Dependence within families and the division of labor: Comparing Sweden and the United States

This article assesses the relative explanatory value of the resource‐bargaining perspective and the doing‐gender approach for the division of housework in the United States and Sweden from the mid‐1970s to 2000. The data used are the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the Swedish Level of Living Survey. Overall results show that housework was truly gendered work in both countries during the entire period. Even so, the results indicate that, unlike Swedish women, U.S. women seem to increase their time spent in housework when their husbands are to some extent economically dependent on them, as if to neutralize the presumed gender deviance on the part of their spouses.     

Life Course Transitions and Housework: Marriage,Parenthood, and Time on Housework

We examine the effects of transitions in marital and parenthood status on 1,091 men’s and women’s housework hours using two waves of data from an Australian panel survey titled Negotiating the Life Course. We examine transitions between cohabitation and marriage, and from cohabitation or marriage to separation, as well as transitions to first and higher‐order births. We find extraordinary stability in men’s housework time across most transitions but considerable change for women in relation to transitions in parenthood. Our results suggest that the transition to parenthood is a critical moment in the development of an unequal gap in time spent on routine household labor.     

Gender,Work Time,and Care Responsibilities Among Faculty1

This study explores how faculty at one research‐intensive university spend their time on research, teaching, mentoring, and service, as well as housework, childcare, care for elders, and other long‐term care. Drawing on surveys and focus group interviews with faculty, the article examines how gender is related to time spent on the different components of faculty work, as well as on housework and care. Findings show that many faculty report working more than 60 hours a week, with substantial time on weekends devoted to work. Finding balance between different kinds of work (research, teaching, mentoring, and service) is as difficult as finding balance between work and personal life. The study further explores how gendered care giving, in particular being a mother to young children, is related to time spent on faculty work, controlling for partner employment and other factors. Men and women devote significantly different amounts of time to housework and care giving. While men and women faculty devote the same overall time to their employment each week, mothers of young children spend less time on research, the activity that counts most toward career advancement.     

The differential impact of COVID‐19 on the work conditions of women and men academics during the lockdown

That the COVID‐19 pandemic has affected the work conditions of large segments of society is in no doubt. A growing body of journalistic accounts raised the possibility that the lockdown caused by the pandemic has affected women and men in different ways, due mostly to the traditionally gendered division of labour in society. We attempt to test this oft‐cited argument by conducting an original survey with nearly 200 academics. Specifically, we explore the extent to which the effect of the lockdown on childcare, housework and home‐office environment varies across women and men. Our results show that a number of factors are associated with the effect of the lockdown on the work conditions of academics at home, including gender, having children, perceived threat from COVID‐19 and satisfaction with the work environment. We also show that having children disproportionately affects women in terms of the amount of housework during the lockdown.     

Market Earnings and Household Work: New Tests of Gender Performance Theory

I examine the contested finding that men and women engage in gender performance through housework. Prior scholarship has found a curvilinear association between earnings share and housework that has been interpreted as evidence of gender performance. I reexamine these findings by conducting the first such analysis to use high‐quality time diary data for a U.S. sample in the contemporary period. Drawing on data on 11,868 married women and 10,770 married men in the American Time Use Survey (2003–2007), I find no evidence that married men “do gender” through housework. I do, however, find strong evidence of gender performance among women as evidenced by a curvilinear association between earnings share and women's housework time.     

The Impact of Domestic Work on Men's and Women's Wages

Past research has consistently found that the negative relationship between housework and wages is stronger for women than for men. This article tests a potential explanation for this difference by focusing on the fact that men and women typically perform different types of household chores. Traditionally “feminine” and “masculine” task types are likely to interfere with work differently, because they vary as to when and how often they must be performed. Based on longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households, fixed‐effects regression results show that only time spent in female housework chores has a negative effect on wages. Furthermore, gender differences in the effect of housework disappear upon disaggregating housework into task types. This research suggests that a more equitable distribution of not only the amount, but also the type, of housework performed by men and women in the home may lead to a narrowing of the gender gap in wages.     

Women's Housework: New Tests of Time and Money

The author uses variation by the day of week—comparing weekdays to weekends—to reconsider three main explanations for variation in women's housework time. The author predicts that though evidence of gender deviance neutralization (GDN) should be evident across the days of the week, evidence of time constraints and absolute earnings should be most apparent on weekdays. The author tests these hypotheses with the largest sample to date (American Time Use Survey 2003–2012) and careful consideration of the functional form between resources/constraints and housework time. The author finds that all three measures of resources/constraints—relative earnings, absolute earnings, and employment hours—perform as poor predictors of women's housework on weekends. Weekends are when women, regardless of employment status, do gender, but not in the way hypothesized by GDN. On weekdays, women's own employment hours and earnings have negative, but diminishing, effects on their housework time. GDN is not supported.     

