Housework Hours Research Articles

Hard work at home: musculoskeletal pain among female homemakers

This study explores the relationship between housework and musculoskeletal symptoms among homemakers, adjusting for social, demographic and economic factors. A cross-sectional survey was carried out on 435 women from Nabaa, a low-income community in Lebanon. In total, 77% of women reported having musculoskeletal pain in the previous 12 months. Both psychosocial and physical factors showed significant associations with musculoskeletal symptoms. Related psychosocial factors included feelings of stress associated with homemaking and homemakers' number of children and self-rated health. The physical factors associated with musculoskeletal pain were feeling fatigued at the end of a housework day, working long hours and working in awkward postures or frequently engaging in repetitive hand movements. Ergonomic stressors were also associated with pain in the back and upper and lower extremities. Women from this community engage in a large number of hours of housework that, alongside other factors, were associated with high prevalence of musculoskeletal pain. Practitioner Summary: This study contributes to the literature by studying women's housework activities in association with musculoskeletal pain. The role of women in homemaking activities is explored together with physical exposures leading to reported symptoms. This study adds a perspective of a Middle Eastern context to the literature of women's musculoskeletal health.

Gender and Life Satisfaction in the UK

This contribution analyzes the variations in reported life satisfaction for men and women in the United Kingdom. While average levels of life satisfaction are similar for men and women, the variations in life satisfaction are more marked for women. Analyzing the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) for 1996–2007, the paper finds that hours of paid work increase life satisfaction for both men and women, while housework hours are statistically significant only for retired men and women. Childcare (for children ages 3 to 4 years) and caring for adults affect women's life satisfaction negatively but are statistically insignificant for men. Some of these differences might be explained by the fact that women and men in the sample assign differing weights to satisfaction with different life dimensions. Job satisfaction, in particular, matters much more to men than to women.

Maternal Labor Market Return, Parental Leave Policies, and Gender Inequality in Housework

This study investigates how the duration of the work interruption and the labor market status of mothers upon their return affect the division of housework in couples after a birth. By observing several parental leave policy reforms in Britain and West-Germany, this research also explores how extended leave entitlements for mothers influence the division of housework. The analysis uses multilevel multiprocess models for 1220 birth events of British couples and 1785 births to German couples based on data from the British Household Panel Survey (1991-2008) and the German Socio-Economic Panel (1985-2009). The results suggest that mothers increase their housework hours with every additional month of employment interruption. Mothers’ full-time return seems more effective than a short labor market time-out in altering men’s housework contributions and reducing the trend towards a more traditional division of housework. Parental leave policy extensions for mothers were associated with the division of housework only indirectly through their impact on the length of women’s work interruptions.

Participação no mercado de trabalho e no trabalho doméstico: homens e mulheres têm condições iguais?

A participação das mulheres no mercado de trabalho representa um dos pontos centrais da análise econômica sob a ótica feminista. Apesar do aumento da participação das mulheres no mercado de trabalho e da diminuição da diferença salarial média entre os dois gêneros, as mulheres ainda enfrentam uma grande dificuldade de serem remuneradas e promovidas em relação aos homens. Os modelos econômicos competitivos não conseguem explicar essas diferenças sem fazer uso de hipóteses fortes sobre as preferências individuais e os objetivos da família. Uma das possibilidades estudadas é que a diferença na remuneração das mulheres tem um aspecto social através de seu trabalho não somente para o mercado, mas também para a manutenção da ordem dentro da família. Este estudo tem como objetivo principal analisar as diferentes participações dos gêneros no trabalho doméstico como potencial influenciador das diferentes condições no mercado de trabalho. Nossos resultados apontam que as mulheres têm uma dupla e pesada jornada de trabalho. Entre nossas principais conclusões, podemos citar que a participação da mulher no mercado de trabalho, principalmente com o aumento de sua remuneração frente ao total da renda familiar, impacta positivamente sua condição de barganha na família, implicando uma menor participação no trabalho doméstico.

