Falling into Old Habits: Partnership Duration and Division of Labor among Heterosexual Couples

• In Event: 220 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. The Division of Household Labor

Abstract

Amid changing work and family arrangements for men and women over the last fifty years, social scientists have uncovered a paradox: despite some convergence in the work men and women do outside the home, women still do a disproportionate amount of unpaid labor within the home. Seeking explanations for the persistent inequities in the gendered division of labor as it relates to housework, scholars point to how structural transitions (e.g., in work, into parenthood, in and out of marriage) shape the organization of domestic life. Missing from this examination is the simpler question of whether couples become more traditional as their relationship matures- regardless of the transitions they face together. Using data from two waves of the NSFH, a nationally-representative sample of couples, we control for couples’ life transitions as we explore whether heterosexual couples just become more traditional over time, or as we call it, “falling into old habits.” We explore whether, despite many individuals’ intentions to create more egalitarian family arrangements, the embeddedness of gender in American culture itself exerts a force toward traditional gender arrangements in the lives of heterosexual couples. Findings suggest that rising traditionalism in domestic arrangements is not a result of couples’ unconscious internalizing of traditionalism, but rather concrete barriers faced during work and parenthood transitions.

Authors

• Jaclyn Ann Tabor, Indiana University

• Jamie Lynn Oslawski-Lopez, Indiana University