Division Of Childcare Tasks Research Articles

The Division of Child Care Tasks in Same-Sex Couples

This research explores the division of child care tasks in same-sex couples. Forty-nine respondents in same-sex relationships with children answered survey questions regarding how they divide child care tasks. Social exchange theory is used as a theoretical perspective to predict the amount of child care tasks in which respondents participate based on how they compare to their partner on certain characteristics. The effects of the respondents’ relationship to the child (biological parent or not) were also examined. Social exchange theory was modestly supported, with employment having the most significant effect on amount of participation in child care tasks. Suggestions for future research are also discussed.

The Residential Context and the Division of Household and Childcare Tasks

This paper reports a study of the division of household and childcare tasks between partners from a time–space perspective. Data from the 2005 Netherlands Kinship Panel Study and the 2004 ABF Real Estate Monitor are used. The impact of the residential context on the division of household and childcare tasks is studied, taking into account the endogeneity of time spent in paid work for the division of unpaid tasks. The findings suggest that the residential context is an important factor explaining the intrahousehold allocation of unpaid tasks. We found an indirect effect of living in a large city and of job access on the division of household tasks, running via the number of hours worked by the female partner: women living in large cities work more hours, and this leads to a greater likelihood of a nontraditional division of household tasks. There is also a direct effect of living in a large city on the likelihood of a nontraditional division of household tasks, but not on the likelihood of a nontraditional division of childcare tasks.

Well‐being, involvement in paid work and division of child‐care in parents of children with intellectual disabilities in Sweden

The aim of the study was to compare mothers' and fathers' involvement in paid work and child-care in families of children with intellectual disability (ID) and control families and to test if differences in well-being between mothers and fathers of children with ID can be explained by differences in involvement in paid work and child-care. Mothers and fathers of 179 children with ID and 196 typically developing children answered mailed surveys on their involvement in paid work, child-care tasks and well-being. Only two-parent families were included. The results show main effects for gender of the parent and presence of a child with ID on involvement in paid work and well-being. Interaction effects indicate that mothers of children with ID are more affected than fathers in their participation in paid work and well-being. A positive relation between level of participation in paid work and well-being was found for both mothers and fathers. No difference in division of child-care tasks was found between families of children with ID and control families. Differences in involvement in paid work and child-care in families of children with ID only explained 5% of the variance in the difference between mothers' and fathers' well-being. Families with children with ID differ from control families in that the parents are less involved in paid work and have lower levels of well-being. A positive relation between involvement in paid work and well-being was found.

The Perils of Love, or Why Wives Adapt to Husbands during the Transition to Parenthood

Within a theoretical framework of interdependence and the feminization of love, we present evidence that wives' love for their husbands motivates them to align their preferences about the division of child-care tasks with their husbands' preferences during the transition to parenthood. The preferences of 69 couples were measured 2 months after they were wed and 2 years later, after the birth of their first child. Results of hierarchical linear regressions indicate that husbands' newlywed preferences predict changes in wives' preferences and that the influence of husbands' preferences depends on the level of wives' love. Key Words. attitude change, dil.rion of labor, interdependence, love, marital influence, transition to parenthood. Couples making the transition to parenthood are faced with new demands that challenge the norms that regulate their day-to-day activities. Culturally based assumptions about the roles of husbands and wives, which assign women the primary responsibility for maintaining the emotional wellbeing of the marriage, suggest that wives will take the lead in resolving potential conflicts about the division of child-care tasks. This study examines how love influences wives to adopt the attitudes of their husbands about child-care responsibilities during the transition to parenthood. The origins of wives' emotional responsibilities can be traced to the emergence of the modern family in the early l9th century. In colonial America, marriage created a household in which coordinated action produced not only love, but milk, soap, and clothes as well. Cancian (1987), following the lead of a number of historians of the family (Degler, 1980; Zaretsky, 1986), describes a shift in the ideology of family that began toward the end of the 18th century as industrialization moved economic work out of the home and into factories. The tough and impersonal world that men encountered at work was balanced by the love and caring that women cultivated at home. During the l9th century, women's relationships with their husbands had a dual character: Wives were emotionally dependent on their husbands, and yet they were primarily providers, rather than recipients, of emotional support within the family (Degler, 1980). As marital companionship replaced raising children as the focus of married life, the husband moved to the center of the wife's sphere, and, Cancian notes, her was focused on getting the right emotional response from him (p. 37). The centrality of marital companionship and the role of the wife as emotion specialist are generally seen as characterizing many families throughout the 20th century (Cancian, 1987; Degler, 1980; Dizard & Gadlin, 1990). The contemporary emphasis on marital companionship can lead to difficulties adjusting to parenthood because patterns of companionate activity are disrupted by the arrival of a baby (Dyer, 1963). Research in the late 1950s and early 1960s characterized parenthood as a crisis for couples (Dyer, 1963; LeMasters, 1957). More recent research has identified both positive and negative aspects of parenthood, as well as variation among couples in the effects of a first child on the marital relationship (Belsky & Kelly, 1994; Cowan & Cowan,1992; Huston & Vangelisti, 1995). Parenthood changes the life space within which couples function and brings with it a new set of tasks that require coordination between the spouses (Lewin, 1948). Kelley's analysis of interdependence provides a framework that can be used to lay bare the interplay between individuals' needs and abilities in relation to the ways they coordinate their parental responsibilities (Kelley, 1979; 1983; Kelley & Thibaut, 1978). According to Kelley, partners in a close relationship are interdependent because they control each other's outcomes. There are two primary ways in which the actions of one affect the outcomes of the other. At times, the effects of a spouse's own actions are contingent on the actions of the partner. …