Keywords

domestic labor, gender roles, domestic responsibility, parent, family, housework

Abstract

Due to the interrelation of work and family domains recent scholarship has been devoted to determining the impact of women's rising employment in the home. More specifically, research has focused on what happens to the division of domestic labor in the wake of mother's paid employment and how the new arrangements are determined. In general, women have responded by dedicating less time to housework and men have responded by increasing their participation in unpaid labor. That said, male contributions do not compensate for the decrease in time by women in the home, and women still maintain responsibility for the majority of household and childcare responsibilities. The relationship between women and domestic responsibility identified by Hochschild over 20 years ago thus holds true today; gender remains the chief predictor of who performs housework. These gendered divisions of labor and inequality in domestic responsibility also tend to become more pronounced when couples become parents.

Original Publication Citation

Forste, Renata, & Kiira Fox. 2012. “Household Labor, Gender Roles, and Family Satisfaction: A Cross-National Comparison.”Journal of Comparative Family Studies,43(5):613-631.