Who Is Doing the Housework in Multicultural Britain?

Abstract

There is an extensive literature on the domestic division of labour within married and cohabiting couples and its relationship to gender equality within the household and the labour market. Most UK research focuses on the white majority population or is ethnicity ‘blind’, effectively ignoring potentially significant intersections between gender, ethnicity, socio-economic position and domestic labour. Quantitative empirical research on the domestic division of labour across ethnic groups has not been possible due to a lack of data that enables disaggregation by ethnic group. We address this gap using data from a nationally representative panel survey, Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study containing sufficient sample sizes of ethnic minority groups for meaningful comparisons. We find significant variations in patterns of domestic labour by ethnic group, gender, education and employment status after controlling for individual and household characteristics.

Does Fathers’ Involvement in Childcare and Housework Affect Couples’ Relationship Stability?*

“…It is paternal solo‐childcare rather than overall “involvement” in childcare and housework that appears to have a positive association with relationship stability, and the association between paternal involvement in specific childcare tasks and relationship stability is moderated in complex ways by ethnicity and the mother's employment status. This supports other research that highlights the importance of accounting for ethnic and cultural variations, which are pivotal in shaping behavior yet are often ignored (e.g., Kan and Laurie, ). These nonlinear relationships suggest that further research is needed to explore the different associations between paternal involvement in childcare and housework and relationship breakdown, which appear to be complex and variable according to different characteristics.…”

“…It has become increasingly common for women to combine employment with raising children (e.g., see Fagan and Norman, 2012;Pfau-Effinger, 2012) and for men to be involved at home (e.g., Norman, Elliot, and Fagan, 2014;Fagan and Norman, 2016;Adler and Lenz, 2017), although these decisions are shaped by individual and structural constraints (e.g., see Norman, 2017). Most U.K. evidence on the gendered division of labor focuses on the white majority population even though rising immigration has increased the ethnic diversity of family structures (Kan and Laurie, 2018). Kan and Laurie's (2018) U.K. analysis provides evidence of ethnic variations in household work, highlighting clear intersections between gender, ethnicity, and the domestic division of labor.…”

“…The risk of relationship breakdown is higher for interracial marriages (e.g., Zhang and van Hook, 2009;Aughinbaugh, Robles, and Sun, 2013). This scenario is likely to have become more prevalent in the United Kingdom given the increasing ethnic diversity in family structures (see Office for National Statistics, 2011;Phoenix and Husain, 2007;Kan and Laurie, 2018). The couple's division of unpaid domestic work also impacts on the quality of a relationship.…”

Stalled or Uneven Gender Revolution? A Long‐Term Processual Framework for Understanding Why Change Is Slow

“…The nuances of difference in relation to race and sexuality, and of the intersectionality among race, sexuality, and education, are largely lost in such approaches. There is by now a growing literature on differences in relation to the performance of various household work and care tasks by race/ethnicity (Cabrera, Hofferth, & Chae, ; Kan & Laurie, ; Sayer & Fine, ) and sexuality (Goldberg, ; Kurdek, ). However, research on how these differences have changed over the past few decades is still rare.…”

Marriage and Housework: Analyzing the Effects of Education Using the 2011 and 2016 Japanese Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities

“…Nevertheless, the analyses of factors explaining gender differences in housework participation depending on socio-economic standing and life-course stages show that these factors oftentimes work differently in many, if not all, cultural contexts. This point has been brought by Kan and Laurie (2018) on the example on the UK ethnic groups, Kan and Hertog (2017) on the four East Asian countries, Kolpashnikova (2016) on ethnic groups in Canada, and Budig, Misra, and Boeckmann (2012)-on a number of European and North American countries.…”