Skip to main content

Comparative Analyses of Housework and Its Relation to Paid Work: Institutional Contexts and Individual Agency

Vergleichende Analyse von Hausarbeit im Verhältnis zu bezahlter Arbeit: institutionelle Kontexte und individuelle Agency

KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie volume 71, pages 247–284 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Despite major changes in gender divisions of work since the 1960s, women continue to perform a larger share of unpaid housework and care than men, whereas men continue to perform more paid work. This is true for a wide range of countries. The paper first describes respective macro-trends for women’s and men’s changing contributions to paid work, routine housework and child care over the past 70 years. It then focuses on the role of institutional context and individual agency in gender divisions of routine housework according to cross-national comparative research published since 2000. On the macro level, the paper identifies three main areas of investigation: the role of work–family policies, welfare state regimes, and national levels of gender equality (Gender Empowerment Measure, the Gender Development Index and the Gender Inequality Index) for men’s and women’s divisions of work. On the micro level, studies mainly assess theories of economic dependency and resource bargaining, time availability, doing gender and deviance neutralization. More recently, research is turning to the examination of inter-relations between the micro- and macro-level factors. According to the state of research, women are better able to enact economic and noneconomic agency in national contexts with high levels of gender equality and supportive work–family policies. This is apparent in the Scandinavian countries.

Zusammenfassung

Obwohl sich die geschlechtsspezifische Arbeitsteilung seit den 1960er-Jahren gewandelt hat, verrichten Frauen noch immer einen weitaus größeren Anteil an unbezahlter Hausarbeit als Männer, während Männer weiterhin mehr Erwerbsarbeit verrichten. Dieser Befund gilt für ein breites Spektrum an Ländern. In dem vorliegenden Artikel werden zunächst die zugrunde liegenden Makrotrends der veränderten Beiträge von Frauen und Männern zu Erwerbsarbeit, Routinehaushaltstätigkeiten und Kinderbetreuung in den letzten 70 Jahren beschrieben. Danach wird auf Basis der seit dem Jahr 2000 publizierten vergleichenden Forschungsergebnisse die Rolle institutioneller Kontexte und individueller Agency, d. h. individueller Handlungsspielräume, bei der Verrichtung von Hausarbeit in den Blick genommen. Auf der Makroebene werden in diesem Artikel drei Hauptforschungslinien zur Arbeitsteilung von Männern und Frauen identifiziert: die Rolle von Arbeits- und Familienpolitik, von Wohlfahrtsstaaten und von Geschlechteregalität (Gender Empowerment Measure, GEM; Gender Development Index, GII; und Gender Inequality Index, GDI). Auf der Mikroebene werden die Rolle ökonomischer Abhängigkeiten, ökonomische Verhandlungstheorien, zeitliche Verfügbarkeit, Doing Gender und Devianzneutralisierung untersucht. Aktuell richtet sich die Forschung zudem verstärkt auf Wechselwirkungen zwischen diesen Mikro- und Makrofaktoren. Der Forschungsstand zeigt, dass Frauen ökonomische und nichtökonomische Formen von Agency besser in nationalen Kontexten realisieren können, in denen ein hohes Maß an Geschlechteregalität besteht und in denen es eine unterstützende Arbeits- und Familienpolitik gibt. Beide Randbedingungen sind v. a. in den skandinavischen Ländern zu finden.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price includes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Notes

  1. This literature argues that “Conspicuous care for the home is a way of demonstrating that a family is affluent enough either to free a wife from having to work in the labor market so that she can devote time to surplus labor, or, if she does work in the labor market, to pay someone else to do the surplus labor for the family. In either case, the meticulous, upkeep of a home produced by women’s surplus labor is a marker of class, race, and ethnic distinction (…)” (Thompson and Armato 2012, p. 80).

  2. In this paper, if not further specified, the term ‘gender divisions of work’ refers to how all types of work, paid and unpaid, are divided between men and women. This perspective includes studies of gender-change in either work sphere as well as changes among women and men. Work is defined as “sets of tasks that people carry out, often for a wage, to produce goods or services for others” (Smith 2006, p. 676). Unpaid work comprises a broad range of productive and reproductive tasks, including unpaid routine housework and unpaid child care (Lachance-Grzela and Bouchard 2010).

