Household Labor Research Articles

Empirical Understanding of Chinese Markets Financialization

This research study delves into the impact of financialization on China's economy, focusing on three potential crowding-off effects resulting from the country's growing financial sector. Firstly, the study examines the "Financial Resource Diversion" effect, investigating whether the financial sector's expansion has overshadowed China's real economy. Secondly, the research explores the impact on households. It is based on the theory that the financialization of the market could have external effects on household real wages. The emergence of China's middle class may lead workers to rely more on transferring their labor to financial assets. Employing empirical analysis, the article examines the relationship between household financialization and labor income to analyze the potential trade-offs between financialization and real labor income. The study then discusses the potential impact of capital accumulation resulting from over-financialization in China. It investigates the relationship between the financial sector and the overall economic trends in the country. The primary objective of this study is to highlight the problematic nature of financialization.

Chosen Family? Rethinking “Relationship Status” in LGB Cognitive Aging Research

AbstractBackgroundExisting studies have shown the importance of marital status and quality on later‐life cognitive health, including dementia risk and likelihood of timely dementia diagnosis. Yet, much evidence comes from different‐sex couples’ experiences, for whom marriage remains the norm and unmarried persons face social and material costs. In contrast, where same‐same marriage is legal in North America and Europe, marriage has not yet become the norm: same‐sex couples (SSCs) have lower marriage rates than different‐sex couples. SSCs also tend to structure their relationships differently across a range of domains, from household labor to sexual nonmonogamy. Throughout Europe and North America, older lesbian and gay people are also more likely to be single, to live alone, and to have no living children than straight or bisexual people; as a result, the former tend to rely less on partners or biological family to meet their social needs. Unlike straight men, for example, gay and bisexual men tend to rely less on their partners or daughters to forge and maintain social and community connections, instead relying on “chosen families”.MethodGiven their unique prominence for sexual minorities, this paper uses population‐based surveys from the US (HRS) and Europe (ELSA and SHARE) to investigate measures of non‐biologically familial social bonds, including whether measures of friendship, social connectedness, and community involvement function similarly to marital status.ResultIn the US, which has the highest marriage rates and a deeply entrenched “marriage culture”, LGB participants in the HRS (1998‐2018; n = 23,035) who indicate having never been married perform better cognitively at baseline than married LGB people (β = 1.5; p = 0.05), while never‐married straights perform worse (β = ‐0.9; p <0.01).ConclusionRelationship factors have a different association with cognitive health for LGB people than straight people, yet these remain unexplored in their effects on cognitive aging and queerer pathways to good cognitive health.

Division of Household Labour and Fertility Outcomes Among Dual‐Income Australian Couples

AbstractGender revolution theories of fertility posit that when employed women have extensive child care and household responsibilities, they opt to reduce family size. This study examines how household gender inequality influences decisions to have children. Several possible mediators, including wellbeing, relationship quality, and changes in desired family size, are examined. Results from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey show that household inequality reduces the likelihood of third births when both parents work full‐time. This is mediated by relationship satisfaction: when men contribute more to household labour, their partners are more satisfied, which is associated with increased fertility.

Fair but not Equal: Negotiating the Division of Unpaid Labour in Same-Sex Couples in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia

Research suggests that same-sex couples have a more egalitarian approach to the division of labor (DOL) than different-sex couples. Based on multi-stage interviews with ten same-sex couples in Aotearoa NZ and Australia, we analyze how couples negotiate, perform, and perceive the fairness of their division of reproductive household labor. We found that same-sex couples had diverse patterns of dividing labor, and most were not equally sharing housework. Yet, most couples felt their DOL was fair. We argue that three key factors enabled participants to construct their DOL fairly, even when unequal: flexibility in allocating labor, communication, and revaluing unpaid labor as equal to paid labor, as an act of love, which can be culturally significant. Most participants explained their labor division as pragmatic, based on availability and preference, rather than gender, supporting theories of relative resources and time availability in shaping fairness perceptions. However, all participants were aware of how gender shaped their relationships, and some consciously sought to undo gender and heteronormativity through their labor practices. This study contributes to academic theorizing of how LGBTQ + families “do gender” and “do heteronormativity” through unpaid labor and affirms the importance of intersectional analysis for understanding labor practices and perceptions.

