Do people change their housework behavior when they change partners? Is living with men as roommates create more housework for women in young adulthood? Who are parents allocate their time when they live with extended family members? How couples divide housework in different family structures? Scroll down to find out!

 

Thank U, Next? Repartnering and the Household Division of Labor

Journal of Marriage and Family, 2021

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Amidst increasing cohabitation rates and union instability, heterosexual women and men are likely to form and dissolve multiple marital and non-marital unions with different partners over the life course. However, sociologists know very little how past relationships affect current ones, particularly whether people change their housework arrangements upon repartnering and whether women and men experience similar patterns of change. Drawing on life course and gender theories and prospective longitudinal data, the first paper tests competing hypotheses about the effect of repartnering on individuals' levels and shares of housework. I find that women and men perform the same amount and share of housework in their second union as they did in their first union. However, there is also evidence that women's share of housework slightly declines in their second union. The results suggest that although the life course is dynamic, gender roles are stable amid union instability.

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A House is Not a Home? Gender and Housework in Young Adults’ Roommate Households

SocArXiv

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Sociological research consistently find that women do more housework than men. However, studies primarily focus on couples, thus overlooking non-familial households and the life stage of young adulthood. In this paper, I ask whether living with men roommates is associated with more housework investment for young adult women in the US. Using the American Time Use Survey (2003-2019), I describe young adults' housework investment, paying particular attention to the household's gender composition and type of task. The results demonstrate how gender organizes housework time for young adults, mainly cleaning – young adult women clean more than young adult men across all living arrangements. However, women living with men roommates did not invest more time in housework than young adult women in other living arrangements. The results suggest that the contractual roommate relationship does not promote equality or prevent "doing gender." However, it does hinder an intensified gender display.

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Who Benefits from the Village? Doubling Up and Parents’ Time Use

SocArXiv

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A growing body of work focuses on the reasons and consequences of doubling up (DU) and racial/ethnic variations in kinship support. However, we know little about how gender dynamics shape parents’ time use in these households and how partnership status and race/ethnicity moderate these relationships. This study investigates how doubling up, i.e., living with extended family members and other non-kin adults, shapes American parents’ time use, specifically childcare, housework, leisure, self-care, and sleep, paying particular attention to partnership status and race/ethnicity. The analysis draws on the pooled American Time Use Survey (2003-2019) and a sample of American parents ages 18 to 54 (N=66,803). OLS regression models estimated the association between living arrangement and time use stratified by partnership status and race/ethnicity. The results show that DU is associated with less domestic labor and more leisure time (with household members) for mothers. Partnered mothers had higher reductions in childcare, and single mothers had a greater reduction in housework across racialized/ethnic groups. Although fathers’ time demonstrated a similar general association, race/ethnicity played a greater role for fathers, and results suggest that White (single) fathers benefited most from DU. Meaning, DU offers families a strategy to navigate hardship, and it does so by supporting mothers and fathers in their gendered familial roles and maintaining general protection for fathers’ time.  

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Ain't Your Mama: Family Complexity and the Division of Household Labor

In progress, earlier version presented at PAA2021 [dissertation chapter]

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Past research highlighted the Incomplete Institution hypothesis to explain the more egalitarian division of housework in remarriages and stepfamilies. The explanation suggests that family complexity introduces ambiguity to family life, resulting in a more egalitarian division of labor. In this paper, I investigate the gender dynamics in complex families by examining men's relative housework shares across different family structures from 1985 to 2017. I find that although in the earlier period (1985-1989), men in stepfamilies had greater shares of housework than men in two-biological parent families and blended families, stepfathers' housework behavior has converged over time. In contrast, men in stepmother families have consistently shared housework more equally than other men. Additional decomposition analysis suggests that between half and 61% of the gap between men in stepmother families and men in other family structures are attributed to selection. The findings challenge the Incomplete Institution hypothesis and highlight how parental roles cement the gendered division of housework in heterosexual unions.

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