Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

Gender Inequalities in the Home

Item

Title

Gender Inequalities in the Home

Author

Drobnič, Sonja

Ruppanner, Leah

Research Area

Class, Status and Power

Topic

Gender and Gender Inequality

Abstract

Gender inequalities in the home are reflected across a range of issues centering on care. In this essay, we focus on household labor which is persistent, structured by individual, couple, and structural differences and reflective of broader issues of gender inequality. Initially, we identify the theoretical approaches that serve as the foundation of empirical work on domestic arrangements: relative resources, time availability, and gender display theories. Then we discuss cutting‐edge approaches to household arrangements focusing on emerging research that expands definitions of housework, investigates existing theories for new family forms, and identifies housework as fluid by situating these divisions over the life course. Next, we discuss the methodological concerns that limit the generalizability of existing housework research. Finally, we identify remaining theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues plaguing housework research to provide further directions for future research. Ultimately, we provide a road map for emerging research on the gendered distribution of household labor.

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Identifier

etrds0141

extracted text

Gender Inequalities in the Home
ˇ and LEAH RUPPANNER
SONJA DROBNIC

Abstract
Gender inequalities in the home are reflected across a range of issues centering on
care. In this essay, we focus on household labor which is persistent, structured by
individual, couple, and structural differences and reflective of broader issues of
gender inequality. Initially, we identify the theoretical approaches that serve as the
foundation of empirical work on domestic arrangements: relative resources, time
availability, and gender display theories. Then we discuss cutting-edge approaches
to household arrangements focusing on emerging research that expands definitions
of housework, investigates existing theories for new family forms, and identifies
housework as fluid by situating these divisions over the life course. Next, we
discuss the methodological concerns that limit the generalizability of existing
housework research. Finally, we identify remaining theoretical, methodological,
and empirical issues plaguing housework research to provide further directions for
future research. Ultimately, we provide a road map for emerging research on the
gendered distribution of household labor.

INTRODUCTION
Inequalities in the home that reflect unequal gender relations involve various
life domains and can be addressed from multiple perspectives. Evidence
from around the world shows that the way the household’s collective
resources are used and women’s role in household decision-making processes largely determine inequalities in the household, including nutrition,
health care, education, and the protection that each family member receives.
In this essay, however, we focus on one specific aspect of inequality in the
home: gendered domestic arrangements and the division of household labor.
Research on housework has been motivated by a need to better understand gender inequality and social change in work and family domains in
contemporary societies. Work, paid and unpaid, is central to family life,
reflecting a complex interplay between gender inequality in the home and
in the labor market. Gender-based specialization between unpaid and paid
work, and differences in men’s and women’s combination of paid work
and housework affect the social position of individuals, their economic
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

independence, and social relationships. Gender is a major organizing feature
of household labor, and housework reflects broader expectations of gender,
family, and employment.
Women shoulder a disproportional share of responsibility for housework
and this specialization increases after marriage and parenthood. Numerous
studies have consistently identified a sizable gap between the changes in
women’s paid employment, women’s political empowerment, and the shift
toward more egalitarian gender role attitudes in contemporary industrial
societies on the one hand, and disproportionally minor changes in the
division of unpaid labor at home on the other. This persistence of gender
inequality in housework has intrigued scholars for decades. We briefly
present the established approaches to household division of labor, identify
recent lines of inquiry, and discuss some key lingering questions that require
additional investigation.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
Most of the research on the division of household labor has focused on
individual and couple levels of analysis (see for review Coltrane, 2000;
Lachance-Grzela & Bouchard, 2010). Regardless of how household labor is
defined, how it is measured, or in which country it is studied, research has
consistently shown that women contribute a larger share of the household
labor than do men. Initial studies identified the theoretical underpinnings of
household allocations, determining who did what and how housework was
divided among couples. From this research, theoretical explanations evolved
in the direction of relative resources, time availability, and gender display.
The relative resource perspective has evolved along two different strands.
Proponents of the economic theory of the family (Becker, 1981) draw attention to the fact that an individual’s decision making about the allocation of
time to paid market work and unpaid domestic work must be understood
within the context of the family. The sex-specific specialization of labor is
an outcome of a comparative or relative advantage in couples and is beneficial for the family household as a unit. The division of labor is not gendered
per se; the person who has more marketable skills, higher productivity, and
higher earnings capacity will specialize in paid work; the other partner’s
main responsibility will be the maintenance of the home and rearing of children. The efficiency of labor specialization is sometimes operationalized as
time availability, according to which partners allocate time for household
work as a residual to their time spent in employment.
The second theoretical strand is the resource-bargaining model (Brines
1993). This perspective views the division of housework as a negotiated outcome of power relations between spouses, reflecting the resources men and

