Men's Housework Research Articles

Do more egalitarian men experience less union dissolution? A couple‐level analysis

AbstractObjectiveWe consider whether heterosexual unions in which male partners are more gender egalitarian experience less union dissolution.BackgroundGender revolution theory argues that as men become more egalitarian in their attitudes and behaviors, female partners experience reduced work–family conflict, and couples enjoy more stable partnerships. In contrast, the “flip side” perspective argues that consequences of men's increased egalitarian behavior for their own experience of role incompatibility may counterbalance effects on union stability.MethodAnalyzing a sample of roughly 46,600 women‐years from the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society (1993–2019), we estimate random‐intercept and fixed‐effects models of union dissolution. Explanatory variables include, for each partner, measures of egalitarianism in gender role attitudes and weekly housework hours.ResultsOdds of union dissolution are not associated with men's absolute level of egalitarian attitudes, but they are higher when men's attitudes are less egalitarian than their partner's. Neither the absolute number of men's housework hours, nor their share of total housework, is associated with the odds of dissolution.ConclusionsOur findings are not generally supportive of gender revolution theory. Counterbalancing effects may provide an explanation for the findings, as per the flip side approach.ImplicationsTaking a couple‐level perspective advances understanding of the associations between gender egalitarianism and union dissolution.

Premarital cohabitation and the gendered division of household labor in China

Premarital cohabitation has been understudied in China, and its impact on marriages in the region remains largely unexplored. This study examines the implications of premarital cohabitation for gender inequalities in Chinese marriages. The author analyzes how married couples with and without the experience of premarital cohabitation compare in the amounts of time they spend doing housework, whether the differences can be attributed to social and economic factors, and to what extent the experience of cohabitation equalizes the gendered division of housework. Drawing on four waves of data (2010, 2014, 2016, and 2018) from the China Family Panel Studies, this study is one of the first to provide nationally representative evidence on the relationship between premarital cohabitation and housework in China. Propensity score weighting and linear mixed effect models were employed. In contrast to findings from Western contexts, this study finds that in China, premarital cohabitation is not associated with a smaller gender gap in housework time after accounting for factors that affect selection into cohabitation. However, premarital cohabitation was associated with a significant decrease in women's housework time among urban residents and couples married after 1995, while its effect on men's housework time was not significant. Findings from this study highlight a gendered cohabitation effect on housework hours in China and underscore the importance of contextualizing the meanings of cohabitation and housework in non-Western contexts.

Young Children, Growing Children – How Does Their Presence in the Family Affect Time Allocation Decisions for Men and Women?

Abstract Objective This paper attempts to examine the influence of selected characteristics of household members on how they manage their time as an economic resource. Methodology In order to account for the interpenetration of different spheres of people’s activity and preferences regarding their choice, a multiple-equation model, in the form of structural equations, was used. Findings Among the potential determinants of individuals’ time allocation, the following were identified: gender, age, labor force participation, wage rates, the presence of children, education level, and the structure of the household itself, including the presence of a partner. The conclusions, formulated on the basis of the findings, focus on gender inequalities in terms of the time devoted to work and the role of children in shaping the daily activity of adults. Value Added While the presence of a young child primarily results in a decrease in paid-work time and an increase in household work for women, older children tend to help with housework, which mainly results in a reduction in housework for men. It was also observed that taking care of a child by a single person, irrespective of gender, is associated with a significantly greater increase in total domestic work time compared to the situation in households formed by two adults. Recommendations The traditional version of the neoclassical theory describes the demand for market goods and services separately. The new household theory breaks with this dichotomy and shows that consumption decisions cannot be interpreted without also considering the supply of labor, or the time allocation of individuals in general. Work on time allocation is important not only in the context of understanding the determinants of non-market activity and leisure time, but also in research on the valuation of working time. Time use databases combined with monetary budget data are used in analyses of the economics of human resource use and in new methods for estimating consumption among household members. Research on Polish households in this area is the next stage of research work that will be undertaken in the near future.

Patterns of housework performance in the United States before, during, and after the Great Recession.

Housework is a key area of research across many academic fields as it represents the intersection of micro- and macro-level gender dynamics. Despite many shifts in both women's and men's economic activities, and men's changing gender beliefs, women remain largely responsible for the management and performance of domestic labor. Given the relationship between paid employment and household work, this research describes patterns of women's and men's housework before, during, and after the Great Recession. Using American Time Use Survey data, I perform latent profile analysis to document the distributions of housework tasks and time for women and men across these three time periods. While women perform the majority of housework across the time frame, women and men converge in their time during the Recession. Further, men's time becomes more varied and more similar to women's Post-Recession. The findings in this research brief highlight the connections between macro-level change and micro-level behavior.

