Performance Of Housework Research Articles

Can AI Robot Teaching Improve Children’s Performance in Housework? A Quasi-Experimental Study

Background: The primary objective of this study is to explore the effects of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) robot-assisted instruction in preschool activities on young children’s performance in housework. Methods: A quasi-experimental design was employed, with an experimental group and two control groups, to observe changes in children’s performance in housework before and after AI robot-assisted teaching. The study sample consisted of preschoolers from metropolitan Taipei, with 65 children in the experimental group, 53 in control group 1, and 75 in control group 2. Children participating in the research project required consent from the school, teachers, and parents. The children in the experimental group received AI robot-assisted instruction on household tasks for two days a week over three consecutive weeks, with each session lasting approximately 20–30 min. Control group 1 did not receive any experimental treatment, while control group 2 underwent the same learning schedule and content as the experimental group but was instructed by teachers instead of AI robots. The data were analyzed based on pre- and post-test surveys of parents observing their children’s performance in household tasks. Results: This study found that both AI robot-assisted teaching and teacher-led instruction enhanced children’s household skills, with the AI robot-assisted method showing slightly better results. These findings suggest that both technological tools and teacher guidance can effectively improve children’s housework performance, while artificial intelligence robots may provide young children with motivation and curiosity to learn due to their appearance and interactive design, which deserves further analysis. Conclusion: As technology rapidly advances, young children are exposed to various technological devices at an early age. Integrating technological media into future preschool teaching is inevitable, and leveraging tools like AI robots to support teaching, reduce teacher burden, and diversify instructional methods could be a direction worth considering.

Remote Work, Gender Ideologies, and Fathers’ Participation in Childcare during the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work became the new reality for many fathers. Though time availability theory suggests that this newfound flexibility should lead to more domestic labor on the part of fathers, many were skeptical that fathers would step up to shoulder the load at home. Indeed, the findings are decidedly mixed on the association of fathers’ remote work with their performance of housework and childcare. Nonetheless, research has yet to consider how contextual factors, such as fathers’ gender ideologies and mothers’ employment, may condition these associations. Using data from Wave 1 of the Study on U.S. Parents’ Divisions of Labor During COVID-19 (SPDLC), we examine how gender ideology moderates the association between fathers’ remote work and their performance and share of childcare during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in both sole-earner and dual-earner families. The results show, for sole-earning fathers and dual-earner fathers with egalitarian gender attitudes, that the frequency of remote work was positively associated with fathers performing more, and a greater share of, childcare during the pandemic. Yet, only dual-earner fathers with egalitarian gender attitudes performed an equal share of childcare in their families. These findings suggest that the pandemic provided structural opportunities for fathers, particularly egalitarian-minded fathers, to be the equally engaged parents they desired.

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.

Association between housework and the risk of dementia among older Chinese adults: a prospective cohort study.

Physical activity (PA) is known to improve physical functioning and mental health and to reduce the incidence of dementia. However, studies of the effects of non-recreational PA on the incidence of dementia, especially in East Asian populations, remain limited. In this study, we evaluate the association of doing housework with the risk of dementia among participants in the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). The analysis was conducted with data from 7,237 CLHLS participants age over 65 obtained in 2008/2009, 2011/2012, 2014, and 2018. The frequency of housework performance was classified into four groups. A Cox proportional-hazards model was used to examine the association of the baseline housework frequency with the incidence of dementia, with adjustment for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and lifestyle and health conditions. The adjusted multivariate model showed that the incidence of dementia was lower among participants who did housework almost every day than among those who rarely or never did housework (hazard ratio = 0.49; 95% confidence interval, 0.39-0.61). The subgroup and sensitivity analyses yielded similar results. A high frequency of housework performance was associated with a reduced incidence of dementia among older Chinese adults, especially those who did not exercise regularly. The encouragement of engagement in housework would be a cost-effective measure promoting healthy aging in the Chinese population.

