Why emotion work matters: sex,gender, and the division of household labor

Attempting to explain why biological sex remains the primary predictor of household labor allocation, gender theorists have suggested that husbands and wives perform family work in ways that facilitate culturally appropriate constructions of gender. To date, however, researchers have yet to consider the theoretical and empirical significance of emotion work in their studies of the gendered division of household labor. Using survey data from 335 employed, married parents, I examine the relative influence of economic resources, time constraints, gender ideology, sex, and gender on the performance of housework, child care, and emotion work. Results indicate that gender construction, not sex, predicts the performance of emotion work and that this performance reflects a key difference in men's and women's gendered constructions of self.     

Working Hard and Hardly Working: Domestic Labor and Marital Satisfaction Among Dual‐Earner Couples

This article examines the effect of domestic labor, gender ideology, work status, and economic dependency on marital satisfaction using data obtained from self‐administered questionnaires for 156 dual‐earner couples. Analytic distinctions were drawn among three aspects of domestic labor: household tasks, emotion work, and status enhancement. The effects of each of these elements of the division of domestic labor on marital satisfaction were tested. We also tested the effects of a respondent's satisfaction with the couple's division of domestic labor on marital satisfaction. Finally, we tested the effects of gender ideology, hours spent in paid work each week, and economic dependency on marital satisfaction. For women, satisfaction with the division of household tasks and emotion work and their contributions to household and status‐enhancement tasks were the most significant predictors of marital satisfaction. Satisfaction with the division of labor around both emotion work and housework were significant predictors for men's marital satisfaction. Partner's status‐enhancement work was also predictive for men. Economic dependency, paid work hours, gender ideology, partner's hours spent on housework, contributions to emotion work, and number of children and preschool‐age children had only indirect effects on women's marital satisfaction. For men, hours spent on housework, contributions to emotion work, partner's emotion work, hours spent in the paid labor force, and number of preschool children had an indirect effect on marital satisfaction.     

Attitudes Toward Housework and Child Care and the Gendered Division of Labor

Research on the division of household labor has typically examined the role of time availability, relative resources, and gender ideology. We explore the gendered meaning of domestic work by examining the role of men's and women's attitudes toward household labor. Using data from the Dutch Time Competition Survey (N = 732), we find that women have more favorable attitudes toward cleaning, cooking, and child care than do men: Women enjoy it more, set higher standards for it, and feel more responsible for it. Furthermore, women's favorable and men's unfavorable attitudes are associated with women's greater contribution to household labor. Effects are stronger for housework than child care, own attitudes matter more than partner's, and men's attitudes are more influential than women's.     

‘The house belongs to both’: undoing the gendered division of housework

This article studies 28 dual-income Spanish childless couples who were undoing gender in routine domestic work. We understand ‘undoing gender’ as defined by Deutsch [(2007). Undoing gender. Gender & Society, 21, 106–127, p. 122]: ‘social interactions that reduce gender difference’. The dual-earner couples came from different socio-economic backgrounds and were interviewed in four different Spanish towns in 2011. The analysis shows that resources in a wide sense, time availability, external help, ideas about fairness, and complex gender attitudes are key interdependent factors that can weave together to form different configurations leading to a non-mainstream division of housework. All configurations were based on principles of gender equality: some couples found it fair to have a 50/50 division of domestic work, others a 50/50 division of all work (paid and unpaid); and a third group showed conflicts in practice. These couples’ ways of undoing gender illustrate the external, individual, and couple circumstances under which spouses are able to achieve a non-traditional construction of unpaid work.     

EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TYPES OF FAMILY WORK AND MARITAL WELL-BEING

We use an expanded definition of family work and test its association with marital well-being. Using a gender perspective, we examine the role of the respondent's and partner's performance of family work for both husbands and wives. Data are taken from a sample of couples with dependent children under age 18 (N = 96), and separate regression equations are estimated by gender. Though housework is cited as one of the most contentious issues reported by couples, it is not significant in our analysis of marital well-being. In our analysis, other forms of family work are considered, and childcare, emotion work, and formal volunteering are significantly associated with marital well-being. The role of partner's provision of emotion work is particularly salient. Discussion of the gendered nature of our findings follows.     