Gender Inequalities in the Home

3

women bring to the relationship. Household tasks are considered onerous,
unattractive activities that partners wish to “buy out of”—either through
purchasing services or securing greater participation of their partner.
Spouses consider the union to be open to negotiations and adjustments are
made in response to changes in either partners’ resources. Most researchers
who apply this argument explain husbands’ power in conventional marriages in terms of economic exchange: by providing income and status,
husbands are entitled to be the principal decision maker. A special case of the
resource bargaining model is the economic dependency model, wherein one
partner is economically dependent on the other, which explicitly addresses
the way in which the distribution of market incomes affects housework
sharing between the spouses. Men and women are assumed to agree upon a
contract wherein housework is exchanged for financial support.
Similar to the economic approach to the family, resource bargaining theories
are symmetrical in their implications. If wives do more paid work and earn
more money, they will do less housework, and their husbands will do more
housework. Note that in this approach, too, the exchange activity follows
“market” rules, and the outcome is, in principle, gender neutral.
However, despite the dramatic increase in women’s human capital investments and earnings potential, empirical studies show that the division
of labor continues to be highly gender specific. Gender ideology theories
seek explanations for the observed gender gap, addressing the mechanisms
that limit working wives’ ability to capitalize on their labor force gains
rather than focusing exclusively on gender-neutral rational decision-making
processes of the resource perspective. One prominent example is the “doing
gender” approach, which asserts that both men and women have a stake in
the gender identities that have to be produced and reproduced in recurrent,
everyday social interaction (Berk 1985; West & Zimmerman 1987). In this
sense, housework and childcare not only mean producing commodities
and services but also reaffirming one’s gendered relationship. Husbands
and wives “do gender” as they exchange resources and women often use
housework to exhibit their gender identities within heterosexual unions.
Gender theories clearly eschew assumptions of gender neutrality evident in
resource-bargaining theories. Following the gender arguments, one would
not expect rapid and automatic changes in private and social arrangements
as a consequence of women’s increasing participation in the labor market.
Rather, gender remains a central organizer of couples’ housework arrangements. Empirical evidence shows that couples’ division of domestic labor
does adapt somewhat to changes in wives’ employment status, with relative
housework shares becoming more equal. Women adapt more readily than
men to their changed employment circumstances by reducing their daily

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

hours of housework. Yet a persistent gender gap, whereby women perform
a larger share of the housework, remains.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
On the basis of these well-established and broadly applied theories, recent
research has moved in new directions, some of which we highlight here. To
this end, we discuss expansions across the following dimensions: conceptualization of housework, new family forms, housework over the life course,
housework across national and institutional settings, and methodological
advancements.
CONCEPTUALIZATION OF HOUSEWORK
In its broadest form, housework is conceptualized as all work performed
to maintain the home. Of course, some forms of housework are identified
as more routine, time dependent and onerous while others are shown to
be episodic, flexible, and less intense (Bianchi, Milkie, Sayer, & Robinson,
2000). These allocations—routine versus episodic housework—are shown to
be highly gendered, with women assuming the largest burden of the routine tasks. It is this division between the core and episodic chores that has
dominated most of the previous housework research. However, recent studies highlight the need to expand housework studies beyond this dichotomy.
For example, Hook (2004) finds the gendered allocation of time extends to
volunteer and informal care, highlighting the importance of investigating
broader measures of unpaid care work to deepen our understanding of the
trade-offs around family and work in the home. Also, Eichler and Albanese
(2007) challenge four implicit assumptions that underlie empirical studies
on housework: housework as exclusive work by couples performed in their
own home, that it consists primarily of repetitive physical tasks, that it may
include childcare but not elder care, and that it remains largely stable over the
life course. They propose a new definition of household work and identify
four dimensions of household work that should be considered in research:
physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimension. These studies identify
the breadth of ways gender structures unpaid domestic time with important
consideration for life course effects.
NEW FAMILY FORMS
The vast majority of housework is theorized and empirically tested for heterosexual married or cohabiting couples. This partially reflects limitations
in data availability as well as the influence of hegemonic norms around

