Introduction
The issue of gender as it applies to housework in heterosexual couples is not a recent problem in the United States and other countries. In the United States, the problem of gender inequality in household chores emerged in the second half of the twentieth century when the female labor force participation rate reached almost sixty percent (Genadek, 2018). If the present situation is compared to that of the 1960s, it becomes clear that American men have adopted new attitudes to helping their wives with the housework and caring for children (Thébaud et al., 2019). It has caused slight increases in the amount of housework done by men. However, modern economists and feminist researchers agree that the gender revolution in housework has slowed down recently (Thébaud et al., 2019).
Regarding its popularity, the patterns of men’s and women’s participation in household chores and factors contributing to inequality remain a widely discussed topic. The mass media often share non-scientific articles and the results of new studies. Such articles may try to explain the gender housework gap concerning credible data or offer new theories on why men support equality at work but remain unwilling to do more household tasks. The problem of the housework gender gap affects almost any adult American, which explains a number of biased sources of information about it. This literature review paper argues that the stated problem is complex and does not have one universally accepted explanation yet.
The Ease of Divorce
The existence of the housework gender gap remains an undeniable truth today, and it is found both in couples following the male breadwinner model and dual-earner families. Studies focusing on changes to the housework gender gap suggest that it is gradually narrowing, but the size and the exact causes of inequality remain an open question (Geist & Tabler, 2017; Thébaud et al., 2019). One interesting suggestion is that the facts of unequal housework distribution in American heterosexual couples can be connected with women’s power and freedom to terminate relationships with their husbands.
In her study published in Feminist Economics, Genadek (2018), a qualified economist interested in studying demography, analyzes time use and the ease of divorce. The purpose of her study is to establish the links between the amount of time that married heterosexual women spend on housework and the presence of unilateral divorce laws in the state where they live. Although some would criticize the discipline of feminist economics for its priority-setting practices, the mentioned article seems to be unbiased. In particular, all conclusions are derived from the analysis of credible data coming from thousands of male and female subjects (Genadek, 2018). Moreover, the researcher does not provide any emotionally-colored evaluations of research results reported by her colleagues. The author conducted her research by obtaining data from the American Heritage Time Use Study conducted in the mid-1970s and the National Human Activity Pattern Study conducted between 1992 and 1995 (Genadek, 2018, p. 70). The total number of observations included in the sample exceeded three thousand.
Using statistical research methods, Genadek (2018) analyzed the cross-sectional data from the previously conducted studies. Special attention was paid to correlations between the number of minutes that the subjects spent on household production and core housework activities and whether they lived in U.S. states with unilateral divorce laws. As for the main conclusion, unilateral divorce affected the number of minutes that male subjects spent on housework to some extent. The difference was 30 extra minutes of core housework activities a day for married men in states allowing unilateral divorce (Genadek, 2018, p. 76).
In the case of female subjects, on average, women from states allowing unilateral divorce spent 87 fewer minutes a day on tasks related to household production and 97 fewer minutes on core housework (Genadek, 2018, p. 76). Regarding interesting ideas, the article suggests links between the risks of divorce for men and the size of the gap between women and men in household labor (Genadek, 2018). The source encourages the audience to look at the housework gender gap from the viewpoint of wives’ bargaining power, thus being different from other articles that mainly focus on the social perceptions of gender roles.
The Housework Gender Gap in Older Adults and Women’s Health
The housework gender gap is relatively under-researched when it comes to elderly married heterosexual couples in the United States, but such studies would probably shed light on new tendencies explaining the phenomenon. According to the primary conclusions of the study by Geist and Tabler (2017), the distribution of housework between elderly spouses becomes a bit more equal when a wife’s health deteriorates. In spite of that, in seniors, gender norms continue to play a greater role in housework allocation than health. Apart from the main conclusions, interesting ideas from the article are presented by observations that health matters more than gender roles in housework distribution only when it comes to severe physical limitations (Geist & Tabler, 2017). Other thoughts that deserve attention include negative correlations between housework inequality and psychological health.
Both authors of the mentioned study are qualified enough to be regarded as trustworthy researchers. Geist is an Associate Professor of Sociology working at the University of Utah, whereas Tabler is a medical sociologist and an Associate Professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (Geist & Tabler, 2017). The writing seems to be relatively unbiased since the researchers do not express opinions on the fairness of such housework distribution patterns.
The researchers mostly focus on the findings’ implications for healthcare practitioners’ collaboration with female geriatric patients. Also, they acknowledge the risks of biases resulting from the use of subjective health assessments in data collection and the potential effects of market influences on the final results. The authors conducted their research by analyzing statistical data from the Disability and Use of Time studies dated 2009 and 2013 (Geist & Tabler, 2017). All data units included in the sample were peculiar to married couples in which both spouses were sixty or older and had no paid jobs.
