[This proposal is part of a funded CRP from the EuroCORES HumVIB competition.]
This research advances understanding of inequality in the division of household labor between husbands and wives. The project is the U.S. component of a recommended international CRP collaboration, "Gender Inequality in Comparative Perspective" (EQUALITY), that responds to the European Science Foundation EUROCORES initiative on "Cross-National and Multi-Level Analysis of Human Values, Institutions and Behaviour" (HumVIB). Addressing the pressing challenge of sustaining broad participation of both men and women in societies, EQUALITY aims to understand the persistent gender inequality at different levels in Europe and the US. Projects on gender gaps in the labor force, poverty, social networks, and domestic life are directed by scientists from the Netherlands, Hungary, Germany and the U.S., respectively. Bringing a shared theoretical framework on macro-level and micro-level gender inequality to bear on various spheres of life in the U.S. and Europe, the collaboration offers an integrated understanding of the gender gaps within and between countries.
This individual project focuses on household labor and domestic gender inequalities. Despite changes in gender roles, women, even full-time workers, continue to bear a disproportionate burden for domestic labor. Inequality in the division of household labor discourages childbearing, fosters marital instability, and depresses women?s wages, Using multi-level modeling and cross-national data from the International Social Survey Program and the European Social Survey, this project pursues three objectives.
1) To investigate cross-national patterns in the total, female, and male volume of housework in married and cohabiting unions, with particular emphasis on country-level conditions that are associated with higher or lower absolute domestic workloads. 2) To test multi-level models of national economic, cultural, and policy influences on the division of household labor that theorize the distinction between hours-based and gender-typed task measures of male housework participation. 3) To extend the analysis of household labor to the allocation of household management activities and their implications for the division of domestic responsibilities in different country contexts.
The project's intellectual merit relates to its systematic cross-national analysis of determinants and forms of gender inequality. Its broader impacts include fostering productive international alliances between European and US researchers.
