Unpaid Housework Research Articles

Gender-based division of household labor: a study of selected districts of Bangladesh

PurposeAs women perform most household chores and other nonproductive work, gender-based division of labor in the home has now been identified as a barrier to gender equality. The objective of this study is to assess the effects of gender distribution of housework especially for women and investigate the factors influencing the total hours spent on house chores in Bangladesh.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted a quantitative approach based on survey data obtained from 200 households in the Madaripur and Gopalganj districts of Bangladesh. To analyze the obtained data, the partial least squares (PLS) regression was used.FindingsAccording to this study, demographic and socioeconomic factors of women, and gender are influencing the total hours spent in housework. Women were observed to have a positive relationship with empowerment but a negative relationship with social perception. Social perception was further observed to have a significant impact on the total number of hours expended by women on house chores.Practical implicationsThe study suggests that the importance of sharing the burden of household work be taught in schools and community-based awareness programs so that it becomes ingrained as a social and cultural practice. Furthermore, the government should conduct a proper assessment that recognizes unpaid housework by women as an important factor in inclusive sustainable development.Originality/valueIssues of inequality in the division of labor in household activities are barely recognized in Bangladesh. Therefore, this study collected primary data to assess the effects of gender on the distribution of housework. The findings of the study will help policymakers and academicians to better understand the gender-based division of household labor.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2023-0195.

Redefining Parent's Unpaid Labour: Distinguishing Errands from Housework for Targeted Mental Health Policy

AbstractStudies of the association between unpaid housework and wellbeing, especially for parents, has produced either negative or inconclusive results in previous studies. One potential oversight is that ‘housework’ often includes activities with a counteracting effect on mental health. By employing the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data set that differentiates ‘housework’ from more routine tasks included in the ‘errands’ variable I illustrate the difference in the pattern of how these variables are linked to parents' mental health. By identifying specific groups of unpaid tasks that are most detrimental to mental health, policymakers can prioritise these areas, ensuring that negative associations are not wrongly attributed to all housework activities.

What explains the gender gap in unpaid housework and care work in India?

AbstractMotivationAlthough women continue to bear an unequal burden when it comes to unpaid housework and care work regardless of the level of economic progress, a systematic analysis of the gender gap in terms of the time allocated to these responsibilities has not been carried out in the context of India so far, primarily due to the lack of national‐level data.PurposeThis article measures how the burden of unpaid housework and care work is shared between men and women and investigates the factors associated with the allocation of time.Methods and approachWe use the first nationally representative Time Use Survey (2019) data of India and employ Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition analysis to explain the gender gap in unpaid housework and care work.FindingsAfter accounting for individual characteristics and household factors, the regression analysis shows that women spend a little over three hours more per day on unpaid housework and 20 minutes more on unpaid care work than men. The decomposition analysis reveals that the differences in socioeconomic and demographic factors between men and women only contribute a small part of the average gender gap in unpaid housework and care work. In other words, most of the gap in unpaid work at home between men and women in India can be attributed to structural factors, including inadequate infrastructural support and social programmes to alleviate the burden of housework and childcare, as well as the prevalence of unobserved gender norms and practices that pin the responsibility of unpaid housework and care work on women.Policy implicationsTo achieve equitable distribution of unpaid work between women and men, there is a need to provide more opportunities for women to participate in remunerative paid employment. Infrastructural support and policies that can reduce the burden of time spent by women in day‐to‐day unpaid housework and care activities are crucial to reduce the gender gap.

Patriarchal Rent Seeking in Entrepreneurial Households: An Examination of Business Ownership and Housework Burdens in Black and White US Couples

This article studies the relationship between unpaid housework and business ownership in the United States. To examine this empirically, it uses Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data from 1985 to 2019 to document patterns in household production among business-owning households, with a special focus on Black and White opposite-sex couples in the United States. Descriptive evidence suggests that in married White couples, husbands face lower housework hours when owning a business compared to those who do not. However, this result does not hold for Black men. In fact, among Black couples, results suggest positive associations between wives’ business ownership and their housework hours. These results suggest the presence of patriarchal social norms allows White entrepreneurial men to extract rents: White men’s entrepreneurship may be propped up by their unique ability to recede from domestic responsibilities, a notion consistent with theories on patriarchal rent seeking. HIGHLIGHTS Among US couples, less time spent on housework may provide advantages for entrepreneurs. White businesses-owning husbands are afforded reduced housework relative to peers. This phenomenon is unique among White men. Black businesses-owning wives do more housework than non-entrepreneuring peers. Industry selection does not explain away this trend among Black women. Race and gender hierarchies allow White men more resources in entrepreneurship. Small-business policymakers should work to alleviate inequities in unpaid work.