Young Children’s Housework Participation in Taiwan: Serial Multiple Mediations

The purpose of this study was to investigate not only the participating in housework but also the parents' attitude and child's preference, in relation to children's health and housework participation in Taiwan. We collected data from the Young Children's Housework Participation Questionnaire on "Google forms". A total of 755 parents with preschool children living in Keelung City, Taipei City, and New Taipei City participated through the snowball method. The results showed that children's health not only directly affected their housework performance but also indirectly influenced their housework participation through the serial multiple mediation of parents' attitude and the child's housework preference. Therefore, this study confirms that, when analyzing the factors of children's housework participation, it is necessary to have a clearer understanding of the relationship between variables to further construct a more complete model framework that affects children's housework participation. Additionally, it is very important for parenting education to improve parents' attitude towards the importance of children's housework and encourage children's preference for housework.

Childcare and housework performed by fathers with infants and related factors

Objective The aim of this study was to identify the status regarding childcare and housework performed by fathers with infants (one and two years old, first child), as well as related factors.Method An online survey of fathers with infants across Japan was administered in October 2020. The survey items encompassed basic attributes, work conditions, and child-rearing information, as well as items from the Quality of Marriage Index (QMI), Work-Family Conflict Scale (WFCS), and a Japanese version of the K6 screening tool. The frequency of performing childcare and housework was divided into two groups, frequent and infrequent, and furthers into four groups based on the combination of frequent and infrequent childcare and housework. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed with the frequent/infrequent childcare group, the frequent/infrequent housework group, and the four groups by childcare and housework each as dependent variables.Results Responses were obtained from subjects in 44 prefectures, with 406 responses used for analysis. Frequently performed items for childcare and housework were hugging, playing together, and taking out trash. Infrequent performed items were making hospital visits, ensuring children's regular medical examinations and vaccinations, preparing meals, and sleeping. The results of the multiple logistic regression analyses demonstrated that the groups citing the frequent performance of childcare tasks were correlated with participation in parenting/father-directed classes, the use of parental leave, wives engaged in formal employment, work requiring less than 10 hours of overtime per month, the highest level of education (junior high school, high school, junior college, vocational school, or technical school: non-university graduate), low WFCS scores, and high QMI scores. The groups citing the frequent performance of housework were associated with not living with grandparents, shift work, participation in parenting/father-directed classes, household yearly income of 6 million yen or more, highest level of education (non-university graduate), wife engaged in formal employment, wife's health condition (normal, poor, very poor), and high QMI scores. The subjects were divided into four groups: frequent childcare-frequent housework (38.4%), frequent childcare-infrequent housework (14.0%), infrequent childcare-frequent housework (19.5%), and infrequent childcare-infrequent housework (28.1%). Among the four groups, the highest correlation was observed for participation in parenting/father-directed classes, overtime hours, wife's work status, and QMI scores.Conclusion To promote participation in parenting, fathers should be encouraged to care for children more frequently and help with housework. As such, introducing support methods in classes for fathers is a necessary step toward this objective.

A comparison of the household labor performed by parents and teenage children in single-parent families and dual-parent families

This study aimed to explore the impact of differences in family structure and gender on the household labor of parents and teenagers. A total of 16,272 time diaries from the Korean Time Use Survey were used to analyze the influence of family structure and gender on the time spent on housework by parents and teenage children. Results from two-way ANOVA, multiple regression, and logistic regression analysis were as follows. Differences in the hours spent on household management and caring for family members were found based on family structure and gender. Mothers in dual-parent families or multi-local families did more hours of household management work than mothers in single-parent families. The household work hours of fathers in single-parent families differed from those of fathers in multi-local families and dual-parent families. Specifically, single fathers did significantly more housework than fathers in dual-parent families. Gender and family structure and the interaction between them showed significant effects on the household work activities of parents, especially in terms of meal preparation, cleaning, and housing management. Teenage children in single-parent families did more hours of household management work than those in dual-parent families, and a gender gap in the household work of teenage children in single-parent families was found; daughters did more household management work than sons in single-parent families, specifically in terms of meal preparation. For both parents and children of single-parent families, gender was an important factor in determining the time spent on household management. Based on the results, we propose a family policy and public services to alleviate the gender gap in the performance of housework and to support the work-life balance of parents and children in single-parent families.