  3. Although confidence in comparative designs is far from being uncontroversial (for a summary of the critique see for instance Goerres et al. 2019), cross-national comparisons allow for testing empirical evidence and interpretations thereof across contexts, thus providing additional opportunities to assess micro-level hypotheses (Kohn 1987). This aspect is salient for studying gendered divisions of labour, because this field of research has paid a lot of attention to micro-level determinants (see Sect. 4.2).

  4. See for instance Gershuny (2018) and Sayer (2010) for a review of housework, and Cooke and Baxter (2010) for a review of gender divisions of paid and unpaid work in families.

  5. Countries have been selected to reflect the spectrum welfare state regimes discussed in the previous section, and according to the availability of time trend data.

  6. Data for 2017 have been available only for Sweden (ratio of 90) and Spain (ratio of 82).

  7. Of course, variance components are further influenced by other aspects of study design, such as the selection of countries, micro-level sampling frames and construction of the dependent variable.

  8. A broad range of macro-level work–family policy indicators have become available which allow for assessing the impact of specific macro-level variables and work–family policies on gender divisions of labor (for example the OECD family data base; Multilinks Data base; various gender equality measures, developed the United Nation’s Development Programme).

  9. Other macro-level factors observed include, for example, indicators of economic growth, economic inequality and divorce rates (Batalova and Cohen 2002; Heisig 2011).

  10. Path dependencies concern established routines in everyday life as well as trajectories, such as career paths, which are unlikely to change, unless they are disrupted by biographical turning points (Nitsche and Grunow 2016). Turning points that may impact gender divisions of paid and unpaid work include the birth of children, couples’ separation, illness or job loss. The notion of linked lives emphasizes that individual life courses are tied to the life courses of other people, most importantly that of partners and children (Moen 2003).

  11. Bühlmann et al. (2009) base their analysis on cross-sectional ESS data, but they use a life course approach to construct comparison groups reflecting different biographical stages and to inform their hypotheses.

References

  • Aassve, Arnstein, Giulia Fuochi, and Letizia Mencarini. 2014. Desperate housework: relative resources, time availability, economic dependency, and gender ideology across Europe. Journal of Family Issues 35:1000–1022.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aisenbrey, Silke, Marie Evertsson, and Daniela Grunow. 2009. Is there a career penalty for mothers’ time out? A comparison of Germany, Sweden and the United States. Social Forces 88:573–605.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alsarve, Jenny, Katarina Boye, and Christine Roman. 2019. Realized plans or revised dreams? Swedish parents’ experiences of care, parental leave and paid work after childbirth. In New parents in Europe: Work-care practices, Gender norms and Family Policies, ed. Daniela Grunow, Marie Evertsson. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Forthcoming.