남편의 지원이 기혼여성의 노동시장 참여에 미치는 영향

This paper analyzed the effect of husband's support on the labor supply of married women by using data from the KLIPS 17th (2014) survey and additional survey. In the analysis of labor supply, the employment status and working hours model were used, and then the factors of husband's participation in housework sharing were examined. The probit estimation was applied to the employment status model, and the tobit estimation method was applied to the working hours and husband's household share rate model because women's working hours and men's housework hours had the characteristics of left-censored data. As a result of the estimation, it was found that the couple's perception of the progressive gender role and the sharing of domestic labor among men had a positive effect on married women's participation in the labor market. On the other hand, the stronger men's perception of the fair sharing of household labor, the higher the participation rate of household labor. In order to increase Korean women's participation in the labor market, it seems necessary to improve men's perception of gender roles and to allow men to participate in housework sharing. In addition, it seems necessary to expand national childcare so that women can participate in the labor market without worrying about their children.

Expecting better: Experimental investigations of the benefits of men's access to parental leave for anticipated well‐being

AbstractWe conducted the first experimental tests of the impact of men's access to paid parental leave on anticipated well‐being among heterosexual men and women in the United States. Participants read a news article reporting that paid paternity leave was either likely or unlikely in the United States in the near future, completed a future life‐brainstorming task designed to make this scenario more salient, and reported anticipated outcomes pertaining to well‐being (predicted relationship satisfaction, positive and negative emotions, and life satisfaction). Results from an online sample (Experiment 1, N = 694) revealed that both men and women predicted more positive outcomes when they believed paid paternity leave would (vs. would not) exist. In contrast, results from students (Experiment 2, N = 199) revealed that women predicted better outcomes in the leave (vs. no leave) condition, while men predicted consistently positive outcomes regardless of condition. Looking at the interaction the other way, paternity leave closed a gender gap in anticipated well‐being favoring men. Exploratory analyses revealed that students anticipated increased relationship gender equality in division of labor as a result of paternity leave, but only in gender counter‐stereotypic domains (i.e., paid work outside the home for women; unpaid childcare and housework for men).

Division of Housework in Transitional Urban China

This study examines how historical transitions that occurred during individuals’ young adulthood are related to the division of housework among married couples in urban China. Using data from the 2006 China Health and Nutrition Survey, analyses compare housework participation among 398 married couples from the pre-reform generation, 432 couples from the early-reform generation, and 107 couples from the late-reform generation. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression results show that regardless of generation, wives continue to undertake the majority of housework. Significant shifts in housework are found across generations among men, wherein husbands of the pre-reform generation spend more time on housework than husbands in the two reform generations. Although the division of housework remains highly gendered across generations, findings suggest that a political endeavor toward promoting gender equality may have played a role in altering men's housework behaviors.

Men's Housework, Women's Housework, and Second Births in Australia

Is gender inequality in unpaid work within households implicated in falling fertility rates? This paper investigates whether the likelihood couples with one child will have more children is affected by: (i) the amount of household labor they each perform or (ii) the way they divide household labor between themselves. Drawing a sample of partnered couples with one child (n = 573) from the longitudinal Household, Income and Labor Dynamics in Australia survey, we conduct multivariate regression analysis and find the more housework that Australian women do, the less likely they are to have more children. Neither fathers' time allocation to housework, nor relative shares of housework, were found to have an effect on subsequent fertility. Thus, mothers' own domestic workloads negatively impacted upon fertility, but shares of housework did not.

Care in Context: Men's Unpaid Work in 20 Countries, 1965–2003

By situating men within the country and time period in which they live, social scientists are better able to understand men's housework and child care behaviors. The author proposes that national context, conceptualized here as women's employment practices and policies, influences men's unpaid work behaviors by shaping the benefits of specialization, the terms of bargaining, and the ease of adhering to gender ideologies and norms. Using 44 time-use surveys from 20 countries (spanning 1965 to 2003) combined with original national-level data, the author utilizes multilevel models to test hypotheses regarding the relationship between national context and men's unpaid work behaviors. She finds that men's unpaid work time increases with national levels of women's employment. Furthermore, the effect of children on men's unpaid work time depends on women's national employment hours, the length of available parental leave, and men's eligibility to take parental leave, which indicates that particular public policies affect men in specific household situations. The analyses document the importance of national context for the unpaid work behaviors of all men, especially fathers, and shift the research focus from the attributes of individual men to the structures that hinder and facilitate men's unpaid work.

