Gender and time allocation of cohabiting and married women and men in France, Italy, and the United States

Abstract

BACKGROUND Women, who generally do more unpaid and less paid work than men, have greater incentives to stay in marriages than cohabiting unions, which generally carry fewer legal protections for individuals that wish to dissolve their relationship. The extent to which cohabitation is institutionalized, however, is a matter of policy and varies substantially by country. The gender gap in paid and unpaid work between married and cohabiting individuals should be larger in countries where cohabitation is less institutionalized and where those in cohabiting relationships have relatively fewer legal protections should the relationship dissolve, yet few studies have explored this variation. OBJECTIVE Using time diary data from France, Italy, and the United States, we assess the time men and women devote to paid and unpaid work in cohabiting and married couples. These three countries provide a useful diversity in marital regimes for examining these expectations: France, where cohabitation is most “marriage like” and where partnerships can be registered and carry legal rights; the United States, where cohabitation is common but is short-lived and unstable and where legal protections vary across states; and Italy, where cohabitation is not common and where such unions are not legally acknowledged and less socially approved than in either France or the United States. RESULTS Cohabitating men’s and women’s time allocated to market and nonmarket work is generally more similar than married men and women. Our expectations about country differences are only partially borne out by the findings. Greater gender differences in the time allocated to market and nonmarket work are found in Italy relative to either France or the U.S.

Fifty years of change updated: Cross-national gender convergence in housework

“…Being highly educated and employed are negatively associated with minutes spent on core housework, and having children at home and being married or cohabiting as opposed to single increases time in the activity. Recent evidence shows some differences in the gender division of labour between cohabiting and married couples (Bianchi et al 2014), but unfortunately most of the surveys we use do not allow us to distinguish these groups of couples. Notes: *** p<.01; ** p<0.05; * p<.10…”

Housework division and gender ideology: When do attitudes really matter?

“…Another perspective that attempts to explain housework division is the gender roles theory (or gender ideology theory; see, for example, Lachance-Grzela and Bouchard 2010). This theory, which is rooted in symbolic interactionalism, is traditionally counterposed to relative resources theory, and in fact the distance between the two is considerable: Gender role theory has no room for exchange and rational 3 There is also a flourishing stream of research dealing with the effects of the institutional and cultural context on housework division (among recent studies see, e.g., Bianchi et al 2014;Fahlén 2016). 4 A vast literature in economics also deals with the gender division of household tasks, in some cases with an approach not so far from the sociological one based on relative resources.…”

Benefactors and Beneficiaries? Disability and Care to Others

“…Men and women are more likely to be elder care providers if they are married or cohabiting versus single (BLS, ). Cohabiting women spend less time in housework than married women, although cohabiting men spend a similar amount—or more—time in housework than married men (Bianchi, Lesnard, Nazio, & Raley, ; Davis, Greenstein, & Marks, ; Hook, ). Those with children, and those with more and younger children, spend more time in housework than those without children (Hook, ; Kalenkoski et al, ; Kalil et al, ).…”