    Google Scholar 

  • Altintas, Evrim, and Oriel Sullivan. 2016. 50 years of change updated: cross-national gender convergence in housework. Demographic Research 35:455–470.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Altintas, Evrim, and Oriel Sullivan. 2017. Trends in fathers’ contribution to housework and childcare under different welfare policy regimes. Social Politics 24:81–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anxo, Dominique, Letizia Mencarini, Ariane Pailhé, Anne Solaz, Maria Letizia Tanturri, and Lennart Flood. 2011. Gender differences in time use over the life course in France, Italy, Sweden, and the US. Feminist Economics 17(3):159–195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, Rosalind C. 1994. Home-to-work spillover revisited: a study of full-time employed women in dual-earner couples. Journal of Marriage and the Family 56:647–656.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, Rosalind C., and Yu -Chu Shen. 1997. Gender, high- and low-schedule-control housework tasks, and psychological distress. A study of dual-earner couples. Journal of Family Issues 18:403–428.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Batalova, Jeanne A., and Philip N. Cohen. 2002. Premarital cohabitation and housework: couples in cross-national perspective. Journal of Marriage and Family 64:743–755.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baxter, Janeen, and Tsui Tai. 2016. Inequalities in unpaid work: a cross-national comparison. In Handbook on well-being of working women. International handbooks of quality-of-life, ed. Mary L. Connerley, Jiyun Wu, 653–671. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Baxter, Janeen, Sandra Buchler, Francisco Perales, and Mark Western. 2014. A life-changing event: first births and men’s and women’s attitudes to mothering and gender divisions of labor. Social Forces 93:989–1014.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Becker, Gary S. 1981. A treatise on the family. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berk, Sarah F. 1985. The gender factory: the apportionment of work in American households. New York: Plenum Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bianchi, Suzanne M., Liana C. Sayer, Melissa A. Milkie, and John P. Robinson. 2012. Housework: Who did, does or will do it, and how much does it matter? Social Forces 91:55–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bittman, Michael, Paula England, Liana C. Sayer, Nancy Folbre, and George Matheson. 2003. When does gender trump money? Bargaining and time in household work. American Journal of Sociology 109:186–214.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bloemen, Hans G., and Elena G.F. Stancanelli. 2014. Market hours, household work, childcare, and wage rates of partners: an empirical analysis. Review of Economics of the Household 12:51–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blossfeld, Hans-Peter, Erik Klijzing, Melinda Mills, and Karin Kurz. 2005. Globalization, uncertainty and youth in society: the losers in a globalizing world. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blossfeld, Hans-Peter, Jan Skopek, Moris Triventi, and Sandra Buchholz. 2015. Gender, education and employment: an international comparison of school-to-work transitions. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Boeckmann, Irene, and Michelle Budig. 2013. Fatherhood, intra-household employment dynamics, and men’s earnings in a cross-national perspective (No. 592). LIS Working Paper Series. http://hdl.handle.net/10419/95618. Accessed 8 June 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonke, Jens. 2005. Paid work and unpaid work: diary information versus questionnaire information. Social Indicators Research 70:349–368.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brückner, Hannah, and Karl Ulrich Mayer. 2005. De-standardization of the life course: what it might mean? And if it means anything, whether it actually took place? Advances in Life Course Research 9:27–53.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Budig, Michelle J. 2004. Feminism and the family. In The Blackwell companion to the sociology of families, ed. Jacqueline Scott, Judith Treas, and Martin Richards, 416–434. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Budig, Michelle J., Joya Misra, and Irene Boeckmann. 2012. The motherhood penalty in cross-national perspective: the importance of work–family policies and cultural attitudes. Social Politics 19:163–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bühlmann, Felix, Guy Elcheroth, and Manuel Tettamanti. 2009. The division of labour among European couples: the effects of life course and welfare policy on value–practice configurations. European Sociological Review 26:49–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carlson, Daniel L., and Jamie L. Lynch. 2017. Purchases, penalties, and power: the relationship between earnings and housework. Journal of Marriage and Family 79:199–224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Centre for Time Use Research. 2018. Multinational time use study. https://www.timeuse.org/mtus. Accessed 9 June 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  • Charles, Maria, and David B. Grusky. 2004. Occupational ghettos: the worldwide segregation of women and men. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cipollone, Angela, Eleonora Patacchini, and Giovanna Vallanti. 2014. Female labour market participation in Europe: novel evidence on trends and shaping factors. IZA Journal of European Labor Studies 3:18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coltrane, Scott. 2000. Research on household labor: Modeling and measuring the social embeddedness of routine family work. Journal of Marriage and Family 62:1208–1233.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coltrane, Scott. 2010. Gender theory and household labor. Sex Roles 63:791–800.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cooke, Lynn P. 2006. Policy, preferences, and patriarchy: the division of domestic labor in east Germany, west Germany, and the United States. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 13:117–143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cooke, Lynn P. 2011. Gender-class equality in political economies. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooke, Lynn P., and Janeen Baxter. 2010. “Families” in international context: Comparing institutional effects across western societies. Journal of Marriage and Family 72:516–536.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cotter, David, Joan M. Hermsen, and Reeve Vanneman. 2011. The end of the gender revolution? Gender role attitudes from 1977 to 2008. American Journal of Sociology 117:259–289.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham, Mick. 2007. Influences of women’s employment on the gendered division of household labor over the life course: evidence from a 31-year panel study. Journal of Family Issues 28:422–444.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham, Mick. 2008. Influences of gender ideology and housework allocation on women’s employment over the life course. Social Science Research 37:254–267.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, Shannon N., and Theodore N. Greenstein. 2004. Cross-national variations in the division of household labor. Journal of Marriage and Family 66:1260–1271.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, Shannon N., and Theodore N. Greenstein. 2009. Gender ideology: Components, predictors, and consequences. Annual Review of Sociology 35:87–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dotti Sani, Giulia Maria. 2014. Men’s employment hours and time on domestic chores in European countries. Journal of Family Issues 35:1023–1047.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elder, Glen H. 1998. The life course as developmental theory. Child Development 69:1–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eliot, Lise. 2012. Pink brain, blue brain: how small differences grow into troublesome gaps—and what we can do about it. Richmond: Oneworld.