Gender Inequalities in the Home

5

marriage. However, scholars are increasingly investigating housework for
a wider range of family forms. For example, Kurdek (2007) finds lesbian
women share housework more equally than homosexual men. Further, the
transition into parenthood resulted in greater specialization in childcare
but not housework for lesbian couples (Goldberg & Perry-Jenkins, 2007;
Goldberg & Sayer, 2006), a relationship that counters research on heterosexual couples. These, of course, may reflect racial and class differences, with
white educated lesbians holding gender role expectations consistent with
second-wave feminism (Moore, 2008). Among homosexual male couples,
one partner tends to specialize, reporting larger shares of housework and
childcare, yet with greater equity, on average, than heterosexual couples
(Johnson & O’Connor, 2002). An additional stream of research investigates
housework within transgender and transsexual families. Specifically, Pfeffer
(2010) applies qualitative data of women partnered with transgendered and
transsexual men to document important differences from same-sex couples.
Transgendered women negotiate “family myths” reconciling their unequal
housework divisions with their feminist ideologies, a process seen in heterosexual couples as well. These studies document the multidimensional way
in which gender, sexual orientation, family, and housework are negotiated.
HOUSEWORK OVER THE LIFE COURSE
Socialization and gender role expectations, such as a breadwinner/
homemaker model, are shown to influence adults’ housework allocations
(Berk, 1985; Brines, 1994; Greenstein, 2000; West & Zimmerman, 1987). The
process through which gendered housework expectations are transferred
to children is an emerging area of research. For example, the time spent
in childcare is tied to fathers’ but not mothers’ more egalitarian gender
role ideologies which may influence children’s future housework divisions (Bulanda, 2004). Indeed, children report ideal housework allocations
consistent with their parents’ division when the child is in adolescence (Cunningham, 2001). Major life course transitions—marriage, parenthood, and
retirement—are also shown to structure housework allocations. Gupta (1999)
finds that men reduce and women increase the time they spend on routine
housework when they form couple households. The pattern, however, varies
cross-nationally with a large gender gap in housework emerging during the
transition to parenthood, not into marriage, for Australian (Baxter, Hewitt,
& Haynes, 2008) or German couples (Schulz & Blossfeld, 2006). Of course,
these transitions are highly tied to cultural expectations for women’s work
across these life course transitions (Treas & Widmer, 2000). Housework
decisions made during major life course transitions have long-term impacts.
Indeed, couples who divided housework the most unequally upon the

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

birth of their first child reported the greatest likelihood of divorcing a
decade later (Helms-Erikson, 2001). The transition into retirement also
structures housework, with retirees reporting more time than the employed
with less gender specialization in chores (Szinovacz, 2000). With long-life
expectancies, retirement spans multiple decades, and thus, most individuals
require some form of help with household chores. Informal care more
generally often disproportionately falls to adult children with important
gender differences (Dautzenberg, Diederiks, Philipsen, & Tan, 1999).
HOUSEWORK ACROSS INSTITUTIONAL SETTINGS
In an emerging stream of research, housework is shown to be structured
by broader societal characteristics and cultural institutions. Couples report
more equal divisions of housework in more gender-empowered countries,
net of their own resources and gender role ideologies (Fuwa, 2004). Housework is structured by welfare state regimes (Geist, 2005), sociopolitical
contexts (Cooke, 2006), has differential effects for cohabitors compared to
the married couples (Batalova & Cohen, 2002), has distinct effects by gender
empowerment type (Ruppanner, 2010) and has diverse cross-national
manifestations and consequences (Treas & Drobniˇc, 2010). A complementary stream of research documents the impact of macro-level factors on
housework, such as economic development (Knudsen & Waerness, 2008)
and conflict over housework (Braun, Lewin-Epstein, Stier, & Baumgärtner, 2008; Ruppanner, 2010). Collectively, these studies demonstrate that
country-to-country structural differences impact individual allocations of
and satisfaction with housework.
Yet, an emerging stream of research situates these experiences over
time. For example, Geist and Cohen (2011) find the biggest reductions in
the gendered allocation of housework occurred in the most traditional,
not the most egalitarian, countries. In sum, the cross-national multilevel
investigation of household labor theoretically grounds our understanding
of housework within broader institutional structures. These studies focus
on country-to-country variation but a more detailed understanding of
theoretically grounded levels of analysis (metropolitan statistical areas,
cities, and regions) should guide future research.
METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
Empirical research on housework is still predominantly based on crosssectional data, which makes it difficult to disentangle trends over time in
terms of age—cohort—period effects. In a longitudinal study on Swedish
data, Evertsson and Nermo (2007) show that changes in spouses’ relative

