The division of labor in close relationships: An asymmetrical conflict issue

Abstract

This research addresses couples' reports of their (hypothetical) attempts to maintain or change a gendered division of labor through conflict interactions. Two experiments in which spouses responded to scenarios showed that spouses reported more conflict over the division of housework than conflict over paid work and child care, and that wives more often than husbands desired a change in their spouses' contribution. Spouses reported more wife-demand/husband-withdraw than husband-demandlwife-withdraw interaction during hypothetical conflict over the division of labor, but only when the wife desired a change in her spouse's contribution. Together, the data imply that wife-demand/husband-withdraw interaction is a likely response to the asymmetrically structured conflict situation in which the wife is discontent with her husband's contribution to housework, while her husband wants to maintain the status quo. We further showed that defenders of the status quo were more likely expected to reach their goal than complainants. In the role of complainant, wives were more likely expected to reach their goal than were their husbands, but only when the conflict issue concerned their own gender stereotypical domain (i.e., family work).

Perceived Parental Control and Parent–Child Relational Qualities in Early Adolescents In Hong Kong: Parent Gender, Child Gender and Grade Differences

“…The second perspective is gender ideology approach which maintains that gender ideologies shape the involvement of the parents. Based on this perspective, relatively less involvement of fathers in the socialization process is due to traditional gender ideologies held by the parents (Coverman 1985;Kluwer et al 1997Kluwer et al , 2000. The third perspective is operated in terms of the higher emotional expressiveness in women than in men (Brody 1985;Bronstein et al 1996;Goldschmidt and Weller 2000), which facilitates maternal involvement in parenting tasks and relationship with their children.…”

‘Not worth mentioning’: The implicit and explicit nature of decision-making about the division of paid and domestic work

“…In doing so, they fostered a pattern in which the wife did most of the household chores herself. In previous research, the wife-demand/husbandwithdraw interaction was found to be a typical response to asymmetrically structured conflict situations in which women were discontent with their spouse's contribution to housework, while the spouse wanted to maintain the status quo (Kluwer, Heesink, & Van de Vliert, 1997;Kluwer, Heesink & Van de Vliert, 2000). Here the man's behaviour or response determined the further course of the decisionmaking process (see also Johnson & Huston, 1998;Pool & Lucassen, 2005).…”

Sex differences in the use of demand and withdraw behavior in marriage: Examining the social structure hypothesis.

“…Recently, however, researchers have suggested that demanding and withdrawal behaviors are not due to intrinsic differences in women and men but to power and resource inequalities within marriages (e.g., Kluwer, Heesink, & Van De Vliert, 2000;Sagrestano, Heavey, & Christensen, 1998). This idea has been called the social structure hypothesis, which suggests that demand and withdraw behaviors are most likely to occur in situations in which there is an imbalance in power such that one spouse "needs the other's cooperation for resolution of the conflict [whereas] the [other] partner can achieve satisfaction without the other" (Sagrestano et al, 1998, p. 293).…”