“Somebody is thinking about it”: Women as household managers in Dual-career Families

In this work we focus, through a multi-method approach, on the managerial practices used by working mothers to deal with complex schedules and family needs in domestic life. We know, from previous studies, that dual earner families face substantial reorganizations of their domestic life, but there has been little research on how such reorganizations are accomplished within families. Findings draw on different data sets (focus groups, self-report charts, naturally occurring interactions) and, overall, show the centrality of managerial practices in the everyday domestic life of this kind of families. Results also show that housework is an arena for practical reasoning and thinking, making visible, through a detailed analysis of the sequential unfolding of actions, the managerial practices used by mothers to exploit and interactively coordinate different and competing activities. Finally, we suggest that managerial practices may constitute a form of care work through which mothers guarantee family members’ well-being.