Cross-national reports of housework: An investigation of the gender empowerment measure

This paper analyses the relationship between country-level gender empowerment and individual-level divisions of housework. Pairing the 2004 United Nations gender empowerment measure (GEM) with individual-level ( n = 18,560) data from the 2004 European Social Survey, the author compares the relationship between a country’s GEM score, both as an index and as disaggregated measures, and respondents’ housework hours and housework proportions. The GEM index has a positive and linear relationship with men’s housework hours and a positive and non-linear relationship with men and women’s housework proportions and with women’s housework hours. For the disaggregated GEM measures, women’s representation in parliament is positively associated with men’s housework hours and proportions and women’s housework hours. Women’s labor market status, including the percent of women in professional positions and female–male wage ratios, is negatively associated with women’s housework hours and proportions. Finally, the cross-level interactions demonstrate theoretically important relationships to the housework literature.

Pathways Into Marriage: Cohabitation and the Domestic Division of Labor

Does time spent in a cohabiting relationship prior to marriage lead to more egalitarian housework arrangements after marriage? Previous research has shown that housework patterns within cohabiting relationships are more egalitarian than in marital relationships. But do these patterns remain when couples marry? The findings from previous studies are mixed. This article uses three waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey to examine changes in men’s and women’s time spent on housework as they transition into marriage. The results show that men’s housework hours remain stable regardless of life course pathway, and for women there is only minimal evidence that different pathways into marriage lead to different housework outcomes. The article concludes that the gender division of labor is developed well before the formation of a union and that the pathway to marriage has a relatively small effect on housework patterns after marriage.

Whose Time Is It?

Children’s time use—and specifically the time they spend on household chores—is an important arena for understanding social change. However, few studies accurately depict the multiple factors influencing children’s household labor, including parent’s and children’s available time and parent’s levels of work/family stress. We address these gaps by exploring how parents’ and children’s time use and perceived stress constrains time for housework. We employ data on 3,560 households from a national survey of children’s time use. We find several factors elevate children’s housework hours, including parents’ work/family stress, fathers’ work hours, having more siblings, being female, and being an older child. Contrary to the time availability principle, children’s curricular and extracurricular activities and hours spent in paid labor are associated with more housework. A follow-up analysis suggests that this is not accounted for by an unmeasured family attribute promoting children’s achievement across multiple spheres of activity.

Earnings, Effort, and Work Flexibility of Self-Employed Women and Men: The Case of St. Croix County, Wisconsin

Data collected on self-employed women and men in one county allow examination of work effort, housework effort, housework hours, and preference for flexible work on earnings. Regressions indicate housework effort of self-employed women contributes to their lower earnings. Housework hours do not supporting the view women select self-employment to find flexible work. Housework hours do reduce the earnings of self-employed men, which could reflect their stronger commitment to housework combined with less flexible work. A Oaxaca decomposition suggests less tenure and greater housework effort are important contributors to lower earnings of self-employed women. Ranges that measure earnings may contribute to the insignificance of work effort, normalized work effort, and preference for flexible work hours. (J16, J23)

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Fairness and Power in Family Organization

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Fairness and Power in Family Organization

Relatively Different? How do Gender Differences in Well-Being Depend on Paid and Unpaid Work in Europe?

Absolute as well as relative hours of paid and unpaid work may influence well-being. This study investigates whether absolute hours spent on paid work and housework account for the lower well-being among women as compared to men in Europe, and whether the associations between well-being and hours of paid work and housework differ by gender attitudes and social context. Attitudes towards women’s and men’s paid work and housework obligations may influence how beneficial or detrimental it is to spend time on these activities, as may social comparison of one’s own hours to the number of hours commonly spent among similar others. A group of 13,425 women and men from 25 European countries are analysed using country fixed-effects models. The results suggest that while men’s well-being appears to be unaffected by hours of paid work and housework, women’s well-being increases with increased paid working hours and decreases with increasing housework hours. Gender differences in time spent on paid work and housework account for a third of the European gender difference in well-being and are thus one reason that women have lower well-being than men have. Gender attitudes do not appear to modify the associations between hours and well-being, but there is a tendency for women’s well-being to be higher the less housework they do compared to other women in the same family situation and country. However, absolute hours of paid work and housework appear to be more important to women’s well-being than relative hours.

