가사기술은 진정 가사노동으로부터의 해방을 가져왔는가?: 20세기 미국에서 가전제품의 확산과 가사노동 시간의 변화

“Did Household Technology Really Liberate from Housework?: the Diffusion of Home Appliances and the Change of Housework Time in 20 th Century America”

While the household technology had been introduced and expanded, the optimistic view that the household technology would liberate the housewife from the housework also had been settled down. However, did the home appliances embodied of the household technology really contribute to reduce the time of housework? Ruth S. Cowan, a historian of technology, asserted that the more housemakers have the home appliances, the more they have housework time or at best same housework time. Joel Mokyr, a renowned economic historian, called it ‘Cowan paradox.’ Through the various time surveys of housework time since 1920s, this paper will investigate on whether the time of housework had been really reduced due to the introduction and diffusion of the home appliances such as vacuum cleaners, washing machines, or electric irons.