Beth Anne Shelton

Does Marital Status Make a Difference? Housework Among Married and Cohabiting Men and Women

In this article, a comparison is made between the time that cohabiting and married women and men spend doing housework, to determine whether there are differences between them and to isolate the sources of those differences. Differences in cohabiting and married womens and mens household labor time are interpreted in light of the way that marital status may affect how gender is accomplished. Using the National Survey of Families and Households, the authors found that marital status affects womens household labor time but not mens; married women spend significantly more time on housework than do cohabiting women. In addition, the gap between cohabiting and married womens housework time cannot be accounted for by sociodemographic differences between them. It was also found that cohabiting women are more like single, noncohabiting women than they are like married women. That is, the research demonstrates the uniqueness of married women. It is not simply the presence of a man that is associated with womens spending more time on housework; it is the presence of a husband.

The production of gender among black and white women and men : The case of household labor

Using the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 13,017; 11.09% Black, 79.99% White), we compare the household labor time of Black and White women and men, and assess the extent to which the time constraint, relative resource, and ideology explanations account for racial and gender differences in housework time. We find that although time constraint, relative resource, and ideology explanations account for some of the variation in housework time, they do not account for all of the gender and racial differences. We also find that paid work and housework trade off differently for Black men than for White men and also for women and men. Finally, a variety of relative resource, time constraint, and ideology factors are associated differently with women’s and men’s housework time. We argue that our findings lend support to the production of gender approach to understanding the division of household labor and that this approach can be used to help us understand racial differences in housework time as well.

Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Perceptions of Fairness

In this article we examine the determinants of Black, Hispanic, and Anglo womens and mens views of the fairness of the division of housework. Using the 1987-1988 National Survey of Families and Households, we find that mens proportional share of time spent on female-typed tasks affects both womens and mens views of how fairly housework is divided, although the effect is stronger for women. The frequency of arguments about housework also is positively associated with perceptions of fairness for both women and men, again with a stronger effect for women. Moreover, Black men are less likely to report that housework is divided unfairly than are Anglo men, suggesting that reference group comparisons among men by race and ethnicity may affect perceptions of family entitlement.

A comparison of women's and men's leisure time: subtle effects of the double day.

Abstract In this article womens and mens leisure time were examined using the 1981 Study of Time Use (Juster, Hill, Stafford, & Parsons, 1983). Gender differences in total leisure time, types of leisure activities, and the effects of household labor time and paid labor time on womens and mens leisure time were assessed. Although there were few significant differences in womens and mens leisure time expenditures, some differences in the determinants of leisure were found. Although household labor time affects womens and mens leisure time in the same way, the impact of paid labor time on leisure time varies by gender and by type of leisure. Paid labor time has a stronger effect on womens nondomestic leisure time than on mens, whereas the reverse is true for domestic leisure time. The different types of leisure activities in which women and men engage, and their different time expenditures for paid work and housework, combined to produce these different patterns of effects.

HOUSEHOLD LABOR TIME AND THE GENDER GAP IN EARNINGS

In this article, we examine the effects of time spent in household labor on the gender gap in earnings. We identify that part of the gender gap in earnings directly attributable to womens greater household labor time. After controlling for years of work experience, hours worked per week, occupation, industry, union membership, and education, we find that household labor time can directly account for 8.2 percent of the gender gap in earnings. In addition to the direct effect of womens household responsibilities on earnings, they also may affect occupational location, work experience, and number of hours worked per week, and through these variables, their earnings. These findings indicate that we cannot truly understand womens earnings relative to those of men without considering the impact of their unpaid labor on their paid work.

Variations in Divorce Rates by Community Size: A Test of the Social Integration Explanation.

This study tests the hypothesis that level of social integration may account for the correlation between community size and marital dissolution. Using data from the [U.S.] General Social Surveys we find a strong correlation between the residential mobility rate and a measure of marital dissolution from which the effects of family background religious background socioeconomic background and years of exposure to the divorce risk have been removed.... (EXCERPT)

Women, work, and marriage in urban India : a study of dual- and single-earner couples

Perspectives, Methods and Respondents Women and Paid Work Women, Men, and Household Work Women, Work, and Marital Patterns Summary and Conclusions

An Examination of Household Labor Time as a Factor in Composition and Treatment Effects on the Male-Female Wage Gap

Abstract This article examines the effects of time spent on household labor on the earnings of women and men. Using 1981 data from a sample of families, we assess the effects of womens greater household labor time on their earnings after controlling for other characteristics. After isolating the amount in earnings explained by differences in the characteristics of men and women (excluding time spent in household labor), we find that time spent on household labor can explain only a small part of the total gender gap in earnings but is more important than any other single characteristic in explaining this difference.

An Estimation of the Effects of Women's Work on Available Leisure Time

In this article we examine the leisure time expenditures of married women in the paid labor force. Our analysis delineates two categories of leisure activities (active and passive) that are differentially affected by womens work. Using the 1981 Time Use Study (Juster, Hill, Stafford, and Parsons, 1983), we estimate a path model of the amount of leisure time available to married women showing the effects of time spent in paid labor, age, number of children, and time spent on household labor on available leisure time. We estimate that womens responsibilities for paid work and unpaid household labor come at the expense of their leisure time. Paid work time has an estimated negative effect on both active and passive leisure time, while household labor time has an estimated direct negative effect on total leisure time. We speculate that because paid work and household tasks are requisite for most women today they must schedule leisure time around both activities.

Gender and Unpaid Work

Gender remains strongly associated with women’s and men’s patterns of unpaid work. The amount of time invested in unpaid work as opposed to paid work, the distribution of unpaid work time among specific tasks, and the patterns of care and responsibility are all determined to a large degree by one’s gender. Women continue to spend more time than men on housework, whether they are employed or not; they continue to do more of the work involved in caring for children and to take more responsibility for that work; and finally, women’s volunteer activities are more likely to be related to family than are men’s.