Parenthood,Gender and Work‐Family Time in the United States,Australia, Italy,France, and Denmark

Research has associated parenthood with greater daily time commitments for fathers and mothers than for childless men and women, and with deeper gendered division of labor in households. How do these outcomes vary across countries with different average employment hours, family and social policies, and cultural attitudes to family care provision? Using nationally representative time‐use data from the United States, Australia, Italy, France, and Denmark (N = 5,337), we compare the paid and unpaid work of childless partnered adults and parents of young children in each country. Couples were matched (except for the United States). We found parents have higher, less gender‐equal workloads than nonparents in all five countries, but overall time commitments and the difference by parenthood status were most pronounced in the United States and Australia.     

Source‐Country Gender Roles and the Division of Labor Within Immigrant Families

The authors examined the relationship between source‐country gender roles and the gender division of paid and unpaid labor within immigrant families in the host society. Results from Canadian Census of Population (N = 497,973) data show that the 2 indicators of source‐country gender roles examined—female/male labor activity ratio and female/male secondary education ratio—are both positively associated with immigrant wives' share in their family labor supply and negatively associated with their share in housework. The association between source‐country gender roles and women's share in couples' labor activities weakens over time. Moreover, the relationship between source‐country female/male labor activity and immigrant couples' gender division of labor is reduced when immigrant women have nonimmigrant husbands, indicating that husband's immigration status matters.     

Gendered Divisions of Fertility Work: Socioeconomic Predictors of Female Versus Male Sterilization

Domestic labor researchers have examined a multitude of duties disproportionately performed by women, yet the responsibility associated with navigating a couple's fertility—fertility work—has been overlooked. Using data from the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth (N = 1,415), the author examined how racial and socioeconomic factors affect the division of contraceptive fertility work among married and cohabiting women who rely on either their partners' vasectomies or their own sterilizations. Drawing theoretical connections between fertility work and housework, resource‐ and gender‐based perspectives were used to assess whether women's or their partners' characteristics are stronger predictors of sterilization type, and whether women's absolute or relative education level has a greater impact. Findings suggest that White and socioeconomically privileged women are more likely to have vasectomized partners than disadvantaged women. Male partners' characteristics were more closely associated with sterilization type than women's characteristics, lending greater support for the gender‐based hypotheses.     

Do Traditional Fathers Always Work More? Gender Ideology,Race, and Parenthood

Research has shown that men who express traditional gender ideologies spend more time in paid work when they become fathers, whereas men who express egalitarian ideologies spend less time in paid work. This study extends previous research by examining racial differences among men. We drew on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (N = 23,261) and found that fatherhood was associated with an increase in married White men's time spent in paid work. The increase was more than twice as strong for traditional White men than for egalitarian White men. In contrast, both egalitarian and traditional African American men did not work more when they became fathers. These findings suggest that African American men may express gender traditionalism but adopt more egalitarian work–family arrangements. This study also presents evidence of an interaction among race, class, and gender ideology that shapes fathers' time spent in paid work.     

‘Working fathers' in Japan: Leading a change in gender relations?

Does the emergent phenomenon of ‘working fathers' herald a process of change in gender relations in Japan? Against the background of the current discourse in Japan about new modes of fathers' participation in the family, the article focuses on the small group of working fathers — men who explicitly organize their working lives around family responsibilities — to examine the potentiality of change. This supposed change in the roles of men (and women), at home and in the workplace, is considered in terms of latency, as a ‘slow‐dripping' process. The qualitative research focuses on Fathering Japan, Japan's leading fathering movement, its ideology, its members and their families. The article offers a critical perspective, juxtaposing gender ideology with practice. Exploring the real‐life experiences of working fathers caught between family and work, especially against Japan's gendered corporate culture, the article also addresses the persistence of gender inequality in Japan.     

