New research by Joanna Syrda finds that the distribution of time spent on housework in United States displays two unusual properties, especially from the perspective of an economist.
First, the distribution of the share of housework performed by the husband exhibits a sharp drop to the right of 50%, where the husband’s housework exceeds the wife’s housework. While specialisation in a marriage can explain various divisions of domestic labour, it is remarkable how reports of the majority of couples point to husbands doing between zero and 50% of unpaid labour and suddenly there are almost no couples where husbands do 51% of housework or more.
Second, while there seems to be an aversion to husbands performing more housework than wives, almost 20% of marriages report exactly equal domestic labour time. Does equal housework sharing reflect equal labour market hours and/or income, equal bargaining power, or perhaps is the result of a 50/50 sharing norm?
The economic work that husbands and wives do at home and in the market results from bargaining and exchange, specialisation and gains from trade, and this mechanism are well understood and captured by rational economic models. But it may also be a way of constituting relationships and identities, ones that are profoundly affected by perception of gender and gender identity norms, and perception of fairness.
To identify the impact of traditional gender identity and equal sharing norms, this study uses PSID (Panel Study on Income Dynamics) data describing income, housework and labour market behaviour of over 20,000 heterosexual marriages in the United States and examines departures from housework and leisure time predicted by standard economic models.
Traditional gender identity norms may induce an aversion to a situation where husbands do more housework than their wives. Indeed, the economically rational predicted housework hours for husbands and wives do not capture the actually observed division of domestic labour. Husbands actually do less and wives do more housework to avoid a situation where the former group does more unpaid labour than the latter in a way that escapes economic rationale.
Moreover, equal housework sharing is also not well explained by standard economic modelling. These couples do not face similar labour market hours and wages, but rather adjust their domestic labour (typically, husbands increase and wives decrease) to achieve this equality.
The 50/50 norm has been widely observed in division of monetary rewards and costs, in real world and in experiments, and it turns out it also affects housework division. This norm is largely driven by perceived fairness, and, interestingly, it manifests itself in spousal domestic labour time, but not in spousal leisure time.
Similarly, leisure time (time not devoted to market work and domestic labour) is not affected by traditional gender identity norms. While the research identifies an aversion to a situation where husbands perform more housework than their wives, even by a small percentage, no such effects are present in the spousal relative leisure time, which is well explained by standard economic factors such as work time and wages.
Gendered division of domestic labour is one of key phenomena contributing to gender inequality. Despite rising female labour force participation, women still are typically responsible for majority of the housework and this has serious consequences for their ability to compete in the labour market, their leisure time and time use in general.
It will be interesting to see how these norms, especially traditional gender identity norm, change over time, and also in terms of future research, how these effects differ between countries.
ENDS