Farmers’ Willingness to Purchase Weather Index Crop Insurance: Evidence from Battambang, Cambodia

The weather index crop insurance (WICI) scheme was introduced under a pilot project for rice in Cambodia in 2021. The adoption rate was low and the loss ratio was higher than 200%. The increase in farmers’ participation would help reduce the loss ratio, which can sustain the WICI scheme. This study, therefore, examines Cambodian rice farmers’ willingness to purchase WICI in Cambodia. The hypothesis is that the low adoption rate is due to a lack of awareness, lack of understanding of WICI, lack of trust in weather stations, and the problem of basis risk. This study would like to test the influence of those factors on the willingness to purchase in Cambodia. Battambang Province was chosen as the study area as it is the largest area for rice production and has the largest take-up rate of farmers buying WICI. Detailed interviews of 232 farmers were conducted in the districts of Bavel and Moung Ruessei. The probit regression model was used to identify factors that significantly impact farmers’ willingness to purchase WICI. The results indicate that land size, level of trust in weather stations, level of farmers’ understanding of WICI, and joining the WICI awareness program have positive effects on the probability of farmers’ willingness to buy WICI, whereas the number of household laborers and expectation of floods have negative influences. The probability of willingness to purchase by farmers who attended the awareness program on WICI was 38% higher than those who did not. The size of farmland, level of trust in weather stations, and level of understanding of WICI increase in one unit affecting the probability of willingness to purchase WICI by 4%, 16%, and 25%, respectively. On the other hand, the increase in the number of household laborers in the rice field by one person and the increase in the probability of expected flood increase by 0.1 drag back the probability of farmers’ willingness to purchase by 16% and 5%, respectively. The results suggest the government to raise the insurance awareness and understanding of WICI. Development of weather station infrastructure, as well as maintenance of weather stations, is needed to guarantee the accuracy of data generated from the weather station.

Housing demolition and labour force participation: A gender difference perspective

AbstractExisting research suggests that housing demolition negatively affects labour supply through the wealth effect of the demolition compensation. However, there is limited research on the gender differences in the impact of housing demolition on labour force participation. This study investigates the effects of housing demolition on labour force participation, with a specific focus on the gender difference. Using data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies, this study reveals a significant decline in labour force participation resulting from housing demolition, primarily driven by females. Moreover, housing demolition exerts a stronger effect on the labour force participation of married women, who tend to take on more responsibilities for household chores, while its impact on married men is less evident. These findings offer valuable insights into the issue of labour shortage and underscore the importance of reducing the traditional gender‐based division of household labour.

Religion as a Determinant of Relationship Stability

AbstractThere is a burgeoning literature that investigates the effects of religion on relationship dissolution. This study is distinguished from prior scholarship in three broad areas: The investigation estimates the effect of religion on relationship stability using multiple measures of religious affiliation and religious observance; it is based on information of the respondent and their partner for both cohabiting and marital relationships; and it is performed using multiple waves of a large‐scale nationally representative panel data set, the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. It addresses key limitations, such as: the use of a single measure of religion, a tendency to only use married individual data, and an overreliance on cross‐sectional data. The results indicate that intrafaith couples tend to have a higher degree of relationship stability than other couple types; although, once other factors are controlled for, this effect is no longer statistically significant. We also find religiosity, in particular, religious attendance has a large positive effect on stability in intrafaith couples but can lower stability in interfaith and mixed couples.

Deconstructing the masculinized assumption of the medical profession: narratives of Japanese physician fathers

BackgroundGender studies in the medical profession have revealed gender biases associated with being a doctor, a profession often regarded as more suitable for men. The path to gender equality inevitably involves deconstructing this masculinized assumption. Despite the decades-long expectation that ikumen–men who actively participate in childcare in Japan–would contribute to a change toward gender equality, Japanese society is still male dominated, and women suffer from a large gender gap. With the aim of exploring implicit gendered assumptions concerning being a caregiver and a doctor, the authors focused on the experience of individuals juggling the binary roles of a professional and a caregiver.MethodsThe authors conducted subjectivist inductive research, recruited ten Japanese physician fathers through purposive sampling, and collected data through one-to-one semi-structured interviews between October 2017 and December 2018. The authors recorded and transcribed the narrative data, and extracted themes and representative narratives.ResultsThe study identified three themes about the reproduction and potential change of the gender gap: maintaining gendered assumptions of the medical profession without experiencing conflict, maintaining gendered assumptions of the medical profession while experiencing conflict, and deconstructing gendered assumptions of the medical profession through conflict. The authors found that these negotiations interplayed with the gendered division of labor between male doctors and their wives as well as the patriarchal family structure.ConclusionsThe study revealed how gendered assumptions of the medical profession, as well as gender stereotypes and gendered division of household labor, were reproduced in the course of male doctors’ negotiations when they became fathers. For male doctors to question their unconscious gender bias, the authors emphasize the importance of men gaining knowledge about gender stereotypes, and propose that educators create such opportunities. Moreover, the authors assert that increasing doctors’ awareness of how masculinized assumptions implicitly interact with ideas of being a doctor—an aspect rarely discussed among medical professionals—is crucial for deconstructing the gendered normativity in the medical field.