The article is drastically different from other sources since it focuses on the older population, which allows studying housework distribution in couples that are not part of the paid labor force anymore. Basically, working women’s contributions to their families’ economic well-being are often more modest than those of men because of the difference in wage levels (Doan & Quadlin, 2018). This argument is sometimes used to justify the patterns of housework distribution in which wives are held responsible for the majority of housework tasks to “compensate” for earning less money. However, as the researchers state, such explanations do not apply to elderly couples, whereas beliefs based on gender norms can still be strong (Geist & Tabler, 2017). Therefore, apart from discussing health, the source contributes to current knowledge by demonstrating that gender continues to affect inequality in housework distribution even when differences between spouses in terms of working time and wages disappear.
Stereotypes and Societal Expectations as Contributors to the Housework Gender Gap
Gender stereotypes refer to sets of beliefs that link an individual’s sex to specific strengths and weaknesses and the role that he or she should play in society. The evidence to prove that such beliefs significantly contribute to the gender gap in the allocation of housework can be found in modern research, including the survey experiment conducted by Doan and Quadlin (2018). Both authors specialize in sociological studies and fulfill the responsibilities of Assistant Professors of Sociology.
The writing seems to be objective, and the researchers acknowledge the risks of social desirability biases in participants’ responses and report measures to make all respondents give honest opinions. Doan and Quadlin (2018) conducted their research by asking over one thousand participants to view a vignette referring to a homosexual or a heterosexual married couple. After getting acquainted with information about each character’s gender and income level, all participants were to distribute responsibility for twelve housework and childcare tasks between the spouses. Then, their responses were analyzed using regression analysis, and the effects of three different variables (income, masculinity/femininity, and gender) on housework distribution were examined.
Among the primary conclusions are Americans’ willingness to rely on relative income to decide which parent should leave the workforce in case of necessity. At the same time, the study demonstrates that heterosexual women are commonly expected to be responsible for more stereotypically female and non-gender-specific tasks compared to their partners (Doan & Quadlin, 2018). As for interesting ideas following from such conclusions, housework expectations are still largely dictated by a person’s gender and can probably be traced back to essentialist views on gender.
The mentioned article contributes to the existing knowledge on the housework gender gap and the reasons why it still exists. It does that by demonstrating significant links between many time-consuming household chores, such as cooking, cleaning, shopping, or tasks involving physical caregiving, and expectations of heterosexual women. Unlike other articles, including that by Latshaw and Hale (2015), the source in question also studies people’s opinions on task distribution in same-sex couples, thus shedding light on the links between gender expression and task allocation. Particularly, it reports that in the absence of sex differences, participants try to determine people’s gender expression (feminine or masculine) to assign roles according to the traditional understandings of task distribution in couples.
There are other interesting studies to suggest that gender stereotypes do not completely disappear when it comes to task distribution in heterosexual couples. For instance, Latshaw and Hale (2015) support this thought by studying the experiences of American married couples that seem to challenge traditionalist views on task distribution. Latshaw is a Sociology Professor at Widener University, whereas her co-author is a young researcher working for the Government Services Group in Florida.
The researchers do not report taking a specific perspective but discuss the potential limitations of the utilized data sets in a thorough manner. Overall, the writing does not look biased, but the essential drawbacks of qualitative interviews, such as participants’ willingness to conform to social expectations or difficulties in interpretation, can be the potential sources of inaccuracies. The study being discussed was focused on American families with female breadwinners and male stay-at-home dads and consisted of two parts. Firstly, the researchers analyzed data coming from the American Time Use Survey to compare the patterns of time use in five types of families, including those with female breadwinners. Secondly, in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted to explore thirty stay-at-home fathers’ use of time. The primary conclusions based on the ATUS data suggest that unemployed stay-at-home fathers spend less time on housework but have more leisure time compared to unemployed stay-at-home mothers (Latshaw & Hale, 2015). Also, regarding conclusions based on qualitative findings, even in female breadwinner families, women often remain responsible for the majority of housework tasks after coming home from work (Latshaw & Hale, 2015).
Unlike other articles, this source shows the powerful influences of gender stereotypes on housework distribution by looking at families that seem to ignore the traditional gender roles. Interestingly, the researchers suppose that female breadwinners’ unwillingness to fully rely on their husbands’ help can be linked with stereotypes about men’s inability to do housework properly (Latshaw & Hale, 2015). In many instances, interviewees’ wives criticized their housework skills and feared that they would simply forget to complete certain tasks (Latshaw & Hale, 2015). Additionally, it is possible that the need to “receive praise and validation as women” sometimes encourages female breadwinners to complete as many housework tasks as possible (Latshaw & Hale, 2015, p. 19). Thus, stereotypes about what men and women should do continue to affect heterosexual couples even if they give preference to the female breadwinner model.
Other high-quality studies highlight the great role of gendered social expectations and stereotypes in housework distribution. As an example, the study by Thébaud et al. (2019) concludes that there are no significant differences between female and male respondents’ perceptions of cleanliness and messiness. However, women are judged more harshly when the cleanliness of their rooms is evaluated, and they are expected to be more responsible for household chores than men (Thébaud et al., 2019). All three researchers are qualified sociologists working at universities in Australia and the United States.
