cement the familys social status. / History

abstract: The rate of obesity has increased noticeably in China since the 1980s, brought about by the "After Mao" revolution. This dissertation examines the social determinants of obesity and weight gain among men and women, using 1991-2009 waves of the longitudinal China Health and Nutrition Survey. The first study emphasizes that rapid technological adoption at home may also have the potential to lead to obesity epidemics. I hypothesize that adopting household technology is a factor in weight gain, independent from daily calorie consumption and energy expenditure in exercise. The results show household technology ownership and weight gain are linked, while changes in overall energy intake and exercise may not function as mediators for this relationship. Future public health policy may evaluate interventions that are focused on increasing low-intensity activities impacted by household technologies. My second study discusses whether obesity wage penalties seen in Western societies, such as wage reductions for obese individuals, are observed in modern China. The results indicate that obese women are not subject to wage penalties, while current male obesity rates may be worsened by heightened economic outcomes and greater social acceptance by customers and colleagues. With increasing interpersonal interactions in the workplace in Chinese industries, and the lack of public awareness of the risks of obesity, Chinese public health strategies for preventing and controlling obesity should target male non-manual laborers, the most vulnerable population in the future. The third study analyzes the impact of parental and own socioeconomic status on adult body weight and extends the research by estimating the influence of intergenerational social mobility on current body mass index. In the context of increasing social inequality in China, the study shows parental SES, own SES, and social mobility to be negatively associated with body mass index among women; while respondent's SES is positively associated with body mass index among men. The study results support the theory that parental SES has a more significant impact on current body weight for men and women after controlling social mobility; indicating that social mobility may function as a mediator for the relationship between parental SES and current body mass index. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sociology 2014