Gendered reciprocity: Work discontent and the household production of health

Abstract

Theoretically, we consider the effects of workers’ discontent with their paid work and their unpaid household work on the health of their spouse. We examine ways in which gendering shapes these effects. Empirically, we perform ordered probit, probit, selection-corrected probit and bivariate probit analyses of data from the 1987–1988 and 1992–1994 waves of the National Survey of Families and Households. We find that if wives are discontent with the appreciation they receive for their paid employment, then their husbands’ health declines subsequently ( n = 644 couples); if husbands are discontent with the fairness of their unpaid household labor, then their wives’ health declines subsequently ( n = 609 couples). Findings and implications are discussed.