Deficits in young men's knowledge about accessing sexual and reproductive health services

Objective: The current study aimed to examine (1) gender differences in college students' knowledge of sexual and reproductive health care (K-SRHC) service access points, and (2) the relationship between demographic and psychosocial factors and college students' overall K-SRHC service access points. Methods and Participants: Self-report online surveys were administered to 18- and 19-year-old college students from a northern California public university (N = 183; 39.9% men; 32.2% Latino). Results: Women reported higher overall K-SRHC service access point scores than men. Findings indicated that gender and family planning self-efficacy were the strongest correlates of K-SRHC service access points. Men with a regular source of health care had higher K-SRHC service access points than men without. Conclusions: Results suggest that college men need additional education about how to access sexual and reproductive health services to support their own and their partner's health.     

Time to care: socioeconomic,family, and workplace factors in men and women’s parental leave use

ABSTRACT

Parental leave has important benefits for women, men, and families. This study examines how individual, family, and workplace factors are associated with the length of parental leaves taken by workers in diverse jobs and work contexts, but with the same employer, focusing on gender differences in the factors associated with longer parental leaves. The data are the result of a collaboration between university researchers and a municipal employer. We find that gender was a major driver of the duration of parental leaves for these workers, who must use their accumulated paid time off or take unpaid leave for parental leave; women’s leaves were almost three times longer than men’s. We also find gender differences in the factors associated with leave duration. For women, socioeconomic status seemed to matter most, while for men, family and workplace context influenced leave length. The results indicate the centrality of financial considerations in parents’ leave decisions, reinforcing the importance of having a dedicated paid parental leave policy. We argue that paid parental leaves would help reduce disparities between and within genders at work and in the family.     

Feeling Rushed: Gendered Time Quality,Work Hours,Nonstandard Work Schedules,and Spousal Crossover

The authors investigated gender differences in couple parents' subjective time pressure, using detailed Australian time use data (n=756 couples with minor children). They examined how family demand, employment hours, and nonstandard work schedules of both partners relate to each spouse's non‐employment time quality (“pure” leisure, “contaminated” leisure, multitasking housework, and child care) and subjective feelings of being rushed or pressed for time. Mothers averaged more contaminated leisure and less pure leisure and did much more unpaid work multitasking than fathers. These results suggest that these differences in time quality do partially account for mothers feeling more rushed than fathers. Weekend work was associated with mothers having less pure leisure, but not contaminated leisure. The opposite was found for fathers. Spousal work characteristics also related to time use and feeling rushed in gendered ways, with male long work hours positively associated with higher time pressure for mothers as well as the fathers who worked them.     

The Division of Household Labor in Germany and Israel

We compare the patterns of household division of labor in Germany and Israel—two countries that share key elements of the corporatist welfare regime but differ in their gender regimes—and evaluate several hypotheses using data from the 2002 International Social Survey Program. Although time constraints and relative resources affect the division of household labor and women’s housework in both societies, we find that in Germany the gender order of household labor is more rigid, whereas in Israel the spouses’ linked labor market status exerts distinctive effects. We also find significant relationships between gender ideology and the division of household labor. We discuss the theoretical advantages of approaching the comparative study of gender inequality from the vantage point of family and gender regimes.     

Assisting Parents and In‐Laws: Gender,Type of Assistance,and Couples’ Employment

We use 1995 MIDUS data (n = 2,085) to assess whether the gender gap in help persists across different types of help (unpaid task assistance, emotional support, financial assistance) to parents and in‐laws. We also examine whether joint employment patterns influence levels of help. Persistent gender differences are identified in levels of emotional support to parents and in‐laws: Women spend more time than men giving this help. There are no gender differences in levels of unpaid task assistance or financial assistance to parents or in‐laws. Individuals in single‐earner couples, however, provide greater levels of unpaid task assistance to in‐laws and financial assistance to parents than individuals in dual‐earner couples. Furthermore, financial assistance to parents is positively linked to work hours.     

Gender Ideology and Women's Labor Market Transitions Within Couples in the Netherlands

Objective

This study examines the role of women's and their partners' gender ideology in shaping women's labor market entries, exits, and changes in hours of employment.

Background

Recent research argues that women's gender ideology is crucial for understanding women's contemporary labor market participation. However, the role of male partners' gender ideology for partnered women's labor market participation has received less attention.