The mentioned article appears to be relatively unbiased since the researchers review dissimilar theoretical assumptions about why women continue to spend more time on housework than men. Also, they consistently apply the scientific method to evaluate one interesting hypothesis – the difference in cleanliness standards resulting from people’s gender socialization. In terms of biases, the researchers discuss them only with reference to respondents and specific measures taken to maximize the chances of getting honest answers.
The experimental study in question was conducted with the help of the Amazon MTurk platform. Over six hundred participants from the United States were recruited online. Within the frame of the survey, all participants were supposed to view the photo of the room (either clean or messy) with a male or a female occupant and then rate its cleanliness and answer other questions about the occupant’s psychological and moral characteristics (Thébaud et al., 2019).
It is interesting that no links between the respondent’s gender and the perceptions of cleanliness were found, whereas the hypothetical occupant’s gender affected the results to a large extent. The respondents thought that the cleanroom occupied by Jennifer was messier than the same room occupied by John (Thébaud et al., 2019). This study is unique and different from other sources included in the review since it demonstrates strong gender-specific standards regarding room cleanliness. Thus, it implies that women may pay more attention to housework than men just to conform to expectations and not because they are naturally more sensitive to messiness.
Gender-Specific Preferences in Housework Division
According to another popular suggestion, the gender gap in housework exists because women and men have totally different preferences regarding household chores. This argument implies that women are naturally more likely than men to enjoy certain tasks. The experimental study by qualified sociology researchers from the United Kingdom and Germany criticizes this hypothesis by demonstrating no differences in preferences when it comes to housework (Auspurg et al., 2017). There is no clear evidence of biases or partiality during data selection and evaluation, and the researchers provide a substantial review of the previous findings in the field and the limitations of their research design.
To conduct the discussed study, the researchers asked adults in more than one thousand households to read different scenarios referring to approaches to sharing housework. Then, all participants were to evaluate their satisfaction with specific ways to distribute responsibility for household chores. The main conclusion reported by the researchers is that both female and male subjects prefer an equal distribution of housework between spouses (Auspurg et al., 2017). It is also interesting that the researchers disprove that the male breadwinner model is positively evaluated by both women and men. Instead, they report the absence of evidence to suggest that modern people of either sex prefer this model over other approaches.
The article contributes to the field by evaluating questionable arguments about women’s informed choice and the sincere desire to be responsible for the majority of housework activities. In other articles, participants were expected to express their opinions by making decisions for other hypothetical people or reporting the actual state of things in their families. In contrast, Auspurg et al. (2017) encouraged participants to visualize themselves in dissimilar scenarios and make the best possible choices for themselves.
Although this study was conducted in the United Kingdom, its results are similar to the findings from less recent studies in the United States and Sweden. According to them, the unequal distribution of housework contributes to mental health problems in women (Auspurg et al., 2017). Thanks to this source, it becomes clear that the housework gap does not exist because women make a decision to be responsible for most of the tasks.
Conclusion
To sum it up, the housework gender gap still exists in the United States and other countries when it comes to dual-earner heterosexual couples. It can be associated with dissimilar factors, including social expectations of women and men. Despite legal and technological advancements, multiple couples still face issues when deciding to live and do household chores together. Although the main cause of the housework gap remains unknown, modern sociological research offers insights into factors that can reduce or increase gender inequality when it comes to household chores.
The findings from different peer-reviewed articles have strengthened my conviction that the problem of the household gender gap is more complex than it may seem and does not have one concise explanation at the moment. For instance, the cited sources suggest that housework division becomes a bit more equal when women can easily declare their marriage invalid, which has to deal with the distribution of power between the spouses. Apart from legal aspects, gender norms and gendered social expectations remain so strong that they affect housework distribution even more than health when it comes to elderly couples. Basically, most research focuses on the factors that have to deal with people’s understandings of gender. This includes the belief that housework is women’s area of responsibility and that women should actively participate in housework to be considered good wives.
References
Auspurg, K., Iacovou, M., & Nicoletti, C. (2017). Housework share between partners: Experimental evidence on gender-specific preferences. Social Science Research, 66, 1-22.
Doan, L., & Quadlin, N. (2018). Partner characteristics and perceptions of responsibility for housework and child care. Journal of Marriage and Family, 81(1), 145-163.
Geist, C., & Tabler, J. (2017). Somebody has to DUST! Gender, health, and housework in older couples. Journal of Women & Aging, 30(1), 38–48.
Genadek, K. R. (2018). Unilateral divorce and time allocation in the United States. Feminist Economics, 24(1), 63-87.
Latshaw, B. A., & Hale, S. I. (2015). ‘The domestic handoff’: Stay-at-home fathers’ time-use in female breadwinner families. Journal of Family Studies, 22(2), 1-24.
Thébaud, S., Kornrich, S., & Ruppanner, L. (2019). Good housekeeping, great expectations: Gender and housework norms. Sociological Methods & Research, 1-29.