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.     

The Costs of Thinking About Work and Family: Mental Labor,Work–Family Spillover,and Gender Inequality Among Parents in Dual‐Earner Families

One of the aspects unaccounted for in previous assessments of employed parents ‘distribution of time is the mental dimension of tasks and demands. This aspect, referred to as mental labor, is conceptualized as the planning, organization, and management of everyday activities. Using the experience sampling method, a unique form of time diary, and survey data from the 500 Family Study (N = 402 mothers with 16,451 signals and 291 fathers with 11,322 signals), this study examined the prevalence, context, and emotional correlates of mental labor among parents in dual‐earner families. Results show that fathers reported thinking more frequently about job‐related matters than mothers but these concerns did not spill over into unpaid work. By contrast, mothers’ job‐related thoughts tended to spill over into unpaid work and free‐time activities. When engaging in mental labor, mothers and fathers were equally likely to think about family matters, but these thoughts were only detrimental to emotional well‐being in mothers. Among both mothers and fathers, paid work was relatively insulated from thoughts about family matters. Overall, findings highlight mothers’ double burden and suggest that mental labor may contribute to mothers’ emotional stress and gender inequality among dual‐earner families.     

Gender cultures and the division of labour in contemporary Europe: a cross‐national perspective

Drawing on the vast literature concerned with the cultural aspects of gender, this article explores the ways in which individuals living in different national contexts value the ideal of a dual earner/dual carer couple at the expense of the male breadwinner model. Via a comparison of fifteen European countries included in the Family and Gender Roles module of the 2002 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), three attitudinal patterns were identified: the unequal sharing that portrays a male breadwinner norm, the familistic unequal that also endorses a gender‐segregated arrangement though with a greater wish for men's involvement in housework and childcare, and the dual earner/dual carer model, which, despite covering nearly 40 per cent of respondents, is very unequally distributed across countries. It is proposed that societal gender cultures are of major importance to an understanding of cross‐national variations in attitudes and their relationship with the real forms of gender division of labour. The connection between couples' attitudes and practices is thus examined in order to assess the extent to which support for the dual earner/dual carer model encourages couples to engage in more equal sharing of paid and unpaid work. Findings reveal the importance of the normative dimension insofar as the impact of attitudes on practices seems to depend on the historical pathways of gender cultures and the ways in which they underpin welfare policies and female employment.     

Intergenerational Exchanges of Middle‐Aged Adults With Their Parents and Parents‐In‐Law in Korea

The authors investigated patterns of support exchanges between Korean adult children and their parents and parents‐in‐law, gender differences in these patterns, and implications of children's marital quality for exchange patterns. Data were from a nationally representative sample of married adults (N = 920, age 30–59 years) with at least 1 living parent and 1 living parent‐in‐law. Latent class analysis was applied to 12 indicators of exchanges (financial, instrumental, emotional support given to and received from parents and parents‐in‐law). Five classes of exchanges were identified, 3 showing balanced patterns of exchanges with parents and parents‐in‐law across three types of support and 2 classes with unbalanced patterns (e.g., giving instrumental and financial but not emotional support). The findings revealed variability in intergenerational exchange patterns, with a mix of patrilineal traditional and balanced patterns. Significant associations of exchange patterns with adult children's marital quality suggest the importance of balanced exchanges with parents for marriage.     

Social Support to Parents‐in‐Law: The Interplay of Gender and Kin Hierarchies

Using data from a representative sample of middle‐aged married persons, we compare men's and women's contact and assistance to older parents‐in‐law and parents. Women have more visits and phone contact with their parents than do men, and men talk on the phone more with their in‐laws than do women. There are no gender differences in assistance patterns. Multivariate analysis shows that women contact and help parents more than in‐laws, whereas for men there are no such differences. There is little direct evidence that the presence of one set of parents affects relations with the other. Our findings suggest that although women clearly give priority to relations with their own parents, men experience pulls in both directions.     

Adaptive Strategies,Gender Ideology,and Work‐Family Balance Among Dutch Dual Earners

Using questionnaire data on 149 Dutch dual‐earner couples with young children participating in the European Famwork study, we examine how adaptive strategies and gender ideology relate to parents’ perceived success in balancing work and family. Path analysis indicates that some adaptive strategies may harm individuals’ work‐family balance, particularly when they are made in the domain where the time budget is limited. In the need to succeed in multiple roles, however, endorsement of traits traditionally linked with the opposite gender, that is masculine traits for women and feminine traits for men, seems beneficial. We speculate that two underlying mechanisms — social pressure and time constraints — jointly operate in determining perceived success in balancing work and family.     