How Far Does the Diverse Economies Approach Take Us?

How Far Does the Diverse Economies Approach Take Us?

Does the Pandemic Affect Inequality Within Families?: The Case of Dual-Earner Couples in Israel.

This article exploits the unique consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak to examine whether time constraints drive the unequal division of unpaid labor between dual-earner couples in Israel. Using the first wave of longitudinal household data that was collected in Israel since the outbreak of the pandemic, we focused on 325 dual-earner couples who stayed employed during the first lockdown. By employing OLS regressions, we examined the association between changes in employment hours and changes in unpaid labor for partnered men and women. Strong evidence was found for a gendered translation of the time constraints mechanism: A decrease in hours of paid work is related to an increase in hours of care for children among men and women, but time devoted to housework increased only among women. We conclude that time constraints that resulted from the dramatic effect of the first lockdown on paid and unpaid work in Israel did not significantly change the gender division of unpaid housework but did change the distribution of childcare. The theoretical implications of this conclusion for future research are discussed.

Analyzing Gender Roles in Housework Norms from a Quantitative Perspective

Social expectations stemming from obsolete stereotypical ideologies have forced numerous wives and mothers to undertake disproportionately more housework than their male counterparts. In this paper, we aim to evaluate the economic aspect of the intrinsic value of uncompensated housework by analyzing a recent dataset from China as a representative example with the largest population and the many disparities coming from it. The quantitative analysis is achieved via two rigorous approaches: calculating the average economic value created by unpaid housework and creating a gender index to compare different levels of gender equality in the household globally. Scientific analysis based on statistical models could lay a firm foundation to shift out-of-date social norms and largely motivate national authorities to establish more women-friendly policies for gender inequality in household or work settings.

Is Paid Inflexible Work Better than Unpaid Housework for Women’s Mental Health? The Moderating Role of Parenthood

Despite women’s increased participation in the labor market over the last several decades, many women still perform a disproportionate share of housework, and lack the support of flexible working arrangements. Thus, women are facing a trade-off between doing paid inflexible work and doing unpaid housework, both of which have negative impacts on their mental health. However, the effects of work flexibility and unpaid housework are rarely examined together. This study aims to compare the effects of paid inflexible work and unpaid housework on women’s mental health. It also examines whether parenthood affects the mental health impacts of different employment and economic statuses on women. This study applies nationally representative longitudinal data from the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (2010–2020, N = 23,552), and uses two-way fixed effects models to process this data. The results show that women who have paid inflexible work have significantly better mental health than those who do only unpaid housework. This pattern is consistent for women who lack different types of flexible work arrangements. Moreover, the mental health benefits of inflexible working over unpaid housework are particularly pronounced for women without dependent children. Paid work, even paid inflexible work, matters for women’s mental health, especially women without children. Future research needs to incorporate various employment and economic statuses into one theoretical framework to examine women’s mental health and further investigate the role of parenthood in moderating the health effects of employment and economic status.

COVID-19’s silver linings: exploring the impacts of work–family enrichment for married working mothers during and after the COVID-19 partial lockdown in Ghana

ABSTRACT Recent scholarship suggests that women have disproportionately been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic amidst lockdowns and school closures which have altogether increased women’s caregiving burden, unpaid housework and stress levels. Notwithstanding its negative impacts, this article argues that the lockdowns and school closures related to COVID-19 also had beneficial outcomes for some working mothers who had to combine work and family roles. Drawing from qualitative interviews with 39 married working mothers in both formal and informal employment, we find that these women during and after the partial lockdowns in urban Ghana, experienced various outcomes of work-to-family enrichment (increased time spent with family, self-rated improved sleep health, financial security), family-to-work enrichment (reduced family demands, improved work performance and output) and a mix of both (cultivation of life skills, greater personal satisfaction and happiness). Applying a role expansionist framework, we show the ‘positive side’ of the pandemic for married working mothers who had to juggle work and family demands.

Grandparents, family solidarity and the division of housework: evidence from the Italian case

As a consequence of recent socio-demographic trends and labour market transformations the role of grandparental support has become pivotal in individuals’ and households’ life courses. In Southern European countries the availability of grandparents affects young couples’ labour market participation and fertility decisions. In the present paper, it is asked if the potential availability of social support from the older family generation is associated with more or less inequality in the division of unpaid housework in couples with minor children, in Italy. Using data from the 2016 Family and Social Subjects survey it is shown that while there is not a clear relation between intergenerational face-to-face contacts and the symmetry of the division of household labour, adult children and older (grand)parents coresidence is associated with a more gender-equal sharing of housework within couples, arguably because co-residing grandparents take on the execution of a number of household tasks. The observed effect is comparable to that of hiring a paid housekeeper and higher than hiring a babysitter. Thus, despite one may think that three-generation households are characterized by a culture of traditional norms, our findings indicate that they have a more gender-equal division of housework.