    Google Scholar 

  • Emirbayer, Mustafa, and Ann Mische. 1998. What is agency? American Journal of Sociology 103:962–1023.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Erlinghagen, Marcel. 2019. Employment and its institutional context. In Cross-national comparative research – analytical strategies, results and explanations. Sonderheft Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, eds. Hans-Jürgen Andreß, Detlef Fetchenhauer and Heiner Meulemann. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-019-00599-6.

  • Esping-Andersen, Gøsta. 1990. The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evertsson, Marie, and Daniela Grunow. 2016. Narratives on the transition to parenthood in eight European countries. The importance of gender culture and welfare regime. In Couples’ transitions to parenthood: analysing gender and work in Europe, ed. Daniela Grunow, Marie Evertsson, 269–294. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evertsson, Marie, and Magnus Nermo. 2004. Dependence within families and the division of labor: comparing Sweden and the United States. Journal of Marriage and Family 66:1272–1286.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fahlén, Susanne. 2016. Equality at home—A question of career? Housework, norms, and policies in a European comparative. Demographic Research 35:1411–1440.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuwa, Makiko. 2004. Macro-level gender inequality and the division of household labor in 22 countries. American Sociological Review 69:751–767.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuwa, Makiko, and Philip N. Cohen. 2007. Housework and social policy. Social Science Research 36:5112–5530.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gangl, Markus, and Andrea Ziefle. 2015. The making of a good woman: extended parental leave entitlements and mothers’ work commitment in Germany. American Journal of Sociology 121:511–563.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geist, Claudia. 2005. The welfare state and the home: regime differences in the domestic division of labour. European Sociological Review 21:23–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geist, Claudia, and Philip N. Cohen. 2011. Headed toward equality? Housework change in comparative perspective. Journal of Marriage and Family 73:832–844.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gershuny, Jonathan. 2018. Gender symmetry, gender convergence and historical work-time invariance in 24 countries. https://www.timeuse.org/sites/default/files/2018-02/CTUR%20WP%202%202018_0.pdf. Accessed 8 June 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gershuny, Jonathan, and Oriel Sullivan. 2003. Time use, gender, and public policy regimes. Social Politics 10:205–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gershuny, Jonathan, Michael Bittman, and John Brice. 2005. Exit, voice, and suffering: do couples adapt to changing employment patterns? Journal of Marriage and Family 67:656–665.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goerres, Achim, Markus B. Siewert and Claudius Wagemann. 2019. Internationally comparative research designs in the social sciences: Fundamental issues, case selection logics, and research limitations. In Cross-national comparative research – analytical strategies, results and explanations. Sonderheft Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, eds. Hans-Jürgen Andreß, Detlef Fetchenhauer and Heiner Meulemann. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-019-00600-2.