Time Availability: Assessing Causal Ordering in the Performance of Paid Labor and Unpaid Housework

Key to understanding gender inequality in families, the time availability hypothesis implies that one’s time in paid work negatively affects one’s time in unpaid housework. Although dozens of studies have demonstrated an association between husbands’ and wives’ time in the paid labor force and their performance of housework, most suffer from numerous limitations, especially the use of unidirectional modeling and cross-sectional data. This is problematic since these methods cannot assess causal directionality and since human capital theory suggests that housework responsibilities affect time in paid work. Using structural equation modeling and two stage least squares regression—two methods that can help parse causal ordering—and data from the 1987–88 and 1992–94 waves of the U.S. National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) this study finds no support for the time availability hypothesis regarding the association between paid work hours and unpaid housework. Consistent with human capital theory, husbands’ housework time affects their own time in paid work. No association is found among wives.

Households and work in their economic contexts: State-level variations in gendered housework performance before, during, and after the great recession

ABSTRACT Women remain largely responsible for the management and performance of domestic labor despite many shifts in both women’s and men’s economic activities. The Great Recession changed the economic landscape in the United States in important ways, affecting men’s economic experiences substantially. Some states were affected less by the recession, thereby providing households a buffer against its harmful effects. Understanding the social and economic contexts of housework such as those influenced by the Great Recession can yield important insights for contemporary American family life and make significant contributions to occupational science as a discipline. The purpose of this project is two-fold. First, we use 2003-2015 American Time Use Study data to examine housework performance before, during, and after the Great Recession. To what extent did the changing economic conditions associated with the Recession change how women and men allocated time to housework? Second, we situate households into geographic context to determine whether and how state-level employment opportunities (e.g., unemployment rate) and policies (e.g., minimum wage) shape women’s and men’s housework performance and how these state-level characteristics provided different contexts for housework before, during, and after the Great Recession. The results indicate that men’s housework hours increased over the three time periods, while women’s housework hours decreased. Individuals living in Census divisions characterized by less traditional gender ideologies reported performing less housework. This project demonstrates the power of social norms around housework performance and documents how housework remains a gendered occupation in the United States and thus a social problem related to the inequitable distribution of unpaid labor worth examining.

Trends in Children’s Gendered Housework Performance. Time Use Evidence from Germany, 1991–2013

Like their parents, children are productive members of their households and may contribute to housework. This study is the first to examine trends in children’s housework behavior in Germany. Using data from the German Time Use Study, 12–17-year-old boys’ and girls’ participation in and time use for housework activities are tracked between 1991 and 2013. The analytical focus is on the relation between the time spent on housework by parents and children and its development over time. It is shown that there is no change in children’s overall participation in housework, but that girls and boys spent fewer days on housework in 2012/2013 than 20 years ago. Furthermore, children’s average time spent on housework decreased in the observed timeframe, but remained constant on days on which children actually do housework. Moreover, children’s time use is positively related to parents’ time use, especially for same-sex parent-child-dyads. In conclusion, trends in children’s time use resemble developments in parental housework behavior, especially concerning the decline of total housework time and gender convergence.

Do gender differences in housework performance and informal adult caregiving explain the gender gap in depressive symptoms of older adults?

ABSTRACT We assess whether gender differences in domestic time-use, including informal adult caregiving and housework, explain the gender gap in depression among older adults. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we model depressive symptoms as a function of informal adult caregiving and housework. The analytic sample includes 539 men and 782 women. Findings suggest informal adult caregiving is associated with increased depressive symptoms for women (p < .05) and men (p < .05). Time spent on housework is associated with decreased depressive symptoms for women and female caregivers (p < .01). Women may experience elevated depressive symptoms relative to men despite their domestic time-use.

What About Money? Earnings, Household Financial Organization, and Housework

AbstractObjective: This research investigates the role played by household financial organization in configuring the housework participation of women and men and in moderating the influence of earnings on housework.Background: Existing research has focused on the ways in which earnings shape gendered power and housework performance in couple relationships. However, no research has examined how household financial organization intervenes between the receipt of earnings in the labor market and the performance of housework at home.Method: Two‐stage least squares regressions were used to analyze data from Waves 2 and 4 of the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (N = 6,070 couples).Results: Management of household finances is associated with an increase in housework time for both men and women, whereas control of household financial decisions reduces men's but not women's housework time. Women's individual earnings reduce their housework time only when they can access these earnings. Men's relative earnings reduce their housework time when they or their partners manage the couple's earnings, but not when partners manage their earnings independently, supporting both resource bargaining theory and gendered resources theory. Women's individual earnings and men's relative earnings reduce their housework time only when they have partial or full control of household financial decisions.Conclusion: The management and control of household finances influence the time spent by women and men on housework in ways distinct from yet equally as important as those of earnings. Household financial organization is a key premise moderating when and how gender equality in the public sphere helps promulgate gender equality at home.

