Gender Norms, Housework, and Class: A Study of Korean Time Use Survey

Abstract

This study asks whether and how gender norms explain the time spent on housework in dual-earner households. In doing so, I explore the ways in which gender norms affect housework in specific class contexts. Using the 2004 Korean Time Use Survey (Korea Statistics Office, 2004), I focus on and define gender norms in the following way: individuals hold egalitarian attitudes if they are opposed to the traditional sexual division of labor. Regression analysis shows that the egalitarian attitudes of husbands, rather than wives, particularly those who lived with egalitarian wives, were positively associated with their own contribution to housework and food-related activities. Provision of child care, however, was barely affected by a woman's economic resources or gender norms, while the effects of the wife's class and economic resources also have an impact, along with gender norms.