  • Gornick, Janet C., and Marcia K. Meyers. 2003. Welfare regimes in relation to pad work and care. Advances in Life Course Research 8:45–67.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenstein, Theodore N. 2000. Economic dependence, gender, and the division of labor in the home: A replication and extension. Journal of Marriage and the Family 62:322–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grunow, Daniela. 2017. Theoriegeleitetes Sampling für international vergleichende Mixed-Methods-Forschung. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 69:213–235.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grunow, Daniela, and Gerlieke Veltkamp. 2016. Institutions as reference points for parents-to-be in European societies: A theoretical and analytical framework. In Couples’ transitions to parenthood: analysing gender and Work in Europe, ed. Daniela Grunow, Marie Evertsson, 3–33. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Grunow, Daniela, Katia Begall, and Sandra Buchler. 2018. Gender ideologies in Europe: A multidimensional framework. Journal of Marriage and Family 80:42–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grunow, Daniela, Heather Hofmeister, and Sandra Buchholz. 2006. Late 20th-century persistence and decline of the female homemaker in Germany and the United States. International Sociology 21:101–131.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grunow, Daniela, Florian Schulz, and Hans-Peter Blossfeld. 2012. What determines change in the division of housework over the course of marriage? International Sociology 27:289–307.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta, Sanjiv. 2007. Autonomy, dependence, or display? The relationship between married women’s earnings and housework. Journal of Marriage and Family 69:399–417.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta, Sanjiv, Marie Evertsson, Daniela Grunow, Magnus Nermo, and Liana C. Sayer. 2015. The economic gap among women in time spent on housework in former West Germany and Sweden. Journal of Comparative Family Studies 46:181–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hakim, Catherine. 2000. Research design. Successful designs for social economics research. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hank, Karsten, and Hendrik Jürges. 2007. Gender and the division of household labor in older couples. Journal of Family Issues 28:399–421.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hank, Karsten, and Anja Steinbach. 2019. Families and their institutional contexts: The role of family policies and legal regulations. In Cross-national comparative research – analytical strategies, results and explanations. Sonderheft Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, eds. Hans-Jürgen Andreß, Detlef Fetchenhauer and Heiner Meulemann. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-019-00603-z.

  • Hays, Sharon. 1996. The cultural contradictions of motherhood. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heisig, Jan Paul. 2011. Who does more housework: rich or poor? A comparison of 33 countries. American Sociological Review 76:74–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hitlin, Steven, and Glen H. Elder. 2007. Time, self, and the curiously abstract concept of agency. Sociological Theory 25:170–191.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hofmeister, Heather, Hans-Peter Blossfeld, and Melinda Mills. 2006. Globalization, uncertainty and women’s mid-career life courses: a theoretical framework. In Globalization, uncertainty and women’s careers: an international comparison, ed. Hans-Peter Blossfeld, Heather Hofmeister, 3–31. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hook, Jennifer L. 2006. Care in context: men’s unpaid work in 20 countries, 1965–2003. American Sociological Review 71:639–660.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kan, Man Yee, Oriel Sullivan, and Jonathan Gershuny. 2011. Gender convergence in domestic work: Discerning the effects of interactional and institutional barriers from largescale data. Sociology 45:234–251.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knight, Carly R., and Mary C. Brinton. 2017. One egalitarianism or several? Two decades of gender-role attitude change in Europe. American Journal of Sociology 122:1485–1532.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knudsen, Knud, and Kari Wærness. 2008. National context and spouses’ housework in 34 countries. European Sociological Review 24:97–113.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kohn, Melvin L. 1987. Cross-national research as an analytic strategy: American Sociological Association, 1987 Presidential Address. American Sociological Review 52:713–731.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kühhirt, Michael. 2012. Childbirth and the long-term division of labour within couples: How do substitution, bargaining power, and norms affect parents’ time allocation in West Germany? European Sociological Review 28:565–582.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lachance-Grzela, Mylène, and Geneviève Bouchard. 2010. Why do women do the lion’s share of housework? A decade of research. Sex roles 63:767–780.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewin-Epstein, Noah, Haya Stier, and Michael Braun. 2006. The division of household labor in Germany and Israel. Journal of Marriage and Family 68:1147–1164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, Jane E. 1993. Women and social policies in Europe: work, family and the state. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahmood, Saba. 2001. Feminist theory, embodiment, and the docile agent: some reflections on the Egyptian islamic revival. Cultural Anthropology 16:202–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mandel, Hadas, and Moshe Semyonov. 2006. A welfare state paradox: State interventions and women’s employment opportunities in 22 countries. American Journal of Sociology 111:1910–1949.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mencarini, Letizia, and Maria Sironi. 2010. Happiness, housework and gender inequality in Europe. European Sociological Review 28:203–219.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mills, Melinda, Hans-Peter Blossfeld, and Fabrizio Bernardi. 2006. Globalization, uncertainty and men’s employment careers: a theoretical framework. In Globalization, uncertainty and men’s careers: An international comparison, ed. Hans-Peter Blossfeld, Melinda Mills, and Fabrizio Bernardi, 3–37. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moen, Pyllis. 2003. Linked lives: dual careers, gender, and the contingent life course. In Social dynamics of the life course: transitions, institutions, and interrelations, 237–258.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moreno-Colom, Sara. 2017. The gendered division of housework time: analysis of time use by type and daily frequency of household tasks. Time & Society 26:3–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nazio, Tiziana. 2008. Cohabitation, family, and society. Routledge advances in sociology. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neilson, Jeffrey, and Maria Stanfors. 2014. It’s about time! Gender, parenthood, and household divisions of labor under different welfare regimes. Journal of Family Issues 35:1066–1088.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nitsche, Natalie, and Daniela Grunow. 2016. Housework over the course of relationships: gender ideology, resources, and the division of housework from a growth curve perspective. Advances in life course research https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alcr.2016.02.001.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nordenmark, Mikael. 2004. Does gender ideology explain differences between countries regarding the involvement of women and of men in paid and unpaid work? International Journal of Social Welfare 13:233–243.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Orloff, Ann Shola. 1993. Gender and the social rights of citizenship: the comparative analysis of gender relations and welfare states. American Sociological Review 303–328. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095903

