PurposeAlthough essential to social welfare, unpaid domestic and care work is an increasingly scarce resource in modern societies. Despite the growing need, many households refrain from outsourcing their domestic chores to the market. Simultaneously, the household service sector is mostly characterised by low-qualification, informal jobs lacking quality and professional standards. Drawing on transaction cost theory, the present study aims to examine how trust problems deriving from the quality and professionalisation of domestic services can be overcome by also exploring the role of state subsidies in this context.Design/methodology/approachA factorial survey experiment in Germany (N = 4024) causally explores the effect of state-subsidised service vouchers, quality signals and professionalisation on preferences and willingness-to-pay for domestic services. The data were analysed using multilevel modelling techniques.FindingsHypotheses are mostly confirmed: strong quality signals help overcome trust problems, thus facilitating the demand for household services. Further, service vouchers can generate better pay for domestic workers while simultaneously reducing the costs for households.Research limitations/implicationsThe relevance of professionalisation and quality of service as important determinants of domestic service demand is revealed. However, the experimental survey design involves hypothetical scenarios.Originality/valueThe analysis offers insights into how to stimulate demand for household services and increase formal employment in a sector currently largely characterised by informal arrangements. It further shows how social policies can help secure quality and foster professionalisation by shifting paid domestic work from the informal to the formal economy.

<div>The persistence of a distinctly gendered division of domestic labor in Western societies remains puzzling. Beyond standard economic and normative explanations, more recent approaches emphasize affective, cognitive, and incorporated aspects of housework and the production, reproduction, and negotiation of gendered expectations via social interactions. However, the relevant indicators for these more implicit mechanisms are not routinely included in social surveys. Based on a unique set of items and a representative sample of heterosexual couples (N=1,396) from pairfam data (German Family Panel) (wave 10), we contribute to this research by analyzing the mutual effects of both partners’ enjoyment, quality standards, and reciprocally perceived competencies on the division of domestic labor. An actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) is applied, which is adequate methodologically to model the partner dyad. Both an actor’s own and their partner’s assessments of competences and preferences – and particularly men’s attributes and perceptions – prove to be powerful and statistically significant predictors of the division of domestic labor. The results contribute quantitative evidence on processes of doing and undoing gender in context.</div>

<div>The persistence of a distinctly gendered division of domestic labor in Western societies remains puzzling. Beyond standard economic and normative explanations, more recent approaches emphasize affective, cognitive, and incorporated aspects of housework and the production, reproduction, and negotiation of gendered expectations via social interactions. However, the relevant indicators for these more implicit mechanisms are not routinely included in social surveys. Based on a unique set of items and a representative sample of heterosexual couples (N=1,396) from pairfam data (German Family Panel) (wave 10), we contribute to this research by analyzing the mutual effects of both partners’ enjoyment, quality standards, and reciprocally perceived competencies on the division of domestic labor. An actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) is applied, which is adequate methodologically to model the partner dyad. Both an actor’s own and their partner’s assessments of competences and preferences – and particularly men’s attributes and perceptions – prove to be powerful and statistically significant predictors of the division of domestic labor. The results contribute quantitative evidence on processes of doing and undoing gender in context.</div>

The persisting gendered division of domestic labor in Western societies remains puzzling. Beyond standard economic and normative explanations, more recent approaches emphasize affective, cognitive, and incorporated aspects of housework and the production, reproduction, and negotiation of gendered expectations via social interactions. However, the relevant indicators for these more implicit mechanisms are not routinely included in social surveys. Based on a unique set of items and a representative sample of heterosexual couples ( N = 1396) from pairfam (wave 10), we analyze the mutual effects of both partners’ enjoyment, quality standards, and reciprocally perceived competencies on the division of housework. Actor–partner interdependence models (APIM) are applied, which explicitly model the partner dyad. Both an actor’s own and their partner’s assessments of competences and preferences—and particularly men’s attributes and perceptions—prove to be powerful predictors of housework share. The results contribute quantitative evidence on processes of doing and undoing gender in context.