The gendered associations between precarious employment and mental health in working-age Australians: A longitudinal analysis using 16 waves of the HILDA survey

Unemployment and precarious employment (PE) are routinely found to be associated with poorer mental health. Importantly, women are over-represented in PE (due to disproportionate unpaid care demands), yet a gender lens has been lacking in much of the extant literature. This study addresses several gaps by reconsidering how PE can be conceptualised from a gender perspective and examining the impact of differing levels of multidimensional PE on the mental health of working-age Australians. Utilising sixteen annual waves (2005–2020) of the HILDA survey, this longitudinal study employed mixed-effects analysis and Mundlak modelling to examine the association between PE and mental health in working-age (25–64yrs) adults. Mental health was assessed using the MHI-5 scale. A multidimensional PE scale (based on objective and subjective indicators) was developed and three levels of precarity were modelled. 19,442 participants were included in the analyses and all models were stratified by gender. We found women experience greater exposure to PE in Australia, and our results showed a ubiquitously strong and negative association between PE and mental health in both women and men, across all levels of PE, with a dose dependent association observed with increasing PE. Additional adjustment for prior mental health slightly attenuated effect sizes, but the strength and direction of all associations were unchanged. This study provides longitudinal evidence of the detrimental impact of PE on the mental health of working age Australians, highlighting the importance of labour regulations and employment policies to minimize PE for all adults. However, given women's differential exposure to PE, this study also reinforces the urgent need for gender-sensitive social policies to address continued inequity in the division of unpaid household labour to promote a more equitable paid labour market into the future.

Access to credit cards and household labor participation: Evidence from China

Using two-wave panel data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), this study aims to examine the impact of credit card access on household labor participation in China. The findings reveal a significant positive relationship between credit card use and labor market decision, even after addressing concerns related to endogeneity and conducting various robustness checks. Moreover, it suggests that the act of paying off credit debt could serve as a potential mechanism that motivates household members to join the workforce. There is further evidence indicating that carrying a credit card may enhance work intensity and boost entrepreneurial activity.

Academic Discourses on Causes of and Solutions to Poverty in India

This paper analyses academic discourses about factors that cause/perpetuate or eliminate poverty. It finds that the academic debates on the subject have been dominated by economists and have concentrated mainly on economic backwardness and/or unequal distribution of productive assets as the major causes of poverty in India. The consensus that emerges from these suggests that growth is important but other factors such as the growth of employment and real wage rates are equally important since the majority of the poor in India are rural labour households with marginal or no landholdings. The alternative discourse by political scientists highlights the importance of political factors and unequal distribution of power and resources in causing poverty and therefore suggests land reforms, empowerment, the need for inclusive policies/politics and peoples’ movement as some of the solutions. Sociological studies of poverty bring out the role of social institutions such as the caste system (a system of institutionalized inequality) and patriarchy in bringing a disproportionate burden of poverty on certain disadvantaged sections of society such as the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, women, etc. State level studies highlight the importance of ‘Quality of Governance’ while village level studies provide useful insights based on the people’s experience of falling in and out of poverty. The paper thus finds that the understanding of causes of poverty is affected by – (a) Academic Disciplines of the researchers; (b) Ideology of the researchers and (c) the level of enquiry, i.e. national, state, district or village.