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Orloff, Ann Shola. 2008. Should feminists aim for gender symmetry? Feminism and gender equality projects for a post-maternalist era. Paper presented at the annual conference of the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy, RC 19 The Future of Social Citizenship: Politics, Institutions and Outcomes. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.576.3826&rep=rep1&type=pdf (Date of access: 15 Aug. 2018)

  • Pfau-Effinger, Birgit. 2005. Culture and welfare state policies: reflections on a complex interrelation. Journal of social policy 34:3–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pillarisetti, Jayasree, and Mark McGillivray. 2002. Human development and gender empowerment: methodological and measurement issues. Development Policy Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7679.00059.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pinchbeck, Ivy. 2013. Women workers in the industrial revolution. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Presser, Harriet B. 1994. Employment schedules among dual-earner spouses and the division of household labor by gender. American Sociological Review 59:348–364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reimann, Maria. 2016. Searching for egalitarian divisions of care: polish couples at the life-course transition to parenthood. In Couples’ transitions to parenthood: analysing gender and work in Europe, ed. Daniela Grunow, Marie Evertsson, 221–242. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robila, Mihaela. 2004. Families in eastern Europe: context, trends and variations. In Families in eastern Europe, 1–14. Oxford: Elsevier.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ross, Catherine E. 1987. The division of labor at home. Social forces 65:816–833.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruppanner, Leah E. 2009. Conflict and housework: does country context matter? European Sociological Review 26:557–570.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruppanner, Leah E. 2010. Cross-national reports of housework: an investigation of the gender egalitarianism measure. Social Science Research 39:963–975.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sainsbury, Diane. 1994. Gendering welfare states. Thousand Oakes: SAGE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sainsbury, Diane. 1996. Gender, equality and welfare states. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sayer, Liana C. 2010. Trends in housework. In Dividing the domestic: men, women, and household work in cross-national perspective, ed. Judith Treas, Sonja Drobnič, 19–38. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Schmidt-Catran, Alexander W., Malcolm Fairbrother and Hans-Jürgen Andreß. 2019. Multilevel models for the analysis of comparative survey data: Common problems and some solutions. In Cross-national comparative research – analytical strategies, results and explanations. Sonderheft Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, eds. Hans-Jürgen Andreß, Detlef Fetchenhauer and Heiner Meulemann. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-019-00607-9.

  • Schober, Pia S. 2013. Gender equality and outsourcing of domestic work, childbearing, and relationship stability among British couples. Journal of Family Issues 34:25–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schröder, Martin. 2019. Varieties of capitalism and welfare regime theories: Assumptions, accomplishments, and the need for different Methods. In Cross-national comparative research – analytical strategies, results and explanations. Sonderheft Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, eds. Hans-Jürgen Andreß, Detlef Fetchenhauer and Heiner Meulemann. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-019-00609-7.

