Abstract
Objective: This study measured and compared the attitudes of German women and men towards sharing total housework, routine housework and non-routine housework in couples.
 Background: Although attitudes towards gender roles and the notion of separate spheres are important for understanding many aspects of family life, knowledge about situational variations of women’s and men’s attitudes towards housework sharing is limited.
 Method: Original data from a factorial survey of 1,120 German women and men from 2016 were used to describe variations in the attitudes of women and men towards three sets of housework using multilevel regression models.
 Results: Women and men expressed their attitudes towards equal sharing of total and routine housework, but non-routine housework was assigned to male partners in couples. Attitudes differed widely according to the context of the couple: In couples with similar economic resources, respondents favored equal sharing of housework, and in couples with unequal arrangements, the partner with fewer resources was tied to more housework and vice versa.
 Conclusion: When evaluating housework responsibilities, women and men in this study seemed to follow the principles of equity and balanced exchange.
Highlights
Attitudes towards gender roles are a fundamental part of social reality and help us to better understand many aspects of family life
Background: attitudes towards gender roles and the notion of separate spheres are important for understanding many aspects of family life, knowledge about situational variations of women’s and men’s attitudes towards housework sharing is limited
I analyze in particular the attitudes of women and men towards housework sharing, since these attitudes should reflect the personal opinions of women and men about who should do housework, rather than general gender ideologies (Poortman & van der Lippe 2009)
Summary
Attitudes towards gender roles are a fundamental part of social reality and help us to better understand many aspects of family life. An empirical approach to this issue using original data from a factorial survey of 1,120 German women and men is the main contribution of this paper In this original survey, respondents were asked to assign arrangements of sharing housework to vignettes with randomized descriptions of couples. I analyze in particular the attitudes of women and men towards housework sharing, since these attitudes should reflect the personal opinions of women and men about who should do housework, rather than general gender ideologies (Poortman & van der Lippe 2009) To achieve this goal, I use information from a direct survey question about housework sharing from the original factorial survey. Several empirical studies have analyzed different dimensions of the actual housework sharing (e.g., Barnett & Shen 1978; Craig & Powell 2018, Kan, Sullivan & Gershuny 2011), an empirical comparison of attitudes towards sharing routine housework, non-routine housework and total housework is still pending
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