How Americans Respond to Idiosyncratic and Exogenous Changes in Household Wealth and Unearned Income

Abstract We study how Americans respond to idiosyncratic and exogenous changes in household wealth and unearned income. Our analyses combine administrative data on U.S. lottery winners with an event study design. We first examine individual and household earnings responses to these windfall gains, finding significant and sizable wealth and income effects. On average, an extra ${\$}$1 of unearned income in a given period reduces household labor earnings by about 50 cents, decreases total labor taxes by 10 cents, and increases consumption expenditure by 60 cents. These effects are heterogeneous across the income distribution, with households in higher quartiles of the income distribution reducing their earnings by a larger amount. Next we examine margins of adjustment other than earnings and, in the course of doing so, address a number of important economic questions about how additional wealth or unearned income affect retirement decisions and labor market dynamics, family formation and dissolution, entrepreneurship and self-employment, and geographic mobility and neighborhood choice. Last, we carefully compare our findings to those reported in existing lottery studies. This comparison reveals that existing U.S. studies substantially underestimate wealth and income effects because they use measures that understate the earnings responses and overstate the after-tax wealth changes associated with lottery wins.

The gendered division of cognitive household labor, mental load, and family–work conflict in European countries

ABSTRACT The unequal division of cognitive labor within households, and its potential association with mental load and stress, has gained substantial interest in recent public and scholarly discussions. We aim to deepen this debate theoretically and empirically. First, going beyond the question of whether the division of cognitive labor is gendered, we connect cognitive household labor with existing stress theories and ask whether men and women typically perform cognitive labor tasks that involve different levels of stress. We then discuss whether women perform these stressful tasks more often, making them more prone to higher levels of family–work conflict. Second, we test the association between the division of cognitive labor and family–work conflict empirically using large-scale survey data from 10 European countries within the Generations & Gender Programme (GGP). Results based on logistic regressions confirm that a high share of cognitive labor increases women’s family–work conflict, but not men’s. We discuss future directions in the conceptualization and measurement of cognitive labor in the household and its implications for mental load. Through its contributions, this paper lays the foundations for a comprehensive understanding of the implications of an unequal division of cognitive labor in the household for gender inequality.

Brewing difference: malting, gender and urbanity in medieval England. An examination of drying and malting kilns, c.1150–1500

ABSTRACT Kilns used for drying grain and for malting are common features of archaeological excavations in medieval towns and in the countryside. They occur in a variety of situations, including within urban tenement plots, open spaces within the urban landscape, manorial enclosures and field systems. This paper examines what the situation of drying kilns can reveal about the ways in which household and community labour were organised and the role of infrastructure in cultivating and maintaining variegated forms of rural and urban sociality. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to ongoing debates about the legacy of ‘binary’ logics relating to urban and rural life and to the gendered use of space and forms of labour.

Changing time unchanging balance: Examining the effects of gender, personal dynamics, and actor-partner effect on Turkish couples division of household labor

Changing time unchanging balance: Examining the effects of gender, personal dynamics, and actor-partner effect on Turkish couples division of household labor

A study on the mode choice of large-scale households' farmland transfer-in in rural China: Based on the economic analysis paradigm of transaction costs.

Regarding the mode choice of farmland transfer, the existing literature have more examined the choices between market-based transfer (spontaneous transfer) and government or village committee-led transfer, and between formal contract and informal contract. However, the question that how the two parties choose among various specific transfer modes has not attracted extensive attention of scholars. Based on contract theory and transaction cost economics, this paper uses the public samples of the third national agricultural census data to investigate how large-scale households choose among the specific transfer modes when transferring into farmland, like the transfer of the contracted management right (TCMR), lease and shareholding. The findings of this paper are as follows. Firstly, with the increase in the transfer-in area and the education level of the household head, the probability of choosing lease and shareholding increases relatively, but the latter rises faster. Secondly, compared with large-scale farmers whose aim is to plant crop, the probability of those who transfer into farmland for gardening and forestry operation choosing shareholding has increased significantly. Thirdly, the age of the household head and the number of household laborers have an interactive effect on the mode choice of transferring into farmland. In addition, the mode choice of large-scale households' transferring into farmland is also significantly affected by environmental factors such as local topography, irrigation, traffic conditions, industrial structure, and social security development. Therefore, adhering to the parties to choose the mode of farmland transfer independently is crucial. The government and rural grassroots organizations should help the parties to understand the characteristics, adaptability and supply and demand of different modes, and help the parties to explore the most economical mode. The contribution of this paper is that it expands the study of the transfer of rural land rights to the choices of specific transfer modes, and partially reveals the rule of choices, which provides a reference for the parties to choose the most efficient transfer mode under different conditions and for the government and rural grassroots organizations to play a role.