Money Equals Time: Influence of Poverty Status on Hours Spent Doing Housework

ABSTRACT Using data drawn from the second wave of the National Study of Families and Households (n = 3,263), this study examines relationships between poverty status and hours spent doing housework. The measure of housework time was computed by summing self-reported estimates of the number of hours spent performing core domestic tasks such as ironing, preparing meals, and washing dishes. Hierarchical regression analysis indicates that compared to their non-poor counterparts, women in poverty spend significantly more time performing household tasks. The effect of poverty on men's housework time was unchanged. The findings from this study may be useful for both policy and practice in recognizing that poor women carry an extra burden of added household time that may deplete personal resources and further complicate efforts to move into paid employment.

A Regional Tradition of Gender Equity: Shanghai Men in Sydney, Australia

Drawn on data from in-depth interviews with 34 Chinese migrants in Sydney, Australia, this study examines the division of labor in the family, with a focus on men's housework participation and regional differences in terms of migrants' home origin in China. An observed pattern of Shanghai men's housework participation emerged that does not support the theoretical underpinnings of power/resources structure, socialization model, and exchange theory. Shanghai men's housework participation, self-identification as Shanghai men, and self-perceived gender roles suggest there is a regional tradition of gender equity in Shanghai, which has an association with early industrialization, women's participation in the work force, exposure to the Western influences in Shanghai's early history, and social changes and gender reforms in contemporary Chinese society. The findings suggest that men's roles in the family are diverse, ethnic, historic, and regionalized.

Conservative Protestantism and the Division of Household Labor among Married Couples

To date, few studies have examined the role of religion, especially conservative (i.e., fundamentalist and evangelical) Protestantism, in shaping the division of housework. The authors begin by reviewing popular writings on gender and family life by contemporary conservative Protestants, focusing on the competing discourses of traditionalist and egalitarian evangelicals. Then, the authors analyze data on a large U.S. sample of married couples from Wave 1 of the National Survey of Families and Households to compare conservative Protestant housework patterns with those among nonevangelical couples. Conservative Protestant wives perform more housework overall and spend more time doing “female-typed” labor than their nonevangelical peers. These differences are then traced to religious variations in spousal and household resources and also to a distinctive evangelical gender ideology. Interestingly, few religious differences in men's housework patterns are observed. Implications of these findings are discussed and several promising directions for future research identified.

Is Anyone Doing the Housework? Trends in the Gender Division of Household Labor

Time-diary data from representative samples ofAmerican adults show thatthenumber ofoverall hours ofdomestic labor (excluding child care andshopping) has continued to decline steadily and predictably since 1965. This finding is mainly due todramatic declines among women (both in and out of thepaidlabor market), whohave cuttheir housework hours almostin halfsince the 1960s: abouthalfofwomen's 12-hour-per­ week decline can beaccountedfor bycompositional shifts - such asincreased labor force participation, later marriage, andfewer children. In contrast, men's housework time has almost doubled during thisperiod (to thepointwhere menwere responsible for a third ofhousework in the 1990s), and only about15% of theirfive-hour-per­ week increase can be attributed to compositional factors. Parallel results on gender differences in housework were obtained from theNational Survey of Families and Households estimate data, even though these producefigures 50%higher thandiary data. Regression results examiningfactors related to wives' andhusbands' housework hours showmore support for the time-availability and relative-resource models of household production thanfor thegender perspective, although there issome support for thelatter perspective aswell.

