Time Constraints or Economic Power: Same- and Different-Gender Couples' Division of Domestic Labor during the COVID-19

• In Event: Family Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 15: Time Use

Abstract

While extensive research documents how lockdowns and the economic recession during the COVID-19 pandemic affected domestic labor time among different-gender couples, the experiences of same-gender couples remain largely overlooked. Drawing on the National Couples’ Health and Time Study (NCHAT), the first nationally representative dataset to oversample same-gender couples, this study uