Liana C. Sayer

When Does Gender Trump Money? Bargaining and Time in Household Work

Using data from Australia and the United States, the authors explore the effect of spouses’ contribution to family income on how housework is divided. Consistent with exchange‐bargaining theory, women decrease their housework as their earnings increase, up to the point where both spouses contribute equally to income. In other respects, gender trumps money. The base level of housework for women is much higher. Among the small percentage of couples who are in the range where women provide 51%–100% of household income, the change in housework is opposite what exchange theory predicts: couples that deviate from the normative income standard (men make more money than women) seem to compensate with a more traditional division of household work.

Are Parents Investing Less in Children? Trends in Mothers' and Fathers' Time with Children.

In this study, time diary data are used to assess trends in mothers’ and fathers’ child care time from the mid‐1960s to the late 1990s. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the results indicate that both mothers and fathers report spending greater amounts of time in child care activities in the late 1990s than in the “family‐oriented” 1960s. For mothers, there was a 1965–75 decline in routine child care time and then a 1975–98 rebound along with a steady increase in time doing more developmental activities. For 1998 fathers report increased participation in routine child care as well as in more “fun” activities. The ratio of married mothers’ to married fathers’ time in child care declined in all primary child care activities. These results suggest that parents have undergone a behavioral change that has more than countered family change that might otherwise have reduced time with children.

Gender, Time and Inequality: Trends in Women's and Men's Paid Work, Unpaid Work and Free Time

This analysis uses nationally representative time diary data from 1965, 1975 and 1998 to examine trends and gender differences in time use. Women continue to do more household labor than men; however, men have substantially increased time in core household activities such as cooking, cleaning and daily child care. Nonetheless, a 30-minute-per-day free-time gap has emerged. Women and men appear to be selectively investing unpaid work time in the tasks that construct family life while spending less time in routine tasks, suggesting that the symbolic meaning of unpaid work may be shifting. At the same time, access to free time has emerged as an arena of time inequality.

She left, he left: how employment and satisfaction affect women's and men's decisions to leave marriages.

Studies examining determinants of divorce have largely ignored differences between factors that elevate wives’ and husbands’ initiation of divorce. The authors use longitudinal data and a latent class model embedded in a competing-risks event history model to assess distinct predictors of wives and husbands leaving marriages. They find that when men are not employed, either spouse is more likely to leave. When wives report better-than-average marital satisfaction, their employment affects neither spouse’s exit. However, when wives report below-average marital satisfaction, their employment makes it more likely they will leave. The authors’ findings suggest that theories of divorce require “gendering” to reflect asymmetric gender change.

Trends in Women’s and Men’s Time Use, 1965–2012: Back to the Future?

Women’s and men’s time use is more similar today than it was in the 1960s, when specialization in adult roles was at its peak, but convergence remains stubbornly out of sight. This chapter updates earlier trend studies of time use and finds that recent data confirm the most consistent findings from earlier analyses. The greater similarity of women’s and men’s time use today is due much more to changes among women than among men. Further, despite declines in women’s housework time, the increase in women’s childcare time and paid work time has resulted in a gender gap in leisure time. New findings from this analysis reveal the gender gap in leisure is accounted for by men’s higher levels of television time.

“Doing Fear”: The Influence of Hetero-femininity on (Trans)Women's Fears of Victimization

Through 26 in-depth interviews with male-to-female transsexuals (transwomen), this study examines transwomens perceptions of safety, pre- and post-transition. The majority reported higher levels of fear and believed they would be unable to fight off an attacker post-transition even though most were large statured and were socialized as males. Exposure to heterosexual practices and to cultural messages depicting women as physically weak and sexually vulnerable, and transwomens embodiment of hetero-femininity play a central role in increasing their fears. Their experiences as women are powerful enough to override decades of prior male experiences and expose the socially constructed nature of fear and bodily agency.

Gender, Time Use, and Aging

Do gendered time use patterns among older adults mirror those observed in earlier life stages? Or does time use allocation in later life become less gendered as life stages are reoriented away from paid work and raising children toward new pursuits? Later life disability and increased likelihood of living alone in young and older adulthood may alter the activities in which individuals engage, the amount of time spent on various activities, and time socializing and interacting with others. “Productive” uses of time may be redefined with implications for later life well-being. Both objective and subjective aspects of time likely change at later life stages.