Gender Inequalities in the Home

7

resources result in only a moderate change in women’s share of the housework. Another methodological advancement is the establishment of a
range of data sources on housework: surveys, time diaries, and qualitative
interviews. Each has its strengths and limitations. Time diary studies offer
superior data on time use over time, but the long series tend to measure
fewer covariates than cross-national surveys. Cross-national surveys are
rich in individual-level data, but until recently they covered relatively few
countries. Furthermore, cross-national survey analyses that aim to wed the
macro to the micro are often constrained because institutional indicators are
not comparable and available for all countries. A mixture of various data
sources is required for an optimal exploration of the complex organization of
family life. Besides survey and time diary data, comparative ethnographies
of housework, consumer expenditure data linked to time use information,
and even natural experiments formulated around the introduction of new
household products could all enrich our understanding of household
labor.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
The literature on housework is dynamic and multidimensional. Housework
demands are persistent as very few households can afford to outsource all
care. As such, the study of housework will provide important insight into
gender inequality and family and structural processes. Research over the
past 30 years has identified individual determinants of housework allocation,
housework allocations across varying family forms, longitudinal processes
to housework, and structural impacts on housework. Yet, lingering questions remain. On the broadest level, the concept of housework needs to be
reexamined. Activities that go beyond repetitive physical tasks should be recognized as important dimensions of housework, including “soft” tasks, such
as providing emotional support to family members, maintaining contacts
with kin and networks of friends, resolving conflicts among family members, managing financial and health issues, as well as planning and managing
the overall organization of the household. In other words, work for the family and household not only consists of grocery shopping but also the steps
required to create a shopping list. It is not only bringing a child to the doctor
but also keeping the required check-up in mind and making an appointment.
Certainly, the articulation of housework with household management, child
care, elderly care, and emotional support activities warrant more attention in
housework research and gender inequalities.
Another question requiring more attention centers on the concept of
outsourcing. With the decline of the homemaker/breadwinner model,
women’s full-time labor force participation is becoming normative in many

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

societies as families rely on dual-earner wages. This introduces interesting
questions of housework and care. Specifically, are families outsourcing
housework and if so, how? The measurement of outsourcing is often limited
or lacking from most datasets. As such, a measured and theoretically
grounded understanding of outsourcing should be undertaken and applied
consistently across data sets.
An additional issue of representativeness plagues cross-national research.
To date, comparative research on housework has typically been limited
to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
countries in North America, Europe, and advanced Asian and Pacific
economies, where suitable data and research expertise are more readily
available. But a more diverse range of countries and an analysis on a truly
global level is essential for better understanding the national-level conditions and experiences of families as well as global processes and policies
(Heymann, Earle, & Hanchate, 2004). A particularly important aspect is
the dramatic worldwide increase in the demand for domestic helpers and
live-in workers (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001). As the number of dual-earner
couples has increased in the affluent countries, so, too, has the demand for
domestic workers who carry out the household chores and caring tasks in
private households. Domestic work is a large growth industry worldwide
for migrant women (Anderson, 2000), and this complex phenomenon has
an impact on housework production in sending countries as well as in host
countries. This raises a variety of domestic and international issues that
require investigation.
Further, class inequalities and disparities in housework volume are two
areas that demand further attention. Research shows that more prosperous
women have a time use advantage vis-à-vis the poor when it comes to housework. Perhaps it is our own middle-class standpoint that has led sociologists
to focus on gender inequality at the expense of class inequality. It is obvious
that a wide range of social, economic, and interpersonal factors combine to
influence household labor. Ideally, a closer collaboration of disciplines that
address issues related to housework—such as sociology, economics, social
policy, and psychology—would be beneficial to fully grasp the complex phenomenon of household work and gender inequalities in the home.

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ˇ SHORT BIOGRAPHY
SONJA DROBNIC
Sonja Drobniˇc is Professor of Sociology at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), University of Bremen, Germany. Her
research interests include quality of life and work, social networks and social
capital, social stratification, and specifically gender inequalities in the households and in the labor market. Her publications include Dividing the Domestic.
Men, Women, and Household Work in Cross-National Perspective (ed. with Judith
Treas, 2010, Stanford University Press). Drobniˇc is an elected Fellow of the
European Academy of Sociology.
LEAH RUPPANNER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Leah Ruppanner is a Lecturer at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her
research focuses on cross-national work and family issues. Her recent article
in Work and Occupations identifies that country-level gender empowerment
structures individual-level work-family conflict among parents. Her current
research extends this cross-national research to situate spouses’ housework
time within state-level gender empowerment for the United States.
RELATED ESSAYS
The Sexual Division of Labor (Anthropology), Rebecca Bliege Bird and Brian
F. Codding
Rent, Rent-Seeking, and Social Inequality (Sociology), Beth Red Bird and
David B. Grusky
Changing Family Patterns (Sociology), Kathleen Gerson and Stacy Torres
Family Relationships and Development (Psychology), Joan E. Grusec
Divorce (Sociology), Juho Härkönen
The Reorganization of Work (Sociology), Charles Heckscher
Family Formation in Times of Labor Market Insecurities (Sociology), Johannes
Huinink
Household Economy (Sociology), Laura Lein and Amanda Tillotson
The Future of Marriage (Sociology), Elizabeth Aura McClintock
Gender Inequality in Educational Attainment (Sociology), Anne McDaniel
and Claudia Buchmann
Feminists in Power (Sociology), Ann Orloff and Talia Schiff
Gender and the Transition to Adulthood: A Diverse Pathways View (Sociology), Ingrid Schoon
Family Income Composition (Economics), Kristin E. Smith
Transnational Work Careers (Sociology), Roland Verwiebe