The Influence of Parental Attitudes and Behaviors on Children's Attitudes Toward Gender and Household Labor in Early Adulthood

The paper assesses parental influences on young adults' attitudes toward gendered family roles, housework allocation, and housework enjoyment. The effects of parents' housework allocation, educational attainment, and religious participation are examined, as well as mothers' gender role attitudes and labor force participation. Using data from an intergenerational panel study, the analysis finds that children's ideal allocation of housework at age 18 is predicted by maternal gender role attitudes when the children were very young and by the parental division of housework when the children were adolescents. Adult children's gender role attitudes are associated with maternal gender role attitudes measured during both early childhood and midadolescence.     

Individual and Familial Determinants of Married Arab Israeli Women's Labor Force Participation: Trends of Change and Stability

Although the Arab population in Israel has undergone important economic and social changes in the past decades, the labor force participation of Arab women, particularly married women, has remained limited. This study uses census data to learn about the individual and familial factors associated with the entry into paid work of married Arab women and examines the extent to which these factors have changed over time. A major advantage is that the study distinguishes between the Muslim, Christian, and Druze populations, who markedly differ in their demographic, social, and cultural characteristics. Results from logistic regression models and standardization analyses reveal that the growth in employment experienced by Arab women was associated with the increasing education of both wives and husbands. However, the returns to education significantly decreased over time, particularly among Druze women, suggesting it has become more difficult for highly educated women to find employment. Results further show that the growth in employment experienced by Muslim and Christian women was related both to a decline in fertility and to a decrease in the negative returns to having children. Overall, findings underscore the structural barriers that limit Arab Israeli women's employment opportunities and raise concerns about their future occupational prospects.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Life Change and Spirituality Among a College Student Cohort

Objective: Because college marks a time when life-change is typically high, the authors designed this study to determine whether life-change was related to degree of spirituality, the "directing" component of health, among a college student cohort. Participants and Methods: The sample group, consisting of 180 northeastern US undergraduate college students, completed the 48-item Life Attitude Profile-Revised (LAP-R) and the Schedule of Recent Experience (SRE) in the fall semester of 2004. Results: Findings indicate that college students who reported experiencing higher levels of life change, both positive and negative, also scored lower on spirituality. Nevertheless, these students had scores indicative of a higher desire to find spirituality, even though their motivation to do so was low. Conclusions: Although life changes among college students likely will remain high, lower spirituality can be enhanced; therefore, interested health educators are encouraged to help students increase their degree of spirituality.     

Investigating Gender Differences in the Meaning of Household Chores and Child Care

This study examines factors related to the affective meanings (evaluation, potency, and activity) that spouses and cohabitors (N= 309) attach to child care, baby care, and 9 household chores. Gender is related to about a third of these task meanings. Consistent with the feminine care hypothesis, women consider baby care and laundry especially good, potent, and active and consider meal preparation particularly powerful, although contrary to this hypothesis women evaluate washing dishes less positively than men. Consistent with the masculine care hypothesis, men consider auto work and yard work especially good and powerful. When paid and unpaid work patterns are controlled, however, 9 of the 12 gender differences become nonsignificant and 4 new gender differences are identified, suggesting that work patterns both mediate and suppress some gender differences in task meanings. Gender also moderates the relationship between work and 12 task meanings. In several of these equations, women's proportion of nonmasculine work is negatively related to the goodness or the power they associate with a nonmasculine task.     

Women's Work in the Home

No abstract available for this article.     

Stability and Change in the Division of Labor among Cohabiting Couples

Because cohabitors express preferences for egalitarian relationships, it is generally presumed (by researchers and the popular press) that cohabiting couples engage in fairly equitable exchanges of domestic and paid work. This article explores how some cohabiting couples “do gender” through the division of labor—both paid and domestic work. Data are from in‐depth interviews with both partners from 30 cohabiting couples (N = 60) who have moderate levels of education. Few of these couples began their relationships sharing both paid work and domestic labor equally. Furthermore, the number of couples engaged in equal exchanges declined over time, while those relying on conventional exchanges grew. The devalued nature of domestic work, the persistence of gender privilege, and the “stalled” revolution are evident in how these working‐class cohabiting couples arrange their divisions of labor, reasons for changes, and why women are less able than men to opt out of housework.     

Social Networks and Individual Perceptions: Explaining Differential Participation in Social Movements

This paper seeks to explain differential participation in social movements. It does so by attempting to bridge structural-level and individual-level explanations. We test a number of hypotheses drawn from the social networks and the rationalist perspectives on individual engagement by means of survey data on members of a major organization of the Swiss solidarity movement. Both perspectives find empirical support: the intensity of participation depends both on the embeddedness in social networks and on the individual perceptions of participation, that is, the evaluation of a number of cognitive parameters related to engagement. In particular, to be recruited by an activist and the perceived effectiveness of one's own potential contribution are the best predictors of differential participation. We specify the role of networks for social movements by looking at the nature and content of networks and by distinguishing between three basic functions of networks: structurally connecting prospective participants to an opportunity to participate, socializing them to a protest issue, and shaping their decision to become involved. The latter function implies that the embeddedness in social networks significantly affects the individual perceptions of participation.     

