Children's preparation for adult roles and independent living occur largely through participation with their families in home routines including household tasks. This preparation may involve learning related to family roles, socialization, and occupational performance. This study was designed to explore the extent to which child, environmental,…

Using data from a U.S. longitudinal investigation of psychological effects of occupational conditions (a project of the National Institute of Mental Health's unit on Socioenvironmental Studies), we examined the relationship between the complexity of household work and 2 psychological variables: intellectual flexibility and self-esteem.…

Examined time allotments to household, paid, and unpaid work for farm, rural nonfarm, and urban women. Findings from 2,100 two-parent, two-child families revealed no significant differences among groups in allocation of time to household work. Of three groups, farm women spent more time in unpaid work, and rural nonfarm women devoted most time to…

Tested Kohn's theory that people who work in highly supervised, routinized occupations are likely to value obedience and conformity in marital and parental relationships. Findings from 244 couples revealed that working conditions were not strong predictors of division of household labor. Concludes that nontraditional gender role values,…

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)

The instrument described in this article, "How Do You Help in the Family?," provides a way to recognize the number of tasks performed in home management and a method for expressing feelings about the stress associated with household work. (SK)

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…

A model specifying that certain subjective beliefs and structural conditions affect the symbolic meaning wives give to their household labor divisions was tested on 144 retirement-age married women. Results indicate that wives perceive less spousal support when housework divisions are more unequal, and that this lack of spousal support leads to…

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)

Examined domestic role-sharing of dual-earner couples (N=20) with school-aged children. Found postponing parenting encouraged male attachment to father role and promoted women's efforts to relinquish full household management responsibility. Reevaluated linkage of educational attainment to husbands' housework with reference to potential birth…

An egalitarian arrangement affects both the power and emotional quality of couples' relationships. How married couples (N=15) who divide household work and child care equitably and without regard to gender arrived at this arrangement and the consequences of it for their relationship are studied through interviews. Four paths are discussed.…

Twenty-six four- to six-year olds were shown pictures of a figure washing dishes, washing a car, and washing clothes and stated whether they considered the activity work or not. Almost all children saw all the activities as work. There were some differences in how boys and girls saw the gender of the figure. (BC)

Using data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey 1998, this study analyzes how much money different types of households spend for domestic services on "female" and "male" tasks. We test alternative hypotheses based on economic and sociological theories of gender differentiation. Contrary to arguments that marriage lowers the risk to one…