On the Reproduction of Gendered and Classed Inequalities: Understanding Children’s Family Labor in Brazil

• In Event: 40466 - Child Gender, Parenting, and Intergenerational Relationships Across the Life Course

Abstract

The growing scholarship investigating children’s use of time has consistently documented a gender gap, with boys allocating less time than girls to family labor. Despite important progress in this literature, few studies investigate whether social class affects gendered patterns of children’s time in household tasks. Yet, we know that gender inequalities are often intertwined with class disparities. Moreover, contributions have largely concentrated on wealthy settings. This study examines children’s family labor in Brazil, a middle-income country with the largest population in Latin America, and places class inequalities as a focal point of attention. We address three goals. First, we investigate potential class differences in the gender gap in family labor among Brazilian children. Second, we examine whether fathers’ and mothers’ distribution of domestic work affects boys’ and girls’ time in household activities. Third, we explore whether the association between parents’ distribution of family labor and children’s gendered allocation to these tasks varies across class lines. We find that the gender gap in family labor among Brazilian children is also classed; while girls conduct more family labor than boys across class groups, this disparity is larger among disadvantaged children. This suggests that the intergenerational transmission of gendered inequalities has a class component that warrants attention. Moreover, fathers' higher levels of participation in family labor are linked with increases in boys’ time allocated to these tasks, regardless of social class. Our results highlight the need to include intersecting gender and class disparities in the study of children’s family labor.

Authors

• Aida Villanueva, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

• Carolina Aragao, University of Texas at Austin