The Effects of Transitions in Marital Status on Men's Performance of Housework

Using data from the two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households, I analyze the impact of transitions in marital status on changes in men's time spent in housework. The transitions occur among five marital statuses: never married, cohabiting, married, separated, and widowed. I find that men reduce the time they spend in routine housework when they form couple households and increase it when they leave couple households. In contrast, women increase the time they spend doing housework when they enter coresidential unions and reduce it when they exit. This finding suggests that, with respect to housework time at least, the formation of households with adult partners of the opposite gender remains more to men's advantage than to women's. Key Words: cohabitation, divorce, gender, housework, marriage. Suddenly men are hot topic. So begins Gerson's recent study (1993) of changes in men's commitments to their families and work. There is growing scholarly interest in the erosion of men's roles as primary breadwinners and their undertaking more complex and differentiated set of familial responsibilities, including those of household labor (e.g., Coltrane, 1996). Despite this increasing interest in men's family roles, however, our knowledge of the dynamics of men's housework behavior remains meager. Although we know that there have been substantial changes at the aggregate level-men's housework hours per week increased from an average of 4.6 in 1965 to almost 10 in 1985 (Robinson, 1988)-the existing empirical literature is practically silent on the possible causes of changes in individual men's housework behavior. Specifically, previous research has ignored the effects of transitions in household and marital status on individuals' performance of housework. With the exception of South and Spitze (1994), the quantitative literature has examined only the division of housework in existing couple households (Berk, 1985; Blair & Lichter, 1991; Coverman, 1985; England & Farkas, 1986; Huber & Spitze, 1983; Shelton & John, 1993). Hence, although we know something about the hours that men and women in couple households spend doing housework, we do not understand how those hours are affected by household formation or dissolution. I report the first multivariate longitudinal analysis to date of the impact of transitions in marital status on men's time spent doing housework. I use data from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to answer the questions: How do men change their housework time when they move in and out of marital or cohabiting unions with women, and how do those changes compare with changes made by women who experience transitions in marital status? My longitudinal analysis provides better understanding of the causal link between marital status and housework time than does existing cross-sectional research. The temporal ordering of transitions in marital status and changes in housework time is relatively unambiguous. Although it is possible that men and women change their housework hours in anticipation of such transitions, it is more likely that the transitions precede changes in housework time. Hence, I provide clearer specification of the causal relationship between marital status and housework time than has been available to date. BACKGROUND I draw on the ideas of doing gender, perspective that views domestic labor as process by which individuals define their gender identities. In their seminal article on this concept, West and Zimmerman (1987) argue that gender should be understood as a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction (p. 125). That is, gender is enacted and affirmed continuously by individuals through their interactions with other individuals. Coresidential heterosexual unions are the smallest interactional units in which individuals establish their gender identities through daily activities, for example, their performance of housework. …

Images of Work: Women's Work, Men's Work, Housework

Resume: Ce papier examine l'image des adolescents par rapport aux travaux des hommes, aux travaux des femmes et le travail menager. Les donnees du papier proviennent d'interviews de 1200 adolescents ages de 17 ans de la region de Hamilton, Halifax et la Nouvelle - Ecosse rurale. Les jeunes expriment leurs attitudes concernant a) les emplois domines par les hommes et les femmes, b) l'emploi de leur mere, l'emploi de leur pere et le fait d'etre une menagere a temps plein, et c) des descriptions de leur propres attentes d'emploi futur, les emplois de leur pere et leur mere et le travail menager. Les travaux des femmes est rapporter moins desirable que les travaux des hommes, le travail menager es vu comme le travail des femmes et moins desirable (a tous sauf les femmes de la classe ouvriere) que le travail renumere. Les emplois des peres de la classe moyenne sont a la fois desirables et decrit en manieres similaires aux emplois attendus par leurs fils et leurs filles de la classe moyenne. Les femmes de la classe ouvriere sont vraisemblablement a decrire le travail de leur mere en termes positifs et a definir le travail menager comme un option viable. Abstract: This paper examines youth images of men's and housework, based on interview data from 1200 seventeen year olds in Hamilton, Halifax and rural Nova Scotia. Youth respondents report their attitudes to (a) male and female dominated jobs, (b) their mother's job, their father's job and being a full-time homemaker, and (c) their descriptions of their own expected job, their father's and mother's job and housework. Women's is reported as less desirable than men's housework is seen as and as less desireable (to all but working class females) than work. Jobs of middle class fathers are both desireable to and described in ways similar to the jobs expected by their sons and middle class daughters. Working class females tend to describe their mother's in positive terms and define housework as a viable option. Introduction This paper looks at the images that youth have of work. In Canada, as in other industrialized nations, the realm of dominates the lives of young people and shapes their images of themselves (Krahn, 1995; Spenner and Rosenfeld, 1990). Given its salience, we expect that adolescents will have developed relatively detailed images of the world of work.(1) Many of these images are developed within a family context and are anchored in youths' perceptions of their parents' work. A guiding principle in our paper is that images are socially constructed and socially distributed. That is, the images we have of reflect our own social location and the social locations that are associated with that type of work. Men's work, for example, is seen differently than women's work (cf. Beechy and Perkins, 1987), and images males and females construct of the world of will reflect the gender constraints they have themselves experienced (Glick et al., 1995: 565-566). We conceptualise as activity that entails obligation and responsibility. In this way our concept includes both paid work (i.e. participation in the labour force) and unpaid particularly the associated with running a household and caring for children.(2) We argue that youth develop conceptions of what their own will be like in relation to their images of the of others they see around them, particularly their parents. That is, they are likely to use their parents' as a reference point for their own both in terms of the specific type of to which they aspire and more generally what they see as important characteristics of desireable and undesireable jobs. We see images of as containing two important dimensions: evaluation and linkage. Certain attributes are judged as desirable and others not. For example, creative may be seen as desirable, dirty not. …

