Educational attainment and housework participation among Japanese, Taiwanese, and American women across adult life transitions

Kamila Kolpashnikova,Evan T Koike

doi:10.1080/17441730.2021.1920147

Kamila Kolpashnikova, Evan T Koike

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/17441730.2021.1920147

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Abstract

ABSTRACT We investigate the association between women’s educational levels and housework participation across cultural contexts and through different stages in the life-course. In testing the suggestion from previous research that women with higher levels of education spend less time on housework than do women with less education, we found that this argument holds true for single women in Japan, Taiwan, and the United States. Our results also indicate that for all American women and for single and married Taiwanese women without children, their numbers of years of education correlate inversely with their daily hours of domestic labour; however, this correlation does not exist for married Taiwanese women with children. Similarly, the educational levels of married Japanese women—with or without children—have no bearing on their housework participation.

Highlights

Sociological research suggests that individuals with advanced degrees have more exposure to ideas about gender equality (Brayfield, 1992; Fan & Marini, 2000; Gershuny, 2000; Presser, 1994) and display a greater willingness to divide with their heterosexual partners the responsibilities for both household chores and income-earning activities
We produced the model estimates for Japan, Taiwan, and the US to analyse the effects of educational attainment on the time spent by women on routine housework, cooking, and cleaning
To capture and compare marital/parental status differences in the association between educational attainment and housework participation, these models divide into subsamples the following groups: non-married women without children, married women without children, and married women with children

Summary

Introduction

Sociological research suggests that individuals with advanced degrees have more exposure to ideas about gender equality (Brayfield, 1992; Fan & Marini, 2000; Gershuny, 2000; Presser, 1994) and display a greater willingness to divide with their heterosexual partners the responsibilities for both household chores and income-earning activities. Life-course transitions represent the increasing incorporation of individuals into groups that rationalise practices that the groups previously justified in terms of the sacred, human nature, kinship obligations, and the economic roles specific to certain gender or age groups (Meyer, 1986). Many of these practices connect closely to the market economy because the modern life-course and its various transitions developed in response to new ways of organising labour (Kohli, 1986), including that of families

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