Collective Labor Supply of Native Dutch and Immigrant Households in the Netherlands

We estimate a collective time allocation model, where Dutch, Surinamese/Antillean and Turkish households behave as if both spouses maximize a household utility function. We assume that paid labor and housework are the endogenous choice variables and furthermore consider household production. Surinamese/Antillean and Turkish women differ from Dutch women because they value (joint) household production more in their utility function. Surinamese/Antillean and Turkish men, on the other hand, value joint household production less then Dutch men. Turkish households are the more traditional households, in the sense that the woman is more oriented on household production, while the man is oriented on paid labor. It is often believed that the bargaining power of women in more traditional households is relatively low, but our estimation results do not support this idea. In general, the wage elasticities of Dutch, Turkish and Surinamese/Antillean households are comparable. Men and women replace housework hours by paid labor if their hourly wage rate increases but do the opposite when the hourly wage rate of the partner increases.

Fairness and Housework: A Cross-National Comparison

Using 2002 International Social Survey Program (ISSP) data, the relationship of individual level characteristics with the division of labor was examined for three countries with different patterns of female labor force participation and country-specific gender equality. The impact of two theories, distributive justice and relative resources, was assessed for Sweden, the Netherlands, and Hungary. The author finds that the distributive justice theory had a strong relationship in these three countries in relation to husband and wives’ housework hours and husbands’ participation in core “female” household chores. The Netherlands proves anomalous as wives’ gender role ideologies and housewife status had significant associations with fairness. Relative resources had some association in Hungary as wives’ who earn more than their husbands report less fairness than spouses with equal earnings. The results demonstrate that country context is an important consideration for studying the fairness.

Divisions of Labor in Mexican Origin and Anglo Families: Structure and Culture

Using OLS regression we model predictors of housework hours for 393 Mexican origin and Anglo families from California and Arizona. Contradicting cultural theories, Mexican origin mothers performed less housework when they were employed more hours, had higher relative earnings, and when husbands had more education. Mexican origin fathers performed more housework when family income was lower, wives contributed a larger share of earnings, and fathers had more egalitarian gender ideals. Fathers’ employment hours, wives’ gender attitudes, and familism were not significantly associated with housework hours in Mexican origin families, but were significant in Anglo families. Unique features of the study include analysis of generational status, gatekeeping, and familism. Theoretical reasons for attitudes and socioeconomic status predicting housework are discussed.

Export-Oriented Policies, Women's Work Burden and Human Development in Mauritius**

This article attempts to understand how the feminisation of the labour force triggered by export-oriented policies has affected women's work burden in Mauritius. The article explores factors influencing women's labour supply (measured as hours worked in the productive economy) and women's hours of housework, and it further analyses how work burden experiences vary between women of different social backgrounds. The analysis is based on the use of mixed methods consisting of a quantitative survey in the industrial sector and a qualitative survey in the industrial and services sectors. The results show, among other things, that women and the social reproductive process are not only affected differently depending on women's socio-economic background, but also depending on a complex mixture of different socio-economic processes.

Does gender trump money? Housework hours of husbands and wives in Britain

This article uses data from various waves of the British Household Panel Survey (1993—2003) to examine the associations of housework hours with relative income and gender-role attitudes. In particular, it tests the hypothesis that the effect of relative income on housework time will be diminished due to one's gendered expectations. Findings show both men's and women's housework hours are significantly decreased with increases in their amount of income relative to their partners'.Traditionalism in gender-role attitudes is associated with longer housework hours in the case of women and shorter hours in the case of men.Women holding traditional attitudes spend longer hours on housework than other women with the same level of economic independency. Apart from this, there is no conclusive evidence to support the claim that highly economic independent women and highly economic dependent men tend to resort to a gender-traditional form of domestic division of labour.