Daytime dads and do‐it‐all dads: Understanding lead‐dad families

AbstractOne of the factors that perpetuates gender inequality is the inequitable division of household labor, and particularly the division of childcare labor. Even when women are employed outside the home, many remain primarily responsible for household duties and childcare. There is little research on the household division of labor and childcare in lead‐dad households. I use the term “lead dad” to refer to a father, with or without an outside job, who takes primary responsibility for the household and children. This research explores how different lead‐dad households operate, examining how two types of lead‐dad households handle childcare and household chores, and what this means for the mother's domestic workload. From interviews with married or cohabitating heterosexual parents of children under five where fathers do most of the childcare, I find that lead‐dad households come in two forms: some dads do‐it‐all and some do not (daytime dads). The key difference between do‐it‐all dads and daytime dads is that do‐it‐all dads take care of almost all household chores and childcare. Meanwhile, daytime dads' primary focus is on taking care of the kids while mom is at work. However, even in households where dads “do it all,” moms are still heavily involved in the cognitive labor required to operate a household (e.g., planning playdates and scheduling summer camps). These findings have important implications for the study of the household division of labor and parenting expectations of mothers and fathers, exemplifying how gendered expectations do not necessarily swap when lead‐parent roles are reversed.

Changing gender norms and household resource allocation

Abstract Traditional gender norms that assume gendered household resource allocation are persistent. What happens when society-wide gender norms begin to change? By collecting newspaper articles about feminism in the past 10 years in Korea and exploiting their region–year variations, we first provide evidence that an explosive increase in newspaper coverage of feminism after the mid-2010s caused a steep change toward egalitarian attitudes among women. Then, we construct a Bartik IV with the newspapers’ market shares and growth of the feminism-related articles to show that the change in women’s perceptions of gender norms induced by the media-influence affected both spouses’ time use in household labor and women’s welfare. The wives influenced by those articles substantially reduced their household labor and outsourced them to the market, while the husbands’ participation did not increase as much. The wives’ marital happiness was improved by replacing housework burdens with shared activities with their husbands.

Doing it all: Effects of Family Responsibilities and Marital Relationship Quality on Mothers' Ambulatory Blood Pressure.

The shared provider responsibility between married couples does not translate to equally shared division of childcare (CC) and household labor. While some marriages contain highly positive aspects, marriages may also simultaneously contain both positive and negative aspects. The negativity in these relationships can negate the positivity and could potentially lead to the detriment of mothers' health. We examined mothers' ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) associated with their marital relationship quality and perceived equity with her spouse on CC and household tasks. We investigate these associations using a mixed multilevel model analysis on a sample of 224 mothers in heterosexual marriages, all of whom had children under the age of 18 years currently living in the home. Mothers' perception of equity in the division of CC responsibilities contributed to lower ABP. Additionally, mothers in supportive marital relationships (low negativity and high positivity) had lower ABP than those in ambivalent relationships (both high negativity and positivity). There was a crossover interaction such that the effect of relationship quality on ABP was moderated by the perception of equity in the division of CC. For mothers who report doing all the CC, they had lower ABP if they had a supportive marital relationship compared with mothers in ambivalent relationships. Whereas mothers who report more equity in CC and have a supportive relationship have higher ABP compared with mothers in ambivalent relationships. This study has implications related to dynamics within marital relationships. These results demonstrate important relational influences on mothers' ABP.

School truancy and welfare receipt dynamics in early adulthood: A longitudinal study

School truancy is associated with many negative life outcomes, including violent, property, and drug offending, lower levels of education, and subsequently lower status and lower-paying jobs. These negative life outcomes are also related to future reliance on government welfare payments. This research sought to identify how high school truancy affects young people's welfare receipt dynamics in emerging adulthood. It uses longitudinal data from a nationally representative household panel survey (the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey) to estimate the effect of truancy on young people's likelihood of receiving government-paid cash transfers in emerging adulthood. We find that young people who are truant are over four times more likely to receive cash transfers than young people who are not truant. Findings also show that the extent of truancy does not impact the likelihood of welfare receipt, even when differentiating between infrequent and problem truants. We conclude with some comments on truancy's role in welfare dynamics.