Productivity or Gender? The Impact of Domestic Tasks Across the Wage Distribution

This article assesses the wage impact of domestic tasks across women's and men's wage distributions given the cross‐distribution variation in unpaid work time. The productivity–volume versus the gender–class normative argument developed here suggests competing hypotheses. Analyses of pooled 2010–2015 waves of the American Time Use Survey using unconditional quantile regression revealed that an increase in the lesser time women at the top of the wage distribution spent doing routine housework predicted a smaller wage penalty than at the bottom of women's wage distribution. Conversely, men at the top of their wage distribution spent the least time doing routine tasks, but incurred the largest penalty for an increase in that time. Increases in nonroutine housework or child‐care time did not negatively affect the wage distributions of women or most men. Results supported the volume–productivity argument for routine housework among women, but a gender–class normative argument for men.     

The Effect of Housework on Wages: A Study of Migrants and Native-Born Individuals in Germany

To increase labour market participation among migrants, an increase in female labour market participation is important, with wages being a significant incentive. In research on the gender wage gap, the consideration of housework has been a milestone. Gender differences in housework time have always been much greater among migrants than among native-born individuals. Based on data obtained from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1995 to 2017, this study questioned whether housework affects the wages of migrant full-time workers differently than those of their native-born counterparts. To consider the possible endogeneity of housework in the wage equation, the analysis estimated, in addition to an OLS model, a hybrid model to estimate within effects. Significant negative effects of housework on wages resulted for migrant women and native-born individuals. The effects for migrant men were significantly smaller or insignificant, which could not be explained by threshold effects. The greater amount of time spent on housework by migrant women than by native-born women will in general lead to a larger wage decrease due to housework for migrant women than for native-born women. The results further showed that the observed variables explained very little of the migrants’ gender wage gap, in contrast to the gap of native-born individuals. Human capital returns, including education and work experiences, were much lower for migrant women than for native-born women, whereas differences in housework equally contributed to the explained share of the gap for both groups, indicating the greater relevance of housework for migrants’ wage gap.

     

Earnings,Effort, and Work Flexibility of Self-Employed Women and Men: The Case of St. Croix County,Wisconsin

Data collected on self-employed women and men in one county allow examination of work effort, housework effort, housework hours, and preference for flexible work on earnings. Regressions indicate housework effort of self-employed women contributes to their lower earnings. Housework hours do not supporting the view women select self-employment to find flexible work. Housework hours do reduce the earnings of self-employed men, which could reflect their stronger commitment to housework combined with less flexible work. A Oaxaca decomposition suggests less tenure and greater housework effort are important contributors to lower earnings of self-employed women. Ranges that measure earnings may contribute to the insignificance of work effort, normalized work effort, and preference for flexible work hours. (J16, J23)

Division of Labor,Gender Ideology,and Marital Satisfaction in East Asia

Using data from the 2006 Family Module of the East Asian Social Survey (N = 3,096), this article examines associations of marital satisfaction with divisions of housework and gender ideology in four East Asian societies: urban China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Compared with Japanese and Korean married women and men, Chinese and Taiwanese spouses were more satisfied with their marriage and had more egalitarian divisions of housework, but simultaneously they held less egalitarian gender ideologies. Multivariate analyses showed that relative share of housework was negatively associated with marital satisfaction for Japanese and Korean men and for Korean and Taiwanese women. Egalitarian gender ideology was significantly associated with lower marital satisfaction only among Taiwanese women. In addition, the negative association between housework and marital satisfaction was more pronounced for Taiwanese women who espoused more egalitarian gender ideologies. The authors discuss how differences in macro‐level social contexts explain these cross‐society variations.     

Work-Family Identities and Work-Family Conflicts

Abstract

Using survey data from Utah, we examine the direct and indirect effects of individuals' identification with work and family on work-to-family and family-to-work conflict. Our analysis uncovers two notable indirect effects of family identity. For men, identification with the family is associated with job flexibility, which is associated with a decrease in work-to-family conflict. For women, identification with the family is associated with housework satisfaction, which is associated with a decrease in family-to-work conflict. These indirect effects suggest that family identity may play some role in reducing work-family conflict, albeit in different ways for men and women.     

Gender deviance and household work: the role of occupation

This article takes a new approach to gender and housework by identifying a new measure of gender deviance--work in gender-atypical occupations--and by arguing that men who do "women's work" and women who do "men's work" in the labor market may seek to neutralize their gender deviance by doing male- and female-typed work at home. Analysis of data from the National Survey of Families and Households and the 2003-7 waves of the American Time Use Survey shows that men who do "women's work" in the market spend more time on male-typed housework relative to men in gender-balanced occupations and their wives spend more time on female-typed housework. Women in gender-atypical occupations also do more female-typed housework than women in gender-balanced occupations. The article provides clearer evidence about the important ways in which cultural conceptions of gender shape and are shaped by economic processes.     

Research on Household Labor: Modeling and Measuring the Social Embeddedness of Routine Family Work

This article reviews more than 200 scholarly articles and books on household labor published between 1989 and 1999. As a maturing area of study, this body of research has been concerned with understanding and documenting how housework is embedded in complex and shifting social processes relating to the well‐being of families, the construction of gender, and the reproduction of society. Major theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions to the study of household labor are summarized, and suggestions for further research are offered. In summary, women have reduced and men have increased slightly their hourly contributions to housework. Although men's relative contributions have increased, women still do at least twice as much routine housework as men. Consistent predictors of sharing include both women's and men's employment, earnings, gender ideology, and life‐course issues. More balanced divisions of housework are associated with women perceiving fairness, experiencing less depression, and enjoying higher marital satisfaction.     