Marital Status and Mothers’ Time Use: Childcare, Housework, Leisure, and Sleep

Assumptions that single mothers are “time poor” compared with married mothers are ubiquitous. We tested theorized associations derived from the time poverty thesis and the gender perspective using the 2003–2012 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS). We found marital status differentiated housework, leisure, and sleep time, but did not influence the amount of time that mothers provided childcare. Net of the number of employment hours, married mothers did more housework and slept less than never-married and divorced mothers, counter to expectations of the time poverty thesis. Never-married and cohabiting mothers reported more total and more sedentary leisure time than married mothers. We assessed the influence of demographic differences among mothers to account for variation in their time use by marital status. Compositional differences explained more than two-thirds of the variance in sedentary leisure time between married and never-married mothers, but only one-third of the variance between married and cohabiting mothers. The larger unexplained gap in leisure quality between cohabiting and married mothers is consistent with the gender perspective.

When one spouse has an affair, who is more likely to leave?

OBJECTIVE We examine whether having an affair around the time a marriage broke up is associated with being the person who wanted the divorce more or the person who was left. We also examine predictors of having an affair around the end of the marriage. METHODS We use the National Survey of Families and Households, using each ex-spouse’s reports of which spouse wanted the divorce more and whether either was having an affair around the end of the marriage. We combine latent class models with logistic regression, treating either spouse’s report as a fallible indicator of the reality of whether each had an affair and who wanted the divorce more. RESULTS We find that a spouse having an affair is more likely to be the one who wanted the divorce more. We find little gender difference in who has affairs preceding divorce. CONCLUSIONS Results suggest that it is more common to leave because one is having an affair, or to have an affair because one has decided to leave, than it is to discover one’s spouse having an affair and initiate a divorce.

Earning More and Getting Less: Why Successful Wives Can't Buy Equality

Is money an “equal opportunity” resource? In Earning More and Getting Less, Veronica Tichenor investigates whether wives who earn more than their husbands are able to get a “better deal” in the marriage. Based on indepth interviews with 30 married couples, 22 of which have wives who earn 50% more than their husbands, Tichenor argues that despite tangible evidence to the contrary, wives are still not thought of as providers; hence, their money doesn’t translate into greater power. On the contrary, husbands are still accorded breadwinner privileges of less household labor, more leisure, and greater control over household decisions. The tenacity of the gender system is well-documented, but this readable book offers new insights into the everyday strategies that wives and husbands deploy to recursively recreate gender at the individual, interactional, and institutional levels. Tichenor examines the processes through which couples determine the division of household labor, who controls household finances, and which partner has the ultimate say in household decisions. In the chapter on household labor, the finding that wives do more household labor than husbands trods well-worn ground. It also seems overly pessimistic. In the five couples in which the husband works part-time or is not employed and the wife brings home most of the money, the husbands do the majority of household labor. The other husbands whose wives have incomes 50% higher than theirs contribute between one-third to one-half of household work. Although this is far from a 50–50 split, the findings suggest a more nuanced portrait of household labor than that presented. What is most striking about the findings on household labor is how little negotiation actually takes place. Explicit negotiation of the division of labor occurred only in the wife breadwinner couples (n = 5). In the other couples, what increases husband’s household labor is whether he believes that his wife’s job is more important than his. If he does, he does more household work, if he doesn’t, he does the minimum. Another example of hidden male power highlighted by Tichenor is how wives avoid even raising the issue because they desire a “comfortable” marriage more than a 50–50 split of household labor. Tichenor’s analysis also reveals interesting dynamics about household decision-making. A fascinating nugget of information is that one-third of husbands have a “stash,” or a pot of discretionary money they feel entitled to regardless of how much they contribute. None of the wives have such a stash and many are unaware of their husband’s stash. Further, bringing home a bigger paycheck does not instill a sense of entitlement among wives to spend money however they please. Instead, wives appear to compensate for higher earnings by indulging husband’s desires. In the last three chapters, Tichenor examines how embedded norms that good wives do housework and childcare as ways of expressing love for their families whereas good husbands earn the daily bread stymie equality. Couples in which the husband is not the economic provider circumvent the tangible circumstances by redefining providing to encompass other contributions. How comfortable the husband is with this varies by his reinterpretation of what it means to be a man. “Carl” identifies with “womanly” beliefs that housework and child care are symbolic representations of love for family and feels he’s become “feminized.” In contrast, “Wayne” feels secure in his masculine identity, because he defines his household work as building social capital and protecting his