Cross‐national variations in the division of household labor

Using data from the International Social Justice Project, we describe the division of household labor in married couple households using a sample of 13 nations (N= 10,153). We find significant differences in the division of household labor based upon respondents’ nations of residence. We find support for the time availability approach; households where the wife is employed outside the home for pay are more likely to respond that husbands perform at least half of the household labor. We also find support for the relative resources approach; in households where wives’ education equals or exceeds that of their husbands, husbands are more likely to perform half of the household labor. We find little support for the economic dependence approach. We suggest that future cross‐national research should place individuals in context to determine why there are nation differences in the reported division of household labor.     

Divison of Labor,Perceived Fairness,and Marital Quality: The Effect of Gender Ideology

This study assesses the relations between division of household labor, perceived fairness, and marital quality by comparing three ethnic‐religious groups in Israel that reflect traditional, transitional, and egalitarian ideologies. The findings, based on structural equation modeling (SEM) methodology, show that sense of fairness mediates the relation between division of labor and marital quality and gender ideology moderates these relations for women but not for men. Perceived fairness is related to the division of labor for women in egalitarian and transitional families but not in traditional ones. For egalitarian women, a more segregated division of labor is linked directly with lower marital quality whereas for women in transitional families it is mediated by sense of fairness. The findings are discussed on two overlapping levels—conceptual‐theoretical and sociocultural—with implications for understanding families in cultural transition.     

National Context,Family Satisfaction,and Fairness in the Division of Household Labor

This study uses data from married women in 30 nations to examine justice processes involving perceptions of fairness of the division of household labor and satisfaction with family life. Relative deprivation theory suggests that national context—operationalized here as nation‐level gender equity—might serve as a comparative referent used by married women when making determinations of the fairness of the division of household labor. Multilevel analyses confirm that the effect of inequalities in the division of household labor on perceptions of fairness is moderated by national context, as is the effect of perceptions of fairness on satisfaction with family life. The effects are strongest in nations with high levels of gender equity, confirming two hypotheses suggested by relative deprivation theory.     

Persistent Policy Effects on the Division of Domestic Tasks in Reunified Germany

We are only beginning to unravel the mechanisms by which the division of domestic tasks varies in its sociopolitical context. Selecting couples from the German SocioEconomic Panel who married between 1990 and 1995 in the former East and West regions of Germany and following them until 2000 (N= 348 couples), I find evidence of direct, interaction, and contextual effects predicting husbands’ hours in and share of household tasks but not child care. East German men perform a greater share of household tasks than West German men after controlling for individual attributes and regional factors. Child care remains more gendered, and the first child’s age proves the most important predictor of fathers’ involvement. These findings further our understanding of how the state shapes gender equity in the home.     

Reconsidering the Division of Household Labor: Incorporating Volunteer Work and Informal Support

The gendered division of household labor is more multifaceted than the allocation of paid work and domestic work. People also engage in volunteer work and informal support. I investigate the applicability of household labor allocation theories—specifically the time constraints, economic, and “doing gender” perspectives—to all unpaid work. I analyze the 1997 Australian Time Use Survey diaries of 1,797 married couples using logistic, ordinary least squares, and seemingly unrelated regressions. Analyses show that volunteer work and support work are substantial expenditures associated with paid work and housework, but they do not create a “third shift.” Volunteer work and support work are part of the gendered household labor allocation process determined, in part, by time constraints and by gender.     

Perceived Equity in the Gendered Division of Household Labor

Despite huge imbalances in the division of housework between women and men, previous studies have found perceptions of equity on the part of women to be much more frequent than feelings of injustice. Taking a comparative perspective on the basis of International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2002 data (N = 8,556), we find that, on the individual level, the explanatory frameworks that have been found to influence the actual inequality of household division of labor (time availability, resource dependence, and gender ideology) contribute to the explanation of perceptions of equity, in that they interact with the inequality of the household division of labor. On the country level, the gender‐wage ratio and the average level of inequality are important predictors.     

