Abstract
Using data from the first two waves of the French Generations and Gender Survey (GGS), conducted in 2005 and 2008 with the same respondents, this chapter looks at changes in how household tasks are divided between partners and examines how the partners’ levels of satisfaction evolve after the birth of the first child.
While there were few changes in household organization in France in the 3 years separating the two survey waves, we do observe sharper inequalities within couples who had a child between 2005 and 2008, due in part to women’s reduced labour force participation. Moreover, women’s greater burden of housework goes together with greater share of parenting tasks, which explains their higher level of dissatisfaction (compared to men) after the birth of first child.
A longer version of this article was published in French in 2010 in the journal Politiques sociales et familiales 99, with Céline Hiron, then an intern at INED. The results presented here are reproduced with the kind permission of the French national family allowances fund (Caisse nationale des allocations familiales—CNAF).
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Notes
- 1.
Six tasks can be labelled as “feminine” (performed by women in 90 % of cases and by men in only 5 % of cases): hand-washing laundry, washing large items in the washing machine, washing small items in the washing machine, ironing, sewing on buttons and cleaning the toilet.
- 2.
Cooking, washing windows, vacuum-cleaning or sweeping, washing dishes by hand, food shopping, filling and emptying the dishwasher and setting the table.
- 3.
We included women aged up to 49, which was the cut-off age for the first survey wave, although the probability of a woman having a child at age 49 is almost zero.
- 4.
Among the couples who had a child between the first and second waves, some had had the child just after the first wave 3 years earlier whereas for others the event was much more recent. Consequently, if the adjustment of roles is gradual and not immediate following a birth, our observation here is underestimated.
- 5.
The proportions for vacuum-cleaning vary slightly depending on the number of children (in 2005, from 3% for childless couples to 8 % for those with at least two children), but remained stable (8–9 %) for ironing, whatever the number of children.
- 6.
Chi-squared test not significant at the 10 % level.
- 7.
“Another child” refers to cases where the couple had a child between 2005 and 2008 and had already been living with at least one child in 2005. If the respondent had children outside the household, did not live with any of them, and had a child between the two waves of the survey, we then considered the child to be a first child. This distinction can be justified by the hypothesis we were seeking to confirm: it is not the fact of “having” children that influences the division of tasks, but rather the fact of living with them.
- 8.
Three situations are considered here. First, the woman did not have a job at the time of the survey (a category that includes economically inactive women, as well as unemployed women and women on full-time parental leave, maternity leave or extended sick leave). Second, the woman worked full-time. Third, the woman worked part-time (including part-time parental leave). How the household organization is described depends on the actual employment situation at that time, especially the amount of time spent working.
- 9.
We only distinguish here between the birth of the first child and that of another child, regardless of birth order, because of the small population sample. Such nuances are important, however: specialization by each member of the couple increases with each birth, and the nature of career adjustments varies by birth order. After a second child, women usually reduce their working hours, whereas they are more likely to leave the job market after a third birth (Pailhé and Solaz 2009).
- 10.
It would have been interesting to consider changes in men’s employment status as well, but there were too few men who had changed occupational situations as revealed by our indicator. Male part-time working is very rare and career adjustments primarily affect women. In fact, men tend to focus more strongly on their career after the birth of a child (Pailhé and Solaz 2006).
- 11.
Other, more complete models incorporating other variables were created, but these variables had no effect. In particular, neither getting married between 2005 and 2008, nor having different interview conditions in 2005 and 2008 (partner present or otherwise) has any incidence on the probability of changes that are “unfavourable” or “very unfavourable” to the woman or on the effect of the other factors, all other things being equal.
- 12.
This is the same model based on the same population sample. The parameters used for the other variables and their statistical significance are therefore the same in both models (only the “family situation” results are different).
- 13.
It should be noted that dissatisfaction was higher among women who had no children in 2005 and none thereafter (around 40 % gave a score under 8), whereas this proportion was only 22 % in 2005 among women who did not have children then but who had one later. This difference can probably be partially explained by structural effects (as previously seen). A more detailed analysis taking account of age, etc. would be useful but is beyond the scope of our study.
- 14.
After calculating the 90 % confidence intervals.
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Régnier-Loilier, A. (2015). Do Couples Share Household Tasks Differently after the Birth of a Child?. In: Régnier-Loilier, A. (eds) The Contemporary Family in France. INED Population Studies, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09528-8_12
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