Parents’ Workplace Situation and Fathers’ Parental Leave Use

This study examines how the workplace situation of both parents affects fathers’ parental leave use. We used parental leave‐taking register data from Statistics Sweden for dual‐earner couples who resided in Stockholm and had children in 1997 (n= 3,755). The results indicate that fathers shorten their parental leave if their workplaces are such that one can expect leave to be associated with high costs and that fathers appear to be influenced by the leave use of other fathers in the workplace. Mothers’ workplace situation appears to be less important for fathers’ leave use. The results point to the importance of actors other than parents (such as employers) for understanding the gender‐based division of child care.     

Migration Decisions Within Dual‐Earner Partnerships: A Test of Bargaining Theory

This article focuses on the problems faced by dual‐earner partnerships arising from the regional coordination of the partners' careers. It is still unknown whether the fact that couples are less mobile than singles is caused by homogeneous preferences within couples or by a process of balancing conflicting interests. Consequently, we analyze the potential conflicts provoked by work‐related migration incentives. We test hypotheses derived from bargaining theory using quasi‐experimental data from a factorial survey of nearly 280 European couples. Our results support the bargaining approach and confirm that asymmetrical shifts in bargaining power drive the potential for conflict. Women's willingness to move is generally less than men's, but the impact of employment prospects differs only slightly by gender.     

Working‐Class Jobs and New Parents' Mental Health

Little research has explored linkages between work conditions and mental health in working‐class employed parents. The current study aims to address this gap, employing hierarchical linear modeling techniques to examine how levels of and changes in job autonomy, job urgency, supervisor support, and coworker support predicted parents' depressive symptoms in a sample of 113 dual‐earner couples interviewed five times across the transition to parenthood. Increases in job autonomy and decreases in job urgency predicted fewer depressive symptoms in fathers at 1 year postpartum. For mothers, coworker support predicted fewer depressive symptoms, and supervisor support mitigated the negative effects of job urgency on depressive symptoms. Higher work hours coupled with low job urgency predicted declines in mothers' depressive symptoms across the first year of parenthood. Our findings suggest that interventions that lead to greater autonomy, less job urgency, and more supportive work relations may enhance employee well‐being among working‐class families.     

Parent Care as Unpaid Family Labor: How Do Spouses Share?

The study adapts theories of the household division of labor to the division of parent care between spouses and expands them by taking the kin relationship with the parent and the intensity of care into account. Tobit and weighted logit models are used to analyze the division of parent care in 2,214 couples from the British General Household Surveys. The models revealed patterns of parent care that are predominantly governed by the kin relationship. Time availability was strongly associated with couples' division of parent care, whereas the resource‐bargaining approach received little support except for dual‐earner couples that provided more intensive care for the husband's parents. Children‐in‐law's characteristics were hardly related to the division of high‐intensity caregiving in dual‐earner couples.     

Unsociable Work? Nonstandard Work Schedules,Family Relationships,and Children’s Well‐Being

Many children live in families where one or both parents work evenings, nights, or weekends. Do these work schedules affect family relationships or well‐being? Using cross‐sectional survey data from dual‐earner Canadian families (N= 4,306) with children aged 2 – 11 years (N= 6,156), we compared families where parents worked standard weekday times with those where parents worked nonstandard schedules. Parents working nonstandard schedules reported worse family functioning, more depressive symptoms, and less effective parenting. Their children were also more likely to have social and emotional difficulties, and these associations were partially mediated through family relationships and parent well‐being. For some families, work in the 24‐hour economy may strain the well‐being of parents and children.     

Gender Asymmetry in Family Migration: Occupational Inequality or Interspousal Comparative Advantage?

This paper examines gender inequality in the determinants of job‐related long‐distance migration among married dual‐earner couples during the 1980s and 1990s. The analysis tested the structural explanation, which attributes gender asymmetry in family migration to structural inequality in the labor market, and the comparative advantage explanation derived from relative resource theory. The analysis used individual‐ and family‐level data from 5,504 Panel Study of Income Dynamics families, occupation‐level data from the 1980–2000 U.S. Decennial Censuses Integrated Public Use Micro Samples, and discrete‐time event history models. Gender differences in the determinants of family migration were not explained by gender differences in occupational characteristics, but the results partially support the relative resource theory by illustrating the conditioning influence of interspousal comparative advantage.     