Occupational therapy medicolegal assessment of domestic assistance requirements: Focus group perspectives.

Estimating domestic assistance requirements within the medicolegal field is a role for occupational therapists. It is a complex multidimensional process of clinical reasoning with no published research outlining how an occupational therapist translates assessment data into the number of hours of domestic assistance required. This study describes the current occupational therapy practice of estimating domestic assistance hours within the medicolegal context. Three focus groups, totalling 14 occupational therapists providing medicolegal reports in New South Wales, were conducted. Sydney University provided ethics approval. Focus group data were thematically analysed. Four themes were identified: Tasks included as housework. Assessment process - interview of pre-injury and recovery status; functional performance on specific tasks and a tour of the home. Influential factors - include legal system restrictions, medical management, cultural and society values, family expectations, location and impact of diagnosis. Strategies to determine care - triangulation of observed data with medical reports and clinical experience. Knowledge of community and own performance times within the framework of occupational therapy philosophy DISCUSSION: No single method of translating assessment data to hours of care was identified. Therapists use of their own housework performance raises ethical issues. Use of claimant only statements raises issues of inaccurate data on which to base decisions. Therapists should refer to occupational therapy process of clinical reasoning to explain their recommendations even though the reasoning does not give a definite number of care hours. Therapists need to understand the factors influencing their clinical reasoning when integrating all available information into an estimating of domestic assistance hours. Further study analysing the content of medicolegal report may provide information as to how therapists document their clinical reasoning for court.

International perspective on factors influencing the performance of housework: a scoping review

Introduction Occupational therapists provide care opinions when assessing a person's capacity to perform housework. This skill requires occupational therapists to understand healthy populations' attitude towards housework. Method A scoping review was undertaken using keyword and MeSH terms. Thirty articles were identified as meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Each article was reviewed allowing thematic development of factors that influenced a person's decision to perform housework. Results Studies present data from 34 countries, many of which are classified as high- or upper-middle-income countries. The results indicated that housework is primarily performed by women. The time range was 11.5 hours/week to 27 hours/week. Impacting factors included the employment, marital and parental status of the household, the earning and education level of each person as well as their peer group attitudes, women's involvement in national legislation along with the social class and cultural attitudes towards women. In addition, the presence of children aged under 15 years or adults over 74 years in the household increased levels of housework performance. Conclusion The study reveals there is no single predictive factor on who performs housework, how long it will take nor the selection of tasks. This supports the occupational therapy philosophy of considering the individual's requirements when making care decisions.

Health and Housework in Later Life: A Longitudinal Study of Retired Couples.

To examine how changes in wives' and husbands' health influenced housework time and domestic outsourcing in retired couples. We estimated fixed-effects models to test hypotheses about the gendered influence of health declines on absolute and relative measures of time spent on routine and nonroutine housework as well as the probability of outsourcing housework. The data were obtained from 23 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, comprising N = 25,119 annual observations of N = 3,889 retired couples aged 60-85 years. Wives' and husbands' housework time declined with health status, but these effects were large only for serious health problems. We found evidence for within-couple compensation of spouses' health declines, a mechanism that was limited to indispensable tasks of routine housework. The probability of getting paid help from outside the household increased with declining health, and this increase was more strongly tied to wives' health declines than to husbands' health declines. The results demonstrate the relevance of health status for the performance of housework in retired couples. The evidence attests to the resilience of couples during later-life stages in which health issues may severely inhibit domestic productivity.

