Dividing the Domestic: Men, Women, and Household Work in Cross-National Perspective (Studies in Social Inequality)

281 Pages·2010·0.98 MB·English

by  Judith Treas

S T U D I E S I N
S O C I A L I N E Q U A L I T Y
Dividing

the Domestic
E D I T E D B Y J U D I T H T R E A S A N D S O N J A D R O B N I Cˇ
Men, Women, & Household Work
in Cross-National Perspective
d i v i d i n g t h e
d o m e s t i c
wo m e n ’ s wo r k i n g l i v e s i n e as t
as i a
studies in
social inequality
editors
David B. Grusky, stanford university
Paula England, stanford university
editorial board
Hans-Peter Blossfeld
Mary C. Brinton
Thomas DiPrete
Michael Hout
Andrew Walder
Mary Waters
dividing the domestic
Men, Women, and Household Work
in Cross-National Perspective
Edited by Judith Treas and Sonja Drobnicˇ
stanford university press
stanford, california
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
©2010 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford
Junior University. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system without the prior
written permission of Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free,
archival-quality paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dividing the domestic : men, women, and household work
in cross-national perspective / edited by Judith Treas and
Sonja Drobnicˇ.
p. cm. — (Studies in social inequality)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8047-6357-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Sex role—Cross-cultural studies. 2. Sexual division
of labor—Cross-cultural studies. 3. Housekeeping—
Social aspects—Cross-cultural studies. I. Treas,
Judith. II. Drobnicˇ, Sonja. III. Series: Studies in social
inequality.
HQ1075.D59 2010
306.3'615—dc22 2009035120
Typeset by Publishers’ Design and Production Services, Inc.
in 10/13 Sabon
contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Acknowledgments ix
About the Authors xi
PArT I Overview
chapter one
Why Study Housework? 3
Judith Treas
chapter two
Trends in Housework 19
Liana C. Sayer
PArT II The Political Economy of Housework
chapter three
Women’s Employment and Housework 41
Tanja van der Lippe
chapter four
The Politics of Housework 59
Lynn Prince Cooke
chapter five
Can State Policies Produce Equality in Housework? 79
Shirley Dex
vi Contents
chapter six
Economic Inequality and Housework 105
Sanjiv Gupta, Marie Evertsson, Daniela Grunow, Magnus Nermo,
and Liana C. Sayer
PArT III The Cultural Influences on Housework
chapter seven
Cultural and Institutional Contexts 125
Birgit Pfau-Effinger
chapter eight
Beliefs about Maternal Employment 147
Maria Charles and Erin Cech
chapter nine
The Institution of Marriage 175
Carrie Yodanis
chapter ten
Pair relationships and Housework 192
Karl Alexander Röhler and Johannes Huinink
PArT IV The Evaluation of Cross-National research
on Housework
chapter eleven
Men’s and Women’s reports about Housework 217
Claudia Geist
chapter twelve
Concluding Thoughts on the Societal Context of Housework 241
Sonja Drobnicˇ
Index 253
figures and tables
Figures
2.1 Trends in the housework gender gap by country,
1970s to 2000s 32
2.2 regression-adjusted housework minutes by employment
status and country, 1990s to 2000s 33
3.1 Wives’ weekly housework hours by paid work hours for
wives in seven welfare regimes 52
4.1 Women’s and men’s housework hours at different levels of
women’s employment for couples in Australia, the United
Kingdom, and the United States for 2002 70
4.2 Women’s and men’s average weekly employment and
housework hours in Australia, the United Kingdom, and
the United States by income quartile 71
6.1 Gender gap in weekly housework hours compared with
economic disparity among women with the lowest and
highest 10 percent of earnings (zero earnings excluded)
for all women and women employed full-time, by
country 116
8.1 Espousal of full-time maternal care: Probability of agreement,
by country 160
8.2 Espousal of full-time maternal care: Probability of agreement,
by regime 161
11.1 Men’s self- and partner reports 228
11.2 Women’s self- and partner reports 229
Tables
2.1 Trends in women’s and men’s average daily minutes of
housework by country 28
3.1 Economic activity rates of men and women age
15 to 64 years 43
vii
viii Figures and Tables
3.2 Employment characteristics of men and women 44
3.3 Weekly hours of domestic work for husbands and
wives in relation to institutional indicators and wives’
employment 50
3.4 Wives’ employment, hours of domestic work in multilevel
analyses 53
4.1 Women’s employment in Australia, the United Kingdom,
and the United States 69
5.1 range of models of work–family balance 84
5.2 Mean minutes spent per week on different types of work
and leisure 86
5.3 Scheme of types of unpaid work and factors affecting its
number of hours and gender shares 94
6.1 Descriptive weighted statistics for all women and for
women employed full-time, by country 112
6.2 Mean weighted weekly housework hours for lowest and
highest 10 percent of women’s annual earnings (zero
earnings excluded) for all women and women employed
full-time, by country 115
7.1 Main patterns of combination of child care and
employment by mothers with children age 0 to 6 years in
selected European countries 128
8.1 Means on attitudinal variables: Women, 2002 150
8.2 Means on independent variables: Women, 2002 152
8.3 Espousal of full-time maternal care among women
in 32 countries 153
9.1 Patterns in beliefs about what is very important for a
successful marriage 181
9.2 Highest to lowest ranking of countries on measures of
beliefs about marriage 182
9.3 Indicators of intimacy-based marriage 183
9.4 Model testing the relationship between individual
characteristics and country-level measures of intimacy-
based marriage on the division of housework 185
10.1 Survey sample of the study: Housework in pair
relationships 198
11.1 Gender disparities in housework reports (in hours) 227
11.2 Bivariate regression results for discrepancy measures 230
11.3 Country-level gender discrepancies in the reporting of
division of housework 232
11.4 Multivariate analyses of reporting discrepancies 234
acknowledgments
Judith Treas undertook cross-national research on the household division
of labor with the support of U.S. National Science Foundation grants (nos.
SES-0350814 and SES 0833010). An Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
TransCoop grant to Sonja Drobnicˇ and Judith Treas permitted us to work
together to take stock of what was known about cross-national differences
in household work and to chart a research agenda for further studies. We are
greatly indebted to both foundations although this volume reflects the con-
tributors’ findings and conclusions and does not necessarily reflect the views
of these foundations.
Our exchange prompted this collection of research papers, which charts
a new approach to the study of household labor—one that takes account of
cultural, institutional, and policy differences between countries. A number of
scholars have participated in our conversations. In addition to our authors,
we are grateful for the formative input of Suzanne Bianchi (University of
Maryland), Mary Blair-Loy (University of California, San Diego), Makiko
Fuwa (Tokyo University), Karin Gottschall (University of Bremen), Heather
Hofmeister (rWTH Aachen), and Jennifer Hook (Pennsylvania State Uni-
versity). reviewers and editors of Stanford University Press provided valu-
able direction and feedback. As a first appreciative audience for this book,
Leah ruppanner (University of California, Irvine) provided editorial assis-
tance, as did Sarah Peter and Sara Schmidt (University of Hamburg).
ix