It is well-established that women perform the vast majority of household tasks. This study examined conflicts over the household division of labor. The study respondents (N=140) were obtained from a mailed survey to a national sample of 500 households in the winter of 1991. Of the 140 respondents, 78 were couples. Each household was sent a survey…

Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, examined gender-based segregation of family labor, focusing on effects of time availability, family power, and gender role ideology. Found American couples exhibited highly sex-segregated family work patterns. (Author/ABL)

Compared time that cohabiting and married women and men spend doing housework. Analysis of data from 1987 National Survey of Families and Households revealed that marital status affected women's household labor time but not men's; married women spent significantly more time on housework than did cohabiting women. (Author/NB)

It is well-established that women do the vast majority of household labor. West and Zimmerman's concept of "doing gender" suggests that sex inequity persists because housework enables women to demonstrate their gendered identities to others. However, changes in gendered norms for housework may be underway because recent studies indicate…

Used data from Panel Study of Income Dynamics to investigate process by which spouses allocate their labor between employment and housework. Findings indicated that both women's market and domestic labor were highly sensitive to family economy, whereas men's market labor was subject to macroeconomic structure and men's domestic labor was little…

This study examines factors related to the affective meanings that spouses and cohabitors attach to child care, baby care, and nine household chores. Gender is related to about a third of these task meanings. Gender also moderates the relationship between work and twelve task meanings. (Contains 35 references, 8 tables, and 1 appendix.) (BF)

Surveyed dual-employed couple to explore causes of satisfaction with and arguments over division of household labor. Found husbands more satisfied with equitable division; wives more satisfied with division favoring them. Wives were more content if husbands shared women's traditional chores. Spouses disagreed about how often they argued over…

Interviewed Australian and Canadian mothers about the assignment of either routine or specially requested household work to their 9- to 14-year-old sons and daughters. Found that routine work was positively correlated with older children's concern for family members. There was no correlation between household work and prosocial behavior toward…

Examined relationship of family life satisfaction to division of household work between men and women among married Black adults. Found women almost twice as likely as men to feel overworked by household work; people who felt overworked had lower levels of family life satisfaction. Found interactions among family life satisfaction, division of…

Investigated whether perceived involvement in household work after retirement related to husbands' and wives' retirement adaptation. Data from 611 recent retirees showed positive effect of postretirement housework involvement on women's adjustment. For men, relationship between housework and adaptation was contingent on such factors as health,…

Questionnaire response from 1,136 single fathers raising children alone revealed that as children grew older, they participated more in housework, and that fathers received more help from teenage daughters than from teenage sons. Fathers' use of outside help and daughters as mother substitutes are discussed. (Author/NRB)

Reports on a longitudinal study of 144 young adolescents which hypothesized that boys and girls would experience increased gender-differential socialization across a 1-year period in which parents maintained a traditional division of labor, and there was a younger sibling of the opposite gender. Provides longitudinal analyses of three aspects of…

Examined relationship of family and work roles to psychological well-being of Blacks. Data from National Survey of Black Americans indicated that more life satisfaction and happiness were not affected by sex-specific social roles. Marriage and parenting did affect these well-being measures. Employed men who did most of household work had…

Examined gender role differences between adults in two-parent, two-earner families (n=47); their children; and children from single-parent families (n=47) in household work. Results indicated parents were highly sex segregated in household task behavior; household tasks were sex related for female parent; and children were less sex segregated in…

A sample of 492 children and adolescents analyzed to determine differences in time use shows that males spend more time in leisure activities and less time in household work and personal care than do females. (DM)