No abstract

The literature on the predictors of the division of household labor continues to expand, but the effect of this division on family outcomes has not been explored. Using the German SocioEconomic Panel (N= 628), I analyze the effect of men's participation in housework and child care on the likelihood of second birth and divorce. Fathers' greater relative child‐care time increases couples' odds of second birth, attenuating the negative effect of mothers' employment. Husbands' relative housework time is insignificant in predicting second birth or divorce among couples with at least one child, but increases the likelihood of divorce among childless couples. This is evidence that the division of domestic labor affects family outcomes, but effects differ depending on the outcome and presence of children.

Parenthood explains some of the gender earnings gap, but effects differ among women and men, and across countries. Wave 6 LIS data and regressions of the recentered influence function are used to compare effects of parenthood across the unconditional earnings distribution in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The three countries are considered more liberal welfare regimes, but still differ in within-and between-gender economic inequality. Australia has slightly greater income equality than the other two countries. Results reveal that fatherhood premiums and motherhood penalties are smaller in Australia, as are differences between the highest-and lowest-earning parents. Australian and British mothers are more likely to work part-time, but controlling for work hours, motherhood penalties in those countries are smaller across the bottom half of the distribution than in the United States. Motherhood penalties across the upper half of the earnings distribution are more similar in the three countries, and decrease as earnings increase. The lowest-earning men in all three countries face small but significant fatherhood penalties, whereas high-earning British and US fathers garner significant premiums as compared with childless men. Parenthood penalties and premiums therefore reflect relative socioeconomic (dis)advantage among women and men, as well as between them.

Gender equity and its effects on fertility vary across socio-political contexts, particularly when comparing less with more developed economies. But do subtle differences in equity within more similar contexts matter as well? Here we compare Italy and Spain, two countries with low fertility levels and institutional reliance on kinship and family, but with employment equity among women during the 1990s slightly greater in Italy than Spain. The European Community Household Panel is used to explore the effect of this difference in gender equity on the likelihood of married couples having a second birth during this time period. Women's hours of employment reduce the birth likelihood in both countries, but non-maternal sources of care offset this effect to different degrees. In Spain, private childcare significantly increases birth likelihood, whereas in Italy, father's greater childcare share increases the likelihood, particularly among employed women. These results suggest that increases in women's employment equity increase not only the degree of equity within the home, but also the beneficial effects of equity on fertility. These equity effects help to offset the negative relationship historically found between female employment and fertility.

We are only beginning to unravel the mechanisms by which the division of domestic tasks varies in its sociopolitical context. Selecting couples from the German SocioEconomic Panel who married between 1990 and 1995 in the former East and West regions of Germany and following them until 2000 (N= 348 couples), I find evidence of direct, interaction, and contextual effects predicting husbands’ hours in and share of household tasks but not child care. East German men perform a greater share of household tasks than West German men after controlling for individual attributes and regional factors. Child care remains more gendered, and the first child’s age proves the most important predictor of fathers’ involvement. These findings further our understanding of how the state shapes gender equity in the home.