Time Alone or Together? Trends and Trade‐offs Among Dual‐Earner Couples,Sweden 1990–2010

In recent decades, the dual‐earner couple has become increasingly normative, potentially reducing the time couples and families spend together. The authors investigated how coupled individuals allocated time together, alone, with children, and as a family, exploring changes between 1990 and 2010 in Sweden using three waves of the Swedish Time Use Survey (N = 9,544). Ordinary least squares and decomposition analyses find a trend toward time together over time alone, with childless couples spending similar time together and parents increasing family time. The shift toward family time evolved differently for men and women, indicating gender convergence in private and public spheres, but at higher costs of time alone for women. Change is behavioral and general, applying quite equally across gender and educational groups. There are educational gradients concerning time with children and certain qualitative aspects of time together, indicating that dual‐earner society may be family friendly, but not equally for all.     

Shift Work,Role Overload,and the Transition to Parenthood

This article examines how the work hours, work schedules, and role overload of working‐class couples are related to depressive symptoms and relationship conflict across the transition to parenthood. Data are from 132 dual‐earner couples interviewed 5 times across the transition. Multilevel modeling analyses revealed that working evening or night shifts, as opposed to day shifts, was related to higher levels of depressive symptoms. For mothers only, working rotating shifts predicted relationship conflict. Increases in role overload were positively related to both depression and conflict; working a nonday shift explained variance in depression and conflict above and beyond role overload. Results suggest that for new parents, working nonday shifts may be a risk factor for depressive symptoms and relationship conflict.     

‘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.     

Giving to the Good and the Needy: Parental Support of Grown Children

Parents may provide many types of support to their grown children. Parents age 40 to 60 (N = 633) reported the support they exchange with each child over age 18 (N = 1,384). Mothers and fathers differentiated among children within families, but provided emotional, financial, and practical help on average every few weeks to each child. Offspring received most assistance when they (a) had greater needs (because of problems or younger age) or (b) were perceived as more successful. Parents received more from high achieving offspring. Findings support contingency theory; parents give more material and financial support to children in need. Motivation to enhance the self or to assure support later in life may explain support to high achieving offspring.     

The Family‐Friendly Community and Its Life Course Fit for Dual‐Earner Couples

Much is known about family‐friendly workplaces. This article examines the less understood family‐friendliness of the communities in which dual‐earner couples reside. Using data from a representative sample of dual‐earner couples (N = 727) in upstate New York, we examine how individual, couple, and neighborhood characteristics are associated with perceptions of community family‐friendliness. Using a life course perspective, we find that couples with young children rate their communities more favorably than do other couples. Findings also indicate that for couples with children of their own, living in a neighborhood with many other families with children is associated with higher ratings of family‐friendliness. We term this match, between a couple's life stage and their neighborhood's demographic structure, life stage‐neighborhood fit.     

Assistance to Aging Parents and Parents‐In‐Law: Does Lineage Affect Family Allocation Decisions?

In this analysis we used data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine how couples organize transfers of assistance to aging parents and whether the flow of assistance is structured by family lineage. We found evidence of a tradeoff between types of assistance and a unilineal pattern of assistance. Few couples provided both time and money, and few assisted parents and parents‐in‐law. The determinants of assistance varied by type of care, recipient, and patterns of parental survival. Couples were more responsive to the needs of the wife's parent(s) and were less likely to exclude her parents from care even under circumstances of competition. Controlling for resources, African American and Hispanic couples were consistently more likely to provide assistance.     

Parental Housing Assistance and Parent‐Child Proximity in Italy

Many studies of intergenerational exchanges include parent‐child proximity as an exogenous explanatory variable. Proximity may itself be a consequence of intergenerational resource flows, however. We analyze patterns of economic transfers between generations and their relationship to parent‐child proximity in Italy. Parental support for a child's home purchase may influence the child's choice of location, whether to facilitate parent‐child contacts, grandchild care, or parent care. We examine the situation of married couples, focusing on housing help received and the association of that help with proximity to each spouse's parents. Using 1998 survey data and multinomial logistic regression models, we find that past housing assistance has a significant effect on current proximity to each spouse's parents, controlling for parents' survival, family composition, and other factors.     

Ambivalence in the Relationship of Adult Children to Aging Parents and In‐Laws

The concept of ambivalence emphasizes the complexity of family relations and the potential for individuals to evaluate relationships as both positive and negative. Using multilevel models, we investigate ambivalence in adult children's relationships with their aging parents and in‐laws (N= 1,599). We focus on factors predicting adult children's ambivalence toward parents and in‐laws within a gendered kinship structure that shapes these relations. We conclude that ambivalence is a useful concept for representing the complexity of parent‐child relationships and is produced within the context of social relations structured by gender and kinship. Results show greater ambivalence among dyads of women, toward in‐laws, among those in poor health, for daughters providing assistance, and for adult children with poor parental relations in early life.