Gender, Labor Allocations, and the Psychology of Entitlement within the Home

This study analyzes the effects of partners' absolute and relative labor allocations on women's and men's perceived fairness of the division of household chores within unions. Using data from the 1988 National Survey of Families and Households, the analyses indicate that (1) men's housework efforts are powerful determinants of women's and men's fairness perceptions, and (2) women's employment hours have no effect on men's fairness perceptions while significantly increasing women's perceptions of unfairness to themselves. This study expands on Blair and Johnson's (1992) analysis of wives' perceptions of fairness by showing that men (and not just women) perceive that their housework affects fairness toward women. Major's (1987) hypothesis about gender differences in entitlement psychology and Thompson's (1991) hypothesis about “between-gender” referents are used to interpret the findings.

Housework in Marital and Nonmarital Households

Although much recent research has explored the division of household labor between husbands and wives, few studies have examined housework patterns across marital statuses. This paper uses data from the National Survey of Families and Households to analyze differences in time spent on housework by men and women in six different living situations: never married and living with parents, never married and living independently, cohabiting, married, divorced, and widowed. In all situations, women spend more time than men doing housework, but the gender gap is widest among married persons. The time women spend doing housework is higher among cohabitants than among the never-married, is highest in marriage, and is lower among divorcees and widows. Men's housework time is very similar across both never-married living situations, in cohabitation, and in marriage. However, divorced and widowed men do substantially more housework than any other group of men, and they are especially more likely than their married counterparts to spend more time cooking and cleaning. In addition to gender and marital status, housework time is affected significantly by several indicators of workload (e.g., number of children, home ownership) and time devoted to nonhousehold activities (e.g., paid employment, school enrollment)-most of these variables have greater effects on women's housework time than on men's. An adult son living at home increases women's housework, whereas an adult daughter at home reduces housework for women and men. These housework patterns are generally consistent with an emerging perspective that views housework as a symbolic enactment of gender relations. We discuss the implications of these findings for perceptions of marital equity.

Men's Housework: A Life Course Perspective

Using a representative sample of married couples with children in the United States, this study explored how the timing of the transition to parenthood is associated with later divisions of domestic labor. Three common explanations for gendersegregated divisions of household labor-ideology, relative resources, and time availabilitywere tested for earlyand delayed-birth couples with a covariance structure model (LISREL). Time availability and wife's ideology were consistent predictors of husbands' sharing more of the routine housework in both early and delayed households. Resource/exchange models were supported for early-birth couples and socialization/ ideology models were supported for delayed-birth couples. Explanations for the influence of birth timing on patterns of household labor are discussed and the need for future longitudinal analysis is stressed.

Work patterns and marital status change

The impact of marital status changes on the lives of adults and children has increased importance as marriage, divorce, and remarriage have become more frequent patterns of family composition change. These events can often be predicted by the family members involved so that they may be accompanied by changes in labor market activity prior to the events themselves. The study reported here uses panel data to examine the labor market activity changes that precede marital status changes. Women who become divorced increase hours of work in the year or two before the divorce occurs, and women who become remarried decrease hours of work in the year of the remarriage and thereafter. For men there seems to be little change in labor supply during these years. However, hours of housework for men do seem to change.

Change in Men's Housework and Child-Care Time, 1965-1975

The object of this study is to examine change in men's housework and child-care time between 1965 and 1975, a period characterized by significant change both in women's domestic work and in their labor-force participation. Multiple classification analysis is employed to examine change in men's mean housework and child-care time, adjusted for several sociodemographic variables that also may have altered during the decade in question. Neither unadjusted nor adjusted means of men's housework or child-care time changed significantly between 1965 and 1975. Further, few systematic changes in the time spent in housework and child care are observed for specific categories of men. The most important factors influencing men's housework time in both years are paid-work time and leisure time. Key variables that emerge in the analysis of child-care time include paid-work time and the number and ages of children. Overall, the findings cast doubt on the supposed convergence of men's and women's roles. Clearly, men did little between 1965 and 1975 to offset the household pressures created by women's increased participation in the labor force. The findings also raise broader questions concerning the implications of the reorganization of domestic production for the structure of the family.