A REVIEW OF EARLIER WORKS ON TIME POVERTY AROUND THE WORLD: A PERIOD FROM 2000 TO 2018

Women’s empowerment and gender equality have become prominent issues in global development discourse and practice. The equal share of opportunities in different professions has led professionals such as development agencies, donors, corporations and non-governmental organisations to view women as crucial actors in solving poverty and a host of other social and economic problems, and not just victims of poverty. Women’s empowerment is not only a concerned with increasing wealth and income but is also related to the idea of how women use their time. In this respect, they lag behind in some aspects of life, one of which is time poverty. Time poverty means having less time than others because of personal commitments or unpaid housework. Extensive literature in this field was studied to analyse the term ‘time poverty’ broadly.

Unpaid Domestic Work and Gender Inequality in the Time of COVID-19 in Malaysia

The COVID-19 pandemic affected how we spend our time in the workplace and at home. Moreover, it caused employed couples to simultaneously work from home and deal with unpaid work due to Malaysia’s Movement Control Order (MCO). What happens to housework and childcare responsibilities when women and men are required to work from home due to an abrupt lockdown? Who is doing the housework and childcare? Who should be responsible for unpaid domestic work? What are the factors that affect men’s share in housework and childcare? This paper reports the early results of an online survey conducted on Malaysian men and women during the nationwide imposed lockdown in May 2020. In addition, it discusses how the pandemic affected unpaid housework and childcare time and responsibilities in Malaysia. The findings suggest that women spend more time on housework and childcare than men and are responsible for most unpaid domestic work during COVID-19. These findings are consistent with those obtained before the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings also suggest that the time availability perspective affects men’s share in housework and that the relative resources perspective affects their share in childcare during COVID-19. Overall, the results call for policy attention to the factors that narrow gender inequality in unpaid domestic work.

Unpaid housework and super-exploitation of labor: a suggested model and empirical evidence from Mexico and Colombia

The objective of this paper is to suggest a mathematical model of unpaid housework and empirically test its main predictions using data from Mexico (2014) and Colombia (2017) time-use surveys. The model, based upon the Marxist-feminist approach, suggests that the magnitude of unpaid housework is determined by the super-exploitation of labor, i.e. the gap between wages and the value of labor-power. The outcome is an equation that relates positively the magnitude of unpaid housework with the super-exploitation of labor. The parametric and nonparametric regression estimates applied in both countries show preliminary empirical support for the theoretical model. The theoretical and empirical findings have several implications for Marxist-feminist literature as well as for empirical research on unpaid housework.

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.

Valuation of health losses of women with multiple roles using a well-being valuation approach: Evidence from Japan.

Unpaid housework among married working couples is largely done by women in Japan, causing health losses due to work-to-family conflict. However, monetary values for the poor health condition of working mothers with multiple roles have not been explored. The purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of health conditions on life satisfaction (LS) among middle-aged Japanese men and women and attach a monetary value to self-assessed poor health (SAPH). The well-being valuation approach applied monetary values to health losses among middle-aged working persons, using a total of 6,779 married workers drawn from a nationwide 6 wave (2007, 2009, 2011–2014) longitudinal data from the Japanese Life Course Panel Survey of Middle-aged Persons. Female workers having multiple roles as employees and housewives, who spent at least 35 hours per week on market work are defined as women with multiple roles. LS was used as a proxy of individuals’ subjective well-being. Considering the endogeneity between SAPH and LS, I used the two-stage residual inclusion approach with generalized residuals. Major findings are (1) health losses of women with multiple roles were 1.47 times of the equivalent household income; larger than those of men with multiple roles, and (2) health losses of women with multiple roles can be reduced by around 9.5% of the equivalent household income if the spouse shares the housework by engaging in frequent cleaning of the house. Taking health losses of women with multiple roles into consideration, middle-aged men should reconsider the allocation of work attributable to the attitudes toward gender roles.

Assessing the value of household work based on wages demanded on online platforms for substitutes

We propose an improved method to assess the economic value of unpaid housework and childcare. Existing literature has typically assigned a minimum, generalist or specialist’s wage, or the performer’s opportunity cost to the hourly value of these activities. Then it was used to calculate macro-level value based on the number of hours spent in this work. In this paper, instead of imputing an average or minimum wage for housework and childcare to determine a value to the work, we use the actual local wage rate requested for these services from providers on online platforms. Applying this method to Austrian Time Use Survey data shows that the value of unpaid childcare and housework, had it been paid, would be equivalent to about 22% of the 2018 GDP.