Distributive Justice in the Household

Abstract

We analyze the theoretical basis on which wives and husbands evaluate the fairness of the division of household labor. Using distributive justice theory, we argue that evaluations are based on beliefs about equality and equity rules and social comparisons. We developed a number of formal models to account for evaluations of housework fairness and compare these with data from the 1987 National Survey of Families and Households. We find that husbands' evaluations of fairness of the division of household labor are based on more traditional gender-based division of labor as their comparisons tend to be based on comparisons to other men's participation in housework. In contrast, wives' evaluations are based on both gender role norms and the justice principle of marital equality, as they tend to be based on comparisons between their spouse and themselves.     

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.     

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.     

Convergence or Continuity? The Gender Gap in Household Labor After Retirement

This research examined 2 hypotheses about the effect of retirement on couples' division of household labor. The continuity hypothesis posits that the gender gap in household labor remains unaffected by retirement, whereas the convergence hypothesis expects it to close. The authors tested these hypotheses using longitudinal data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel Study (N = 1,302 couples). Fixed effects models revealed that male breadwinners doubled up on total hours of household labor across their transition to retirement. This rise was accompanied by a concurrent, albeit less pronounced, decline in wives' hours. As a result, the gender gap in household labor was cut in half. This convergence involved a moderate trade‐off in female‐typed tasks of routine housework and an increase in husbands' hours spent on male‐typed tasks of repairs and gardening. The study concludes that gendered patterns of time use change substantially after retirement, rendering couples' division of household labor more equitable in later life.     

The Political Values and Choices of Husbands and Wives

This article applies theoretical ideas in the literature on the household division of labor to the analysis of partners’ political preferences. We regress men's and women's political party preferences on their own and their partners’ characteristics using data from the 1991 British Household Panel Survey (N =2,846). We find a symmetrical pattern of influence: Men and women both give greatest weight to their own political values but also accord some significant weight to their partners’ values. Economically dependent men, however, place virtually no emphasis on their partners’ political values. Apart from this, we suggest that there may be a process of mutual accommodation within couples regarding political preferences that leads to greater concordance in the partners’ preferences over time.     

Division of Labor in German Dual‐Earner Families: Testing Equity Theoretical Hypotheses

On the basis of 52 German dual‐earner couples with at least 1 child younger than 5 years, we tested the effects of an unequal division of labor on relationship satisfaction. We analyzed diary reports of time allocated to productive activities according to the actor‐partner‐interdependence model. Hierarchical linear models showed that rather than individual time allocated to household work, the absolute difference in partners’ contribution to productive activities influenced relationship satisfaction. This reduction in satisfaction disappeared after accounting for perceived social appreciation of individual contributions. Models with gender‐specific slopes showed the effect of input and output to be different for women and men. The findings indicate that a relative equity model best explains the effects of an unequal division of labor.     

Gender,Productivity, and the Marital Wage Premium

Explanations for married men’s wage premium often emphasize greater market productivity due to a gendered division of household labor, though this “specialization thesis” has been insufficiently interrogated. Using data from Wave 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 972), this paper examines the relationship between wages and time spent in paid labor and housework for married women and men with high levels of labor force attachment and their spouses. Scrutiny of couples’ time use finds strong evidence for the gendered division of labor, but little support for the anticipated wage effects of the specialization thesis itself. Less strict sample restrictions point to the need for continued research directed at couples’ joint employment and household labor decisions.     

Does Parenthood Strengthen a Traditional Household Division of Labor? Evidence From Sweden

Parenthood is often considered a major factor behind gender differences in time allocation, especially between paid work and housework. This article investigates the impact of parenthood on men’s and women’s daily time use in Sweden and how it changed over the 1990s. The analysis is made using time diary data from the Multinational Time Use Survey (MTUS; N = 13,729) and multivariate Tobit regressions. The results indicate that while parenthood in 1990 – 1991 clearly strengthened the traditional gender division of labor in the household, this was much less the case in 2000 – 2001, when parenthood affected men and women in a more similar way.     

