Class, Couples, and Conflict: Effects of the Division of Labor on Assessments of Marriage in Dual-Earner Families

Abstract

The influx of married women into the labor force has made dual-earner couples the norm rather than the exception. In 1960, 30.5% of married women were in the labor force; in 1989 nearly 58% were employed, the majority working full-time (U.S. Department of the Census, 1991). In contrast to this change in family work roles, research suggests that at least one characteristic of family life has remained quite stable--the division of household labor. Even when both spouses are employed full-time, wives continue to perform the majority of household an inequity which has sparked considerable interest on the part of family scholars (Berk, 1985; Pleck, 1985). Much research on the division of household labor has documented gender differences in ideas and values surrounding housework, and has examined differences in how the division of family work relates to women's and men's views of their marriage (reviewed in Thompson & Walker, 1989). More recently, Thompson (1991) has proposed that to truly understand the division of family labor and its consequences, more attention must be paid to women's and men's sense of fairness about family work. She suggests that understanding gender-specific beliefs about family work and fairness will shed greater light on how the division of labor affects marriages. Although gender has been examined extensively as it relates to issues surrounding family work, less attention has been paid to social class and the way it too may serve to socialize expectations about marriage and the fairness of the distribution of family work. Research by Ferree (1987, 1990) and Komarovsky (1962) would suggest that social class may, in fact, moderate the linkages between the household division of labor, spouses' perceptions of equity, and the marital relationship in dual-earner families. This study examines how both the division of household labor in dual-earner families and perceptions of its fairness relate to marital conflict and satisfaction. This relationship is examined separately within gender and social class groups. In doing so, we hypothesize that the relationships among dimensions of marriage, the division of labor, and perceptions of equity, will not only be different for husbands and wives, but also different for those in a working-class versus a middle-class context. This research also provides us with the opportunity to test some of Thompson's speculations regarding fairness by explicitly examining the linkages between the division of labor and equity and, in turn, examining how these two factors affect women's and men's assessments of their marriages. CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF INEQUITY IN HOUSEHOLD WORK Although the question of how women's employment affects the household division of labor has been addressed by many researchers (see Spitze, 1988, for a review); the answer remains ambiguous. For example, research has shown that husbands of employed wives do not spend significantly more time in housework than husbands of nonemployed women (Ferber, 1982). Pleck (1985), however, suggests that men's involvement is slowly increasing, with a greater rise in child-related tasks versus household work. A consistent trend in this literature shows that women continue to spend the majority of their time in feminine tasks, tasks that, unlike traditionally masculine chores, lack a defined time frame, allow little discretion for when the task needs to be done, and lack a leisure component (Thompson & Walker, 1989). With regard to income, some have found that relative shares of housework are related to husbands' and wives' earnings (Berk & Berk, 1978; Maret & Finlay, 1984); however, other researchers report no relationship between spouses' income level and the division of labor (Berardo, Shehan, & Leslie, 1987). Using a slightly different approach, Ross (1987) found that the difference between spouses' earnings was related to the division of household labor. …