Hebdomadal Patterns of Compensatory Behaviour: Weekday and Weekend Housework Participation in Canada, 1986–2010

Abstract

Quantitative housework research focused on aggregate weekly hours, which are inadequate in revealing hebdomadal compensatory behaviour in housework participation because such behaviour is likely to occur on weekends when couples have more time to do housework. This article extends the existing theoretical frameworks by accounting for the hebdomadal patterns in routine and non-routine housework tasks. Employing five time-use waves of the Canadian General Social Survey, our study shows that the hebdomadal compensatory behaviour applies both to women and men. Equal-earner and breadwinner wives compensate for their low levels of weekday housework participation by doing more routine housework on weekends. Similarly, husbands also increase their time on routine housework on weekends. Therefore, compensatory behaviour is more likely to depend on hebdomadal time availability rather than on the neutralisation of gender deviance in the labour market (gender deviance neutralisation). Some evidence of the gender deviance neutralisation, however, cannot be completely ruled out.