Who brings home the bacon?

Abstract

How gender stereotypes constrain men and women to traditional gender rolesZooming in on the mechanisms that potentially explain the difficulties that non-traditional couples face, it is often explained that traditional divisions of gender roles within romantic relationships persist because of evolved and universal differences between men and women (e.g., men's greater size and strength, women's reproductive activities) or because of rational and economic reasons (e.g., men's higher earning potential than women). Fixed differences in partner preferences are argued to explain why women would prefer partners with good providing qualities (i.e., higher status men) and why men would prefer partners with caring and nurturing skills (i.e., lower status women; see for example Buss & Kenrick, 1998). However, scientific evidence shows that the impact of evolved sex differences is much less than often assumed and that many universal differences are not so fixed as proposed (for reviews, see Ellemers, 2018; Zetner

Handbook of Sociological Science: Contributions to Rigorous Sociology

“…They still spend considerably more time on unpaid labor, and men spend more time in the labor market throughout the world (Fuwa 2004;McMunn et al 2020). Minimal differences at the onset of a relationship may, over time, lead to strong divisions between partners (Grunow et al 2012;Rothstein 2012;Vink 2020). Unpaid labor comprises both domestic duties and childcare.…”