Girls’ Family Labor in Low‐Income Households: A Decade of Qualitative Research

This article analyzes a decade of qualitative research to identify and explore an overlooked survival strategy used in low‐income families: children's family labor. Defined as physical duties, caregiving, and household management responsibilities, children’s—most often girls’—family labor is posited as a critical source of support where low wages and absent adult caregivers leave children to take over essential, complex, and time‐consuming family demands. We argue that there are lost opportunities when children are detoured from childhood to do family labor and that an intergenerational transfer of poverty is associated with those losses.     

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.     

Child health and parental paid work

We ask how the paid work of Canadian married mothers and fathers is affected when a child has a physical/mental condition or health problem that leads to restrictions in daily activities. Using the Statistics Canada National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, we find that married mothers of children with disabilities are less likely to engage in paid work and/or work fewer paid hours per week. No statistically significant changes in paid work participation or hours are apparent for fathers of the same children. We find, moreover, evidence that the degree of specialization within families increases when there is a child with a disability. These responses are consistent with traditional gender roles within families, and may make sense as a ‘household’ coping strategy. However, such a division of labor may generate economic vulnerability for mothers compared to fathers.     

Shared Beliefs and the Union Stability of Married and Cohabiting Couples

Cohabiting couples and couples who cohabit prior to marriage have less stable relationships than married couples who did not cohabit, and these differences in stability may be linked to different processes within the relationships. This research examines the similarity of partners’ beliefs about the division of household labor using the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 1,039), finding that couples who do not share beliefs about the division of household labor are more likely to end their union. Cohabiting couples have a particularly high likelihood of ending the union when the two partners hold widely divergent views about whether housework should be shared, suggesting that cohabiting and married couples may have different responses to dissimilarity between the partners.     

Gender, household labor, and psychological distress: the impact of the amount and division of housework.

Using a national longitudinal survey of a representative sample of 1,256 adults, I assess the impact of the amount of household labor performed and its division within the household on men's and women's depression levels, adjusting for prior mental health status. I test two alternative explanations of the contributions of household labor and the division of household labor to gender differences in depression: differential exposure and differential vulnerability. The results indicate that men's lower contributions to household labor explain part of the gender difference in depression. Inequity in the division of household labor has a greater impact on distress than does the amount of household labor. Employment status moderates the effect of the division of labor on depression. Among those who describe themselves as keeping house, depression was lowest for those who performed 79.8 percent of housework. In contrast, for those employed full-time the minimum level of depression occurs at 45.8 percent of the household labor. Men report performing 42.3 percent of the housework in their homes compared to 68.1 percent reported by women. Thus, on average women are performing household labor beyond the point of maximum psychological benefit, whereas men are not. Social support mediates the effects of the division of household labor. The only gender difference in effects occurred among those who are married, for whom social support was associated with lower levels of depression for women than men.     

Daytime dads and do-it-all dads: Understanding lead-dad families

One of the factors that perpetuates gender inequality is the inequitable division of household labor, and particularly the division of childcare labor. Even when women are employed outside the home, many remain primarily responsible for household duties and childcare. There is little research on the household division of labor and childcare in lead-dad households. I use the term “lead dad” to refer to a father, with or without an outside job, who takes primary responsibility for the household and children. This research explores how different lead-dad households operate, examining how two types of lead-dad households handle childcare and household chores, and what this means for the mother's domestic workload. From interviews with married or cohabitating heterosexual parents of children under five where fathers do most of the childcare, I find that lead-dad households come in two forms: some dads do-it-all and some do not (daytime dads). The key difference between do-it-all dads and daytime dads is that do-it-all dads take care of almost all household chores and childcare. Meanwhile, daytime dads' primary focus is on taking care of the kids while mom is at work. However, even in households where dads “do it all,” moms are still heavily involved in the cognitive labor required to operate a household (e.g., planning playdates and scheduling summer camps). These findings have important implications for the study of the household division of labor and parenting expectations of mothers and fathers, exemplifying how gendered expectations do not necessarily swap when lead-parent roles are reversed.