  • Schulz, Florian, and Daniela Grunow. 2011. Comparing diary and survey estimates on time use. European Sociological Review 28:622–632.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Vicki. 2006. Work and employment. In The Cambridge dictionary of sociology, ed. Bryan S. Turner, 676–682. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, Oriel, and Jonathan Gershuny. 2016. Change in spousal human capital and housework: a longitudinal analysis. European Sociological Review 32:864–880.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, Oriel, Francesco C. Billari and Evrim Altintas. 2014. Fathers’ changing contributions to child care and domestic work in very low–fertility countries: the effect of education. Journal of Family Issues 35:1048–1065.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, Oriel, Jonathan Gershuny, and John P. Robinson. 2018. Stalled or uneven gender revolution? A long-term processual framework for understanding why change is slow. Journal of Family Theory & Review 10:263–279.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tamilina, Larysa, and Natalya Tamilina. 2014. The impact of welfare states on the division of housework in the family: a new comprehensive theoretical and empirical framework of analysis. Journal of Family Issues 35:825–850.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thébaud, Sarah. 2010. Masculinity, bargaining, and breadwinning: understanding men’s housework in the cultural context of paid work. Gender & Society 24:330–354.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thébaud, Sarah, and David S. Pedulla. 2016. Masculinity and the stalled revolution: How gender ideologies and norms shape young men’s responses to work-family policies. Gender & Society 30:590–617.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thévenon, Olivier. 2013. Drivers of female labour force participation in the OECD. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers No. 145. Paris: OECD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, Martha E., and Michael Armato. 2012. Investigating gender. Cambridge: Polity press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly, Louise A. 1994. Women, women’s history, and the industrial revolution. Social Research 61:115–137.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly, Louise A., and Joan W. Scott. 1989. Women, work, and family. London: Psychology Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Treas, Judith. 2010. Why study housework? In Dividing the domestic: men, women, and household work in cross-national perspective, ed. Judith Treas, Sonia Drobnič, 3–18. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Treas, Judith, and Sonia Drobnič. 2010. Dividing the domestic: men, women, and household work in cross-national perspective. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Treas, Judith, and Tsui Tai. 2016. Gender inequality in housework across 20 European nations: lessons from gender stratification theories. Sex Roles 74:495–511.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • United Nations Development Programme. 2016. Gender Inequality Index (GII). http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/gender-inequality-index-gii. Accessed 9 June 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations Development Programme. 2018. Human development report: gender inequality index. http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/GII. Accessed 9 June 2018.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van der Lippe, Tanja, Judith de Ruijter, Esther de Ruijter, and Werner Raub. 2011. Persistent inequalities in time use between men and women: a detailed look at the influence of economic circumstances, policies, and culture. European Sociological Review 27:164–179.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wall, Glenda. 2010. Mothers’ experiences with intensive parenting and brain development discourse. Women’s Studies International Forum 33:253–263.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • West, Candace, and Don H. Zimmerman. 1987. Doing gender. Gender & Society 1:125–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yodanis, Carrie. 2005. Divorce culture and marital gender equality: a cross-national study. Gender & Society 19:644–659.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Yasemin Altintop, Bastian Ast and Luisa Bischoff for research assistance, Aline Gould for language editing and Miriam Bröckel, Marina Hagen and Catherine Hakim for comments and suggestions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Science, Sociology Institute, Chair of Sociology specializing in quantitative analyses of social change, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6, 60629, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Daniela Grunow

Authors
  1. Daniela Grunow
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniela Grunow.

Additional information

Online Appendix: www.kzfss.uni-koeln.de/sites/kzfss/pdf/grunow.pdf

Caption Electronic Supplementary Material

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Grunow, D. Comparative Analyses of Housework and Its Relation to Paid Work: Institutional Contexts and Individual Agency. Köln Z Soziol 71, 247–284 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-019-00601-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-019-00601-1

Keywords

  • Unpaid work
  • Gender division of labour
  • Cross-national comparison
  • Multilevel analysis
  • Review

Schlüsselwörter

  • Unbezahlte Arbeit
  • Geschlechtsspezifische Arbeitsteilung
  • Internationaler Vergleich
  • Mehrebenenanalyse
  • Überblicksartikel