Whose money, whose time? A nonparametric approach to modeling time spent on housework in the United States

This paper argues that earlier quantitative research on the relationship between heterosexual partners' earnings and time spent on housework has two basic flaws: First, it has focused on the effects of women's shares of couples' total earnings on housework, not considering the simpler possibility of an association between women's absolute earnings and housework. Second, it tends to draw uniform inferences across the range of data, including regions where the data are sparse. This paper adopts a flexible, nonparametric approach to examine this relationship within a US context, while not imposing the polynomial specifications on data that characterize the two dominant models. The results provide support for an alternative model that emphasizes the importance of partners' own earnings for their housework, especially in the case of women. Women's earnings are negatively associated with their housework hours, independent of their partners' earnings and their shares of couples' total earnings.

Measuring Housework Participation: The Gap between “Stylised” Questionnaire Estimates and Diary-based Estimates

This article compares stylised (questionnaire-based) estimates and diary-based estimates of housework time collected from the same respondents. Data come from the Home On-line Study (1999–2001), a British national household survey that contains both types of estimates (sample size = 632 men and 666 women). It shows that the gap between the two types of estimate is generally smaller in the case of women. But the gap between the estimates in the case of women is associated with the amount of housework performed as secondary activities and the level of irregularity in housework hours. Presence of dependent children, on the other hand, inflates the gap for both men and women. Men holding traditional gender-role attitudes tend to report more housework time in surveys than in diaries, but the tendency is reversed when they undertake long hours of housework. The overall results suggest that there are systematic errors in stylised housework time estimates.

“I Wish We Had More Time to Spend Together...”

In this article, I examine the distribution of time pressure associated with the roles of marital partner and parent using data from a telephone survey. Results of an analysis of open-ended responses indicate that less than a quarter of respondents are satisfied with the time they spend with their children and spouses. Women are more likely to want to improve the quality of family time, whereas men are somewhat more likely to want more time with their spouses and children. Regression analysis indicates that social support, hours of paid labor, hours of housework, job control, and having dependent children are all associated with significant variation in family time pressures. In contrast to research on general time pressure, there are no socioeconomic differences in family time pressures, and women do not experience significantly higher family time pressures than men do.

Doenças músculo-esqueléticas, trabalho-esqueléticas, trabalho e estilo de vida entre trabalhadores de estilo de uma instituição pública de saúde

Foi desenvolvido um estudo transversal com 651 trabalhadores de diferentes ocupações. Os participantes responderam a um instrumento de coleta de dados gerais, ocupacionais e relativos ao estilo de vida, além do "Índice de Capacidade para o Trabalho", desenvolvido por pesquisadores finlandeses. Na análise dos fatores associados à ocorrência da doença, em estudos relativos às características sociodemográficas, foram identificados ser do gênero feminino, ter mais idade e ter baixa escolaridade. Em relação às características do trabalho, a associação à doença ocorreu naqueles com exigência predominantemente física, na maior duração semanal do segundo emprego, no maior tempo de trabalho na instituição. Quanto ao estilo de vida, estiveram associados à ocorrência de doença a obesidade, a longa duração das atividades domésticas e a não-realização de atividades de lazer.

Employment Transitions and the Household Division of Labor in China

Highlighting one aspect of the economic transition in China (industrialization), this article focuses on how a change in employment from an agricultural to a non-agricultural job could change the household division of labor. Longitudinal analysis of data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey showed that such job shifts affected the household division of labor in different directions and magnitude, depending upon which spouse changed jobs. If the husband changed from an agricultural to a non-agricultural job, he cut back on housework, thereby increasing the difference in the number of hours of housework each spouse performed. If the wife experienced such a job change, the reduction in her housework hours was twice that of her husband's, reducing the difference between their shares of household duties.