Occupational Sex Composition and Gendered Housework Performance: Compensation or Conventionality?

This article examines the association between occupational sex composition and housework, considering total housework time, time on male‐typed and female‐typed tasks, and the percent of total time spent on male and female tasks. Previous research examining male‐ and female‐typed chores independent of total housework suggests that couples compensate for gender‐atypical employment through gender‐typical housework performance, but this analysis of the National Survey of Families and Households (1992–1994) and the American Time Use Survey (2003–2013) demonstrates that assuming a quadratic association and failing to contextualize gendered housework performance within total housework performance obscures the true relationship between occupation and housework. In fact, women and men in gender‐atypical occupations perform a more gender‐atypical combination of chores. The influence of gender deviance neutralization in the housework literature may overshadow alternative explanations and model specifications. In particular, by assuming a quadratic association, researchers may impose, rather than test, gender deviance neutralization.     

Husbands' Participation in Housework and Child Care in India

The authors tested theories of housework among tea plantation workers in India, where women comprise the main part of the workforce and are breadwinners in their families. Analysis of 49 semistructured interviews and survey data from 3,181 female workers revealed that although women were mainly responsible for domestic labor, more than half of husbands usually or sometimes helped their wives with cooking, fuel wood collection, and child care. The analyses revealed a curvilinear relationship between husbands' earnings share and their participation in each task, supporting theories of bargaining and gender display. The probability of male participation decreased to its lowest level when men earned less than their wives. Husbands rarely helped with clothes washing—considered the most feminine task—and their participation did not respond to changes in relative earnings. These results support the authors' argument that patterns of bargaining and gender display will vary depending on the gendered nature of housework tasks within a particular society.     

'There just aren't enough hours in the day': the mental health consequences of time pressure

In this paper I examine the association between subjective time pressure and depression and consider whether time pressure mediates the relationship between roles and depression, whether social and economic resources moderate the association between time pressure and depression, and whether time pressure explains gender differences in depression. Results of a telephone survey of 790 respondents indicate that time pressure is significantly associated with distress for men and women, and that subjective time pressure accounts for the significantly higher depression of employed women. Time pressure mediates the impact of housework and the volunteer role among women and it partially explains the differential depression of divorced men. Several resources moderate the impact of time pressure on depression: income among both men and women and perceived co-worker social support among men. Results suggest that the subjective experience of time pressure can be thought of as a potentially important mechanism by which lived experience is transformed into depression. However, in spite of the ubiquity of time pressure in the North American context, the depressing consequences of this subjective experience are not distributed equitably, suggesting that the capacity to manage time pressure and avoid depression may be another benefit associated with strategically advantageous social locations.     

Domestic Outsourcing,Housework Time,and Subjective Time Pressure: New Insights From Longitudinal Data

Hiring household help could reduce housework time and alleviate subjective time pressure. Associations are assumed to be particularly apparent for women because they spend more time on housework than men. But empirical evidence on whether hiring help actually saves time or relieves time pressure is scant and inconclusive, chiefly because of data and methodological limitations. This study improves on earlier ones in that the authors examined panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (n = 5,124 couples) that enable modeling techniques that take account of selection effects, possible reverse causality, and unobserved heterogeneity. Contrary to some earlier studies, the authors show that outsourcing does in fact reduce housework time, narrow gender gaps, and lower women's subjective time pressure. They conclude that domestic outsourcing may save time and reduce subjective pressure for some women, but one consequence may be increased inequality between women who can and cannot afford domestic help.     

Great Expectations? Working‐ and Middle‐Class Cohabitors' Expected and Actual Divisions of Housework

Young adults often express preferences for egalitarianism but often find themselves in conventional household arrangements. Using interview data from 122 working‐class and middle‐class cohabitors, the authors applied Komter's (1989) concepts of manifest, latent, and hidden power to examine the ways that contemporary young adults reinforce and modify gender norms surrounding the division of housework. Cohabiting women more often expect equal housework arrangements than men, regardless of class, yet middle‐class women achieve equal divisions more often because they are better able to exercise manifest power than their working‐class counterparts and because middle‐class men appear more willing to cede to their partners' demands. In contrast, working‐class women's desires to achieve equality are frequently rebuffed as they face greater resistance or defer to their partners' competing wishes. Although the exercise of manifest power is central to arranging housework, the hidden power of gender conventions pervades across class, leading many couples toward traditional arrangements.     

Home production and wages: evidence from the American Time Use Survey

Using data from the American Time Use Survey for the years 2003–2006, this paper finds that housework has a negative relation with wages for both women and men. The negative relation between housework time and wages is not likely to arise from omitted working conditions that are correlated with housework, nor from omitted effort. For women, the negative relation between housework and wages appears in most occupations, including professional and managerial occupations. The connection of housework time to the ‘lack of interest’ argument proposed by defendants in class action sex discrimination cases is examined and is not supported by the evidence.