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For most adults, household chores are undesirable tasks yet need to be completed regularly. Previous research has identified absolute hours spent on household chores and one’s perceived fairness of the housework distribution as predictors of romantic relationship quality and well-being outcomes. Drawing from the Equity Theory, we hypothesized that perceived fairness acts as an underlying psychological mechanism linking household chores hours to long-term effects of relationship quality, well-being, physical health, and sleep quality in a sample of 2,644 married and cohabiting adults from the Midlife Development in the U.S. study. Additionally, following the Reserve Capacity Model, socioeconomic status (SES) was tested as a moderator because of its association with exposure to stressors and psychological resources which contribute to perceived fairness. Moderated mediation results showed significant indirect effects of household chore hours through perceived fairness on prospective measures of well-being, marital quality, physical health, and sleep dysfunction among individuals of lower SES but not higher SES when controlling for age, sex, and paid work hours. These results highlight the importance of perceived fairness and the influence of SES in the links among household chores and long-term relationship processes, health, and well-being.

Background John Henryism (JH) is a form of active high-effort coping. Low socioeconomic status (SES) African Americans adopting JH to deal with structural racism and other chronic stressors might be more likely to display cardiovascular disease risk factors. Previous tests of this hypothesis have mostly focused on the moderating role of current SES and hypertension as the outcome variable. Further, most of the previous work has been conducted among young and middle-aged adults. The present study aimed at extending work on the JH hypothesis by testing the combined effect of JH and childhood SES on metabolic syndrome and systemic inflammation among African American elders. Methods One-hundred and seventy urban African American older adults (Mage = 67.64 years, 75.9% female) were recruited. Participants completed questionnaires assessing JH, childhood SES, and other variables used as covariates (i.e., demographic information, chronic conditions, medication use, and health behaviors). Blood pressure, waist circumference, and blood were also collected. Triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, hemoglobin A1C, and C-Reactive Protein levels were measured from the blood samples. Results JH was positively associated with MetS symptoms among participants reporting low childhood SES levels, but not among those reporting high childhood SES levels. The same pattern did not emerge when we considered current SES. Similar patterns of results did not emerge as far as systemic inflammation was concerned. Conclusions Our findings highlight the importance of considering the joint impact of objective conditions early in life and individual psychological proclivities in explaining increased risk for cardiovascular disease risk in this population.

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