Economic Dependence, Gender, and the Division of Labor in the Home: A Replication and Extension

Abstract

The fundamental question in the study of the gendered division of household labor has come to be why, in the face of dramatic changes in women's employment and earnings, housework remains ''women's work.'' As a possible answer to this question, Brines (1994) presented a provocative conceptual model of the relationship between economic dependence and the performance of housework by wives and husbands. She concluded that the link between economic dependence and housework follows rules of economic exchange for wives, but among husbands, a gender display model is operative. This paper replicates and extends Brines' model by (a) replicating her work using a different data set; (b) adding additional controls to the model, including a measure of gender ideology; and (c) modeling a distributional (as opposed to absolute) measure of housework. For a measure of hours spent doing housework, the results of my analyses are consistent with Brines' suggestion of separate gender-specific processes linking economic dependence and amount of housework performed. For a distributional measure of housework, on the other hand, my analyses contradict Brines' findings and suggest that both husbands and wives are acting to neutralize a nonnormative provider role when they do housework. Further analyses suggest that

Paid Work and Domestic Labor in Disadvantaged Communities on the Outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon

“…In general our findings agree with the theory that men feel more comfortable "helping out" with the housework when they are employed and contributing to the household income, because their traditional masculine status is not threatened, whereas non-earner men contribute less to housework as a means of asserting their traditional gender role (Brines, 1994;Greenstein, 2000). It could also be that unemployed men are ill or disabled, and therefore limited in their capacity to do housework.…”

“…In Hay el Sellom working men contribute more to core household tasks than their non-working counterparts do, but this difference is not statistically significant. Working men who earn an income may prefer to maintain control of the budget, spending, and expenses, and may choose the tasks to which they wish to contribute, leaving to the women the more tedious housework, such as cleaning and meal preparation (Bianchi et al, 2000;Hossain & Roopnarine, 1993;McFarlane et al, 2000;Nakhaie, 1995;Starrels, 1994).In general our findings agree with the theory that men feel more comfortable "helping out" with the housework when they are employed and contributing to the household income, because their traditional masculine status is not threatened, whereas non-earner men contribute less to housework as a means of asserting their traditional gender role (Brines, 1994;Greenstein, 2000). It could also be that unemployed men are ill or disabled, and therefore limited in their capacity to do housework.…”

Ecological Models of Sexual Satisfaction among Lesbian/Bisexual and Heterosexual Women

“…Additionally, in this sample, heterosexual married women had a higher income than did lesbian women. Given that men in the United States on average make more than women, it is not surprising that a household with an adult male might have a greater annual income than one without, especially in a dual-income household (Greenstein, 2000). When income is compared across heterosexual married and lesbian cohabiting couples, lesbian couples traditionally have a significantly lower combined annual income (Kurdek, 1991), which may expose lesbian couples to additional stressors.…”

Gender inequality and the ‘East-West’ divide in contraception: An analysis at the individual, the couple, and the country level

“…A decrease in socioeconomic opportunities available to women may reduce their bargaining power within the household (Fuwa 2004). Alternatively, gender unequal societies, where traditional gender norms are more likely to be dominant, may cause women with a relatively high socioeconomic status to opt for female-appropriate contraceptives in an attempt to neutralize their gender nonconforming behavior (Greenstein 2000).…”