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.     

Social Change and the Gendered Division of Household Labor in Canada

Housework is asymmetrically distributed by gender. This uneven allocation is an important indicator of inequality between women and men. The imbalance is closing, although exactly why remains uncertain. It is also unclear if the convergence has more to do with women's lives becoming more like men's, or whether it is because men are changing their practices on the home front. Using 30 years of nationally representative time use diary data, we explore three broad theoretical frameworks addressing social change—cultural, structural, and demographic—to examine how and why the gender dynamics around housework are shifting. We find that structural factors, and in particular women's engagement with paid work, have changed most sharply as drivers of greater symmetry in domestic labor, although changing cultural beliefs have contributed as well. Furthermore, there have been significant changes in men's behavior. One focal point for this domestic change is in men's and women's shifting practices around childcare. Intensive parenting, not just intensive mothering, has become more prevalent.     

Economic Dependence,Gender, and the Division of Labor in the Home: A Replication and Extension

The fundamental question in the study of the gendered division of household labor has come to be why, in the face of dramatic changes in women's employment and earnings, housework remains “women's work.” As a possible answer to this question, Brines (1994) presented a provocative conceptual model of the relationship between economic dependence and the performance of housework by wives and husbands. She concluded that the link between economic dependence and housework follows rules of economic exchange for wives, but among husbands, a gender display model is operative. This paper replicates and extends Brines' model by (a) replicating her work using a different data set; (b) adding additional controls to the model, including a measure of gender ideology; and (c) modeling a distributional (as opposed to absolute) measure of housework. For a measure of hours spent doing housework, the results of my analyses are consistent with Brines' suggestion of separate gender‐specific processes linking economic dependence and amount of housework performed. For a distributional measure of housework, on the other hand, my analyses contradict Brines' findings and suggest that both husbands and wives are acting to neutralize a nonnormative provider role when they do housework. Further analyses suggest that the phenomenon is more likely one of deviance neutralization than of gender display.     

Art in Social Movements: Shantytown Women's Protest in Pinochet's Chile

How social movements use art is an understudied question in the social movements literature. Ethnographic research on the use of art by the prodemocracy movement in Pinochet's Chile suggests that art plays a very important role in social movements, which use it for framing, to attract resources, to communicate information about themselves, to foster useful emotions, and as a symbol (for communicating a coherent identity, marking membership, and cementing commitment to the movement).     

Social Exchange Theory and the Division of Household Labor in Same-Sex Couples

Same-sex couples are often not seen as a family unit and are excluded from research, including family research on topics such as household division of labor. The author examined division of household labor, using social exchange theory, among 165 survey respondents in a same-sex relationship. Division of labor was measured by the percentage of tasks performed according to the respondent. Status differences between partners (e.g., higher, equal, lower) in terms of income, education, hours spent on paid labor outside the home, employment status, age, and race (here, only same or different races) were the independent variables. In general, as predicted by social exchange theory, partners with greater resources or power performed fewer household tasks. Satisfaction with division of labor and sense of being appreciated for one's contributions to household tasks were positively correlated with global relationship satisfaction. However, some inconsistencies indicate gaps in social exchange theory and that other factors may be important in understanding division of labor among same-sex couples.     

Combining New Institutionalisms: Explaining Institutional Change in American Property Insurance

This article combines institutionalisms to explain fundamental change in American property insurance. During the 1950s, the industry shifted from associations to price-competitive markets and vertically integrated firms. I advance two new arguments to explain this shift: First, institutions endogenously generate conditions for change. Second, fundamental change or institutional replacement depends on a dynamic convergence of conditions—market failures, legitimacy crises, new models of order—and the culmination of this dynamic in politics and policies that admit alternatives into fields. Together, these arguments reduce indeterminacies in existing theories of change and shed new light on punctuated equilibria and the politics of transformation.     

Cohort Differences and the Marriage Premium: Emergence of Gender‐Neutral Household Specialization Effects

Using fixed‐effects models and National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 data, we compared cohort, gender, and household specialization differences in the marriage premium. Do these premiums (a) persist among millennials, (b) reflect changing selection into marriage across cohorts, and (c) differ by the gender division of spousal work hours? Despite declining gender‐traditional household specialization, the millennial cohort garnered larger marriage premiums for women and men. Positive selection explained millenial women's marriage premiums, but less of men's. Household specialization mattered only among millennials, where it is gender neutral: Male and female breadwinners earned significantly larger marriage premiums, whereas husbands and wives specializing in nonmarket work earned no premium, or even penalties, when employed. Results show increasing disadvantage among breadwinner households, with dual earners most advantaged among millennials.