American Househusbands: New Time Use Evidence of Gender Display, 2003–2016

The traditional gendered division of household labor, where women did the bulk of all domestic labor, is eroding. The literature on housework, however, does not discuss the ways how to test for the non-traditional gender performances. Using the American Time Use Survey (2003–2016), the present study fills in this research gap and re-tests the relationship between relative earnings and the performance of housework. The analysis of women’s time spent on domestic work shows that the traditional gender display explanation still applies to women’s participation in routine tasks such as cooking and cleaning. Thus, breadwinning wives display gender neutralizing behavior and ‘do’ gender. On the other hand, American men show non-normative gender behavior in cooking and cleaning, but not in maintenance, where they still ‘do’ gender. This paper unveils a persistent traditional gender performance of women in housework and a new pattern for men’s involvement in indoor routine housework.

Relationship between housework and perceived happiness of middle-aged and older women in Taiwan—The moderating effect of health condition

ABSTRACTIn this study, we investigated how physical health moderates the effect of housework on the perceived well-being in a sample of middle-aged and older women living with a partner in Taiwan. Two main findings were identified: First, the health status of middle-aged and older women moderates the relationship between their sense of housework fairness and perceived happiness. Second, the health status of their spouse moderates the relationship between their housework performance and perceived happiness.

Changing Jobs and Changing Chores? The Longitudinal Association of Women’s and Men’s Occupational Gender-Atypicality and Couples’ Housework Performance

Prior research linking occupational sex composition (the proportion of women in an occupation) to housework has yielded conflicting results and relies exclusively on cross-sectional data. The present article extends scholarship on the gendered division of household labor by using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) 1981–2013 to assess how changes in occupational sex composition alter heterosexual married couples’ housework performance over time. I find that either spouse’s gender-atypical employment (e.g., husband’s employment in a predominately female job) is associated with gender-atypical housework performance by both spouses (e.g., higher housework hours for the husband and fewer hours for the wife). The association of women’s occupational sex composition with housework is driven by changes in individual women’s occupations and both spouses’ housework over time. In contrast, the association of men’s occupational sex composition with housework is driven by differences between different couples, not by within-couple change over time. Thus, fundamentally different causal mechanisms link women’s and men’s occupational sex composition to couples’ housework performance, and only for women are longitudinal changes in occupational sex composition associated with changes in housework. These findings have important implications for understanding occupation and housework as domains of gender performance.

Occupational Sex Composition and Gendered Housework Performance: Compensation or Conventionality?

AbstractThis article examines the association between occupational sex composition and housework, considering total housework time, time on male‐typed and female‐typed tasks, and the percent of total time spent on male and female tasks. Previous research examining male‐ and female‐typed chores independent of total housework suggests that couples compensate for gender‐atypical employment through gender‐typical housework performance, but this analysis of the National Survey of Families and Households (1992–1994) and the American Time Use Survey (2003–2013) demonstrates that assuming a quadratic association and failing to contextualize gendered housework performance within total housework performance obscures the true relationship between occupation and housework. In fact, women and men in gender‐atypical occupations perform a more gender‐atypical combination of chores. The influence of gender deviance neutralization in the housework literature may overshadow alternative explanations and model specifications. In particular, by assuming a quadratic association, researchers may impose, rather than test, gender deviance neutralization.

Effect and nursing measurement of diplopiaon on the quality of life after strabismus surgery in children

Objective To investigate the effect of diplopia on the quality of life and to explore appropriate methods of nursing care after strabismus surgery in children. Methods It was a retrospective study.The study involved 150 children patients who underwent strabismus surgery from 2011 and 2015 in Department of Ophthalmology, the Third Hospital of Mianyang. Using telephone follow-up to evaluate the effect of diplopia on daily life, the SPSS 22.0 statistical software was utilized for data analysis. Results In 150 diplopiaon children after strabismus surgery, the length of diplopiaon lasted 3 to 30 days with the average time (11.4±2.51)d. The physical activities accounted for 50.0%, in which attention occupied 38.7%, study 25.3%, emotion 18.0% and housework performance 16.7%, and it did not affected sleep quality. Multiple liner regression analysis showed that the quality of life had negative correlation with length of diplopiaon, and had nothing relationship with gender and ages. Conclusions Postoperative diplopia obviously affected the quality of life of partial children patients, so nursing staff should provide psychology nursing, health education, safety management, safety instruction after management and postoperative follow-up. Key words: Children; Nursing; Strabismus surgery; Diplopia; Quality of life