Method

The analysis uses three waves of a large‐scale household panel survey based on a random sample of individuals within Dutch households. Random‐effect models are applied to study whether women's and their partners' gender ideology are associated with women's labor market transitions and whether relevant household characteristics' associations with women's labor market transitions are conditional on both partners' gender ideology.

Results

Women's gender ideology is associated with the probability of women's labor market entries and exits, but not with changes in women's hours worked, whereas their male partners' ideology is related only to the probability of women's labor market exits. Furthermore, the negative association of having children with changes in women's hours worked is stronger for traditional compared to egalitarian women. There is no clear evidence that gender ideology moderates the association of the male partner's labor market resources with women's labor market transitions.

Conclusion

Women's labor market transitions are not only reactions to economic pressure and institutional constraints but also women's and marginally their partners' gender attitudes.     

The Interplay between Equity and Gender Ideology in Perceived Housework Fairness: Evidence from an Experimental Vignette Design

Previous survey studies on the perceived fairness of the division of housework have suffered from limitations resulting from the use of observational data, namely reverse causation, unobserved heterogeneity, and the difficulty of estimating more than one causal effect at once. This article overcomes these limitations by using an innovative method in this research field: a survey‐based vignette design combining the benefits of experiments with a higher capability of generalization. From our findings based on Italian primary data, we argue that equity and gender ideology theories explain different elements of the fairness evaluation process and are not mutually exclusive. Consistent with equity theory, under certain conditions it is considered fair to exchange paid and unpaid time. However, unlike equity theory, the economic value of time is not an issue. Moreover, a request to renegotiate housework is more legitimate if it redresses a prior inequity and, for women, irrespective of the asker's gender. Gender ideology affects partners' equity considerations, weighting their contribution to paid and unpaid work differently.     

Tending to the Emotions of Children: Predicting Parental Performance of Emotion Work with Children

Scholars, recognizing emotion work as a type of domestic labor, have examined whether domestic labor theories explain emotion work. Few studies, however, have investigated the predictors of emotion work with children. In this study, the authors examine the usefulness of 3 domestic labor theories (i.e., time availability, relative resources, and gender ideology) in explaining relative emotion work with children. Data are from a random sample of couples with children (N = 96 couples). The results suggest that men's labor force hours are negatively related to men's relative performance of emotion work with children and positively related to women's relative performance. Further, women's traditional gender ideologies are related to increased relative emotion work performance with children for women and decreased relative performance for men. Relative income is also a significant predictor of women's performance of emotion work with children. The authors discuss the implications of the study.     

Work and Family Research in the First Decade of the 21st Century

Scholarship on work and family topics expanded in scope and coverage during the 2000–2010 decade, spurred by an increased diversity of workplaces and of families, by methodological innovations, and by the growth of communities of scholars focused on the work‐family nexus. We discuss these developments as the backdrop for emergent work‐family research on six central topics: (a) gender, time, and the division of labor in the home; (b) paid work: too much or too little; (c) maternal employment and child outcomes; (d) work‐family conflict; (e) work, family, stress, and health; and (f) work‐family policy. We conclude with a discussion of trends important for research and suggestions about future directions in the work‐family arena.     

Dual‐earner parent couples’ work and care during COVID‐19

COVID‐19 and the associated lockdowns meant many working parents were faced with doing paid work and family care at home simultaneously. To investigate how they managed, this article draws a subsample of parents in dual‐earner couples (n = 1536) from a national survey of 2722 Australian men and women conducted during lockdown in May 2020. It asked how much time respondents spent in paid and unpaid labour, including both active and supervisory care, and about their satisfaction with work–family balance and how their partner shared the load. Overall, paid work time was slightly lower and unpaid work time was very much higher during lockdown than before it. These time changes were most for mothers, but gender gaps somewhat narrowed because the relative increase in childcare was higher for fathers. More mothers than fathers were dissatisfied with their work–family balance and partner’s share before COVID‐19. For some the pandemic improved satisfaction levels, but for most they became worse. Again, some gender differences narrowed, mainly because more fathers also felt negatively during lockdown than they had before.