Macro-level Gender Inequality and the Division of Household Labor in 22 Countries
Abstract
While most previous studies focus on the effects of individuals' and couples' characteristics on the division of housework, this study argues that macro-level factors are equally important in the dynamics of housework distribution between spouses. Data from the 1994 International Social Survey Programme is used to examine whether macro-level gender inequality limits the effect of individual-level variables (relative resources, time availability, and gender ideology) on the division of housework in 22 industrialized countries. The results show that the equalizing effects of time availability and gender ideology are stronger for women in more egalitarian countries; women in less egalitarian countries benefit less from their individual-level assets. Additional analysis shows that other macro-level factors (economic development, female labor-force participation, gender norms, and welfare regimes) may also influence the division of housework. The results suggest that changes in individual-level factors may not be enough to achieve an equal division of housework without the reduction of macro-level gender inequality.
Get full access to this article
View all access and purchase options for this article.
REFERENCES
Batalova Jeanne A., Cohen Philip N. 2002. “Premarital Cohabitation and Housework: Couples in Cross-National Perspective.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 64: 743–55.
Baxter Janeen. 1997. “Gender Equality and Participation in Housework: A Cross-National Perspective.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 28: 220–47.
Becker Gary S. 1981. A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bergen Elizabeth. 1991. “The Economic Context of Labor Allocation: Implications for Gender Stratif ication.” Journal of Family Issues 12: 140–57.
Bianchi Suzanne M., Milkie Melissa A., Sayer Liana C., Robinson John P. 2000. “Is Anyone Doing the Housework? Trends in the Gender Division of Household Labor.” Social Forces 79: 191–228.
Blair Sampson L., Lichter Daniel T. 1991. “Measuring the Division of Household Labor: Gender Segregation of Housework among American Couples.” Journal of Family Issues 12: 91–113.
Blood Robert O. Jr., Wolfe Donald M. 1960. Husbands and Wives: The Dynamics of Married Living. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Blumberg Rae Lesser. 1984. “A General Theory of Gender Stratification.” Sociological Theory 2: 23–101.
Blumberg Rae Lesser. 1988. “Income under Female versus Male Control: Hypotheses from a Theory of Gender Stratification and Data from the Third World.” Journal of Family Issues 9: 51–84.
Blumberg Rae Lesser, Tolbert Coleman Marion 1989. “A Theoretical Look at the Gender Balance of Power in the American Couple.” Journal of Family Issues 10: 225–50.
Brines Julie. 1993. “The Exchange Value of Housework.” Rationality and Society 5: 302–40.
Bryk Anthony S., Raudenbush Stephen W. 1992. Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Calasanti Toni M., Bailey Carol A. 1991. “Gender Inequality and the Division of Household Labor in the United States and Sweden: A Socialist-Feminist Approach.” Social Problems 38: 34–53.
Chang Mariko Lin. 2000. “The Evolution of Sex Segregation Regimes.” American Journal of Sociology 105: 1658–701.
Cohen Philip N. 1998. “Replacing Housework in the Service Economy: Gender, Class, and Race-Ethnicity in Service Spending.” Gender & Society 12: 219–31.
Cohen Philip N., Bianchi Suzanne M. 1999. “Marriage, Children, and Women's Employment: What Do We Know?” Monthly Labor Review 122 (12): 22–31.
Cohen Philip N., Huffman Matt L. 2003. “Occupational Segregation and the Devaluation of Women's Work across U.S. Labor Markets.” Social Forces 81: 881–908.
Coltrane Scott. 2000. “Research on Household Labor: Modeling and Measuring the Social Embeddedness of Routine Family Work.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 62: 1208–33.
Diefenbach Heike. 2002. “Gender Ideologies, Relative Resources, and the Division of Housework in Intimate Relationships: A Test of Hyman Rodman's Theory of Resources in Cultural Context.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 43: 45–64.
Esping-Andersen G⊘sta. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Esping-Andersen G⊘sta. 1999. Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies. New York: Oxford University Press.
Goldin Claudia.1990. Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gornick Janet C., Meyers Marcia K. 2003. Families That Work: Policies for Reconciling Parenthood and Employment. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Greenstein Theodore N. 1996. “Husbands' Participation in Domestic Labor: Interactive Effects of Wives' and Husbands' Gender Ideologies.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 58: 585–95.
Ishii-Kuntz Masako, Coltrane Scott 1992. “Predicting the Sharing of Household Labor: Are Parenting and Housework Distinct?” Sociological Perspectives 35: 629–47.
Jackson Robert Max. 1998. Destined for Equality: The Inevitable Rise of Women's Status. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kamo Yoshinori. 1988. “Determinants of Household Division of Labor: Resources, Power, and Ideology.” Journal of Family Issues 9: 177–200.
