Measuring the Division of Household Labor

Abstract

Despite a large body of research on the household division of labor, surprisingly little is known about how husbands and wives divide their family work time across a variety of domestic tasks. What differentiates couples exhibiting gender specialization or segregation in household tasks from those couples who share tasks? Using newly released data from the National Survey of Families and Households, this study has two major objectives. First, a new summary measure of the gender-based segregation of family labor is presented. Second, sources of intercouple variation in the sex segregation of household labor are examined, focusing especially on the effects of time availability, family power, and gender role ideology. The results indicate that, even in the late 1980s, American couples exhibited highly sex-segregated family work patterns, including those couples in which the male partner contributes many hours to housework. The study shows that American males would have to reallocate over 60% of their family work time to other tasks before sex equality in the division of labor is achieved. The analysis indicates that this gender-based division of family work is symptomatic of continuing gender inequality and gender role socialization in American society.

The pains and pleasures of parenting: When, why, and how is parenthood associated with more or less well-being?

“…On the one hand, because having children may be fulfilling a central life goal for many women, parenthood may be associated with greater life satisfaction, happiness with life in general, and self-esteem, especially when the responsibilities of child rearing are not overwhelming. On the other hand, although women have evidenced greater participation in the workforce (Bianchi, Milkie, Sayer, & Robinson, 2000;Blair & Lichter, 1991;England, 2010), mothers are paid less than childless women (Budig & England, 2001), and they still bear the brunt of child rearing (Milkie, Bianchi, Mattingly, & Robinson, 2002;Nock & Kingston, 1988;Nomaguchi & Milkie, 2003), which may engender lower day-to-day well-being. Consistent with this idea, research has shown that specifically among women, firstborn children are associated with relatively greater happiness (compared to women without children), but subsequent children are associated with relatively less happiness (Aassve et al, 2012;Kohler et al, 2005).…”

Parentalidad y división del trabajo doméstico en España, 2002-2010

“…The "feminine" tasks normally take more time and must be carried out more frequently, with less scheduling freedom. The "masculine" tasks are more fl exible and less frequent, require less time and in some cases can be considered related to leisure (Blair and Lichter, 1991).…”

Father’s Involvement: Individual and Cross-Country Differences

“…Даже в ситуа-ции значительной вовлеченности мужчины в семейные дела его участие обычно сводится к определенным видам деятельности [Blair, Lichter, 1991]. Уход за детьми также рассматривается как гендерно не нейтральный тип деятельности.…”

“…В противоположность гендерным теориям, утверждаю-щим, что такое распределение оказывает негативное влияние на вовлеченность мужчины, в данном случае более применимым оказывается ресурсный подход. Иными словами, можно утверждать, что речь идет о взаимодополняющем харак-тере распределения ролей между семьей и работой в зависимости от имеющихся у супругов ресурсов [Becker, 2009;Blair, Lichter, 1991].…”