Association between breastfeeding and new mothers\u2019 sleep: a unique Australian time use study

BackgroundInfant sleep is of great interest to new parents. There is ongoing debate about whether infants fed with breastmilk substitutes sleep longer than those exclusively or partially breastfed, but what does this mean for the mother? What expectations are realistic for mothers desiring to exclusively breastfeed as recommended by health authorities?There are both biological and social influences on infant and maternal sleep. More accurate information on average maternal sleep hours for diverse feeding practices may help guide realistic expectations and better outcomes for mothers, infants and families.MethodsUsing a unique time use dataset purposefully designed to study the time use of new mothers, this study investigated whether the weekly duration of maternal sleep, sleep disturbance, unpaid housework, and free time activities differed by detailed feeding method. The study collected 24/7 time use data from 156 mothers of infants aged 3, 6 and/or 9 months between April 2005 and April 2006, recruited via mother’s groups, infant health clinics, and childcare services throughout Australia. Sociodemographic and feeding status data were collected by questionnaire. Statistical analysis used linear mixed modelling and residual maximum likelihood analysis to compare effects of different infant feeding practices on maternal time use.ResultsThere were no significant differences in time spent asleep between lactating and non lactating mothers, though lactating mothers had more time awake at night. Lactating mothers spent more time (8.5 h weekly) in childcaring activity (p = 0.007), and in employment (2.7 vs. 1.2 h, p < 0.01), but there were no significant differences in free time. Those not breastfeeding spent more time in unpaid domestic work.Exclusive breastfeeding was associated with reduced maternal sleep hours (average 7.08 h daily). Again, free time did not differ significantly between feeding groups. Exclusively breastfeeding mothers experienced reduced sleep hours, but maintained comparable leisure time to other mothers by allocating their time differently. Domestic work hours differed, interacting in complex ways with infant age and feeding practice.ConclusionsOptimal breastfeeding may require realistic maternal sleep expectations and equitable sharing of paid and unpaid work burdens with other household members in the months after the birth of an infant.

Lucky to have a sister: The effects of unmarried sister on brother outcomes in late imperial China

This paper addresses the family free-rider problem by investigating the effects of unmarried sisters on brothers' outcomes based on historical population register data from the China Multi-Generational Panel Dataset-Liaoning (CMGPD-LN). The results show that the presence of an unmarried sister increases the probability of her brother to have another birth / obtain an official student title. An unmarried sister represents a family public good provider since she is a temporary member, and a self-interested brother has economic motivations to compete for and free ride on his sister's unpaid housework. This paper provides an economic explanation rooted in an individual motivation that may help us to further understand the impacts of family structure.

Broken Biographies: framing Migration among Female Domestic Workers in India

ABSTRACT Domestic work has emerged as a widespread occupation amongst rural women migrating to urban cities in India for lucrative employment. Their accommodation is fraught with a challenging adjustment to the city as a space which is unfamiliar and isolating. I focus on the nature of the city and how migrants re-define it. Through this article I try to delineate the interrupted lives, or rather, the broken biography of the female worker as migrations from rural to urban areas create socio-cultural disruptions to her story. I postulate this disorienting exposure to an unfamiliar urban setting as an important requisite in situating her labour in middle/upper-class homes. Paid domestic work has commonly been understood as extensions of unpaid housework. She is familiarized into doing tasks by her urban employers. This familiarization however, at an ideological level, rhetorically questions female domesticity as she is re-trained into gendered roles that society has historically believed to be hers. Ethnographic research conducted at Jeevanlalbasti/working-class neighbourhood, located in an urban residential area of south Delhi, attests to this. Oral history as a methodological tool has allowed this study to account for upheavals experienced in social lives and interpret local histories of migrant domestic workers.

Getting the measurement right! quantifying time poverty and multitasking from childcare among mothers with children across different age groups in rural north India

ABSTRACT Existing research suggests that women spend a disproportionate amount of time on unpaid housework and childcare compared to men. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence on unequal time burdens due to childcare among women. This study analyses the quantum of time poverty and multitasking behaviours of 3623 rural women with children of varying ages across rural North India. Findings show that mothers with infants spend more time on childcare and less time on self-care and leisure, and employment-related activities as compared to mothers with older children; they also multitask with childcare more than mothers of older children across all their daily activities. Our findings suggest that interventions and policies need to be designed to raise awareness, identify/adopt novel approaches and technologies to reduce work burden of unpaid work on women’s time, provide accessible childcare and encourage a more equitable distribution of household responsibilities.