Kamo Yoshinori. 1994. “Division of Household Work in the United States and Japan.” Journal of Family Issues 15: 348–78.
Kamo Yoshinori. 2000. “‘He Said, She Said': Assessing Discrepancies in Husbands'and Wives'Reports on the Division of Household Labor.” Social Science Research 29: 459–76.
Lewis Jane. 1992. “Gender and the Development of Welfare Regimes.” Journal of European Social Policy 2: 159–73.
Maret Elizabeth, Finlay Barbara 1984. “The Distribution of Household Labor among Women in Dual-earner Families.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 46: 357–64.
O'Connor Julia S., Shola Orloff Ann, Shaver Sheila 1999. States, Markets, Families: Gender, Liberalism, and Social Policy in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and the United States. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Pittman Joe F., Blanchard David 1996. “The Effects of Work History and Timing of Marriage on the Division of Household Labor: A Life-Course Perspective.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 58: 78–90.
Presser Harriet B. 1994. “Employment Schedules among Dual-earner Spouses and the Division of Household Labor by Gender.” American Sociological Review 59: 348–64.
Rodman Hyman. 1967. “Marital Power in France, Greece, Yugoslavia, and the United States: A Cross-National Discussion.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 29: 320–24.
Ross Catherine E. 1987. “The Division of Labor at Home.” Social Forces 65: 816–33.
Sanchez Laura. 1994. “Material Resources, Family Structure Resources, and Husbands' Housework Participation: A Cross-National Comparison.” Journal of Family Issues 15: 379–402.
Shelton Beth Anne, John Daphne 1996. “The Division of Household Labor.” Annual Review of Sociology 22: 299–322.
South Scott J., Spitze Glenna 1994. “Housework in Marital and Non-marital Households.” American Sociological Review 59: 327–47.
The World Bank Group. 2004. WDI Online. Retrieved January 29, 2004 (http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline).
United Nations Development Program (UNDP). 1995. Human Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press.
United Nations Development Program (UNDP). 1997. Human Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press.
United Nations Development Program (UNDP). 1998. Human Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press.
United Nations Development Program (UNDP). 2000. Human Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press.
Van der Lippe Tanja, van Dijk Liset 2002. “Comparative Research on Women's Employment.” Annual Review of Sociology 28: 221–41.
Windebank Jan. 2001. “Dual-earner Couples in Britain and France: Gender Divisions of Domestic Labour and Parenting Work in Different Welfare States.” Work, Employment and Society 15: 269–90.
Zentralarchiv für Empirische Sozialforschung. 2001. The International Social Survey Programme. Retrieved February 15, 2001 (http://www.gesis.org/en/data_service/issp/).
Cite article
Cite article
Cite article
OR
Download to reference manager
If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice
Information, rights and permissions
Information
Published In
Article first published: December 2004
Issue published: December 2004
Authors
Metrics and citations
Metrics
Journals metrics
This article was published in American Sociological Review.
View All Journal MetricsArticle usage*
Total views and downloads: 5824
*Article usage tracking started in December 2016
Altmetric
See the impact this article is making through the number of times it’s been read, and the Altmetric Score.
Learn more about the Altmetric Scores
Articles citing this one
Receive email alerts when this article is cited
Web of Science: 434 view articles Opens in new tab
Crossref: 464
- Dual-Earner Couples
- Aligned, competing, and blurred: Gender and family attitudes in East Asia
- Disaggregating the relationship between precarious employment and delayed marriage in Japan: Incorporating non-cohabiting partnerships
- Faithfully Gendered? How Religious Attendance Shapes Views of Women’s Leadership in Politics and Business Cross-Nationally
- Unequal Autonomy: An Investigation of Individual and Societal Determinants of Individuals’ Sense of Autonomy in Europe
- Practicable strategies parents can apply in their daily routine to successfully implement the 50/50-split-model of paid work, childcare, and housework: a qualitative content analysis
- ‘A Total Gamechanger’: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Swedish Fathers’ Work-Family Experiences Since the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Division of household labor in urban China: Couples’ education pairing and co-residence with parents
- Patrones de género en la dedicación al trabajo doméstico no remunerado de la población adulta mayor en dieciocho países europeos
- Early life shock and labour market outcomes: Panel data evidence from South Africa
- View More
Figures and tables
Figures & Media
Tables
View Options
Access options
If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:
I am signed in as:
View my profileSign out
I can access personal subscriptions, purchases, paired institutional access and free tools such as favourite journals, email alerts and saved searches.
loading institutional access options
ASA members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.
ASA members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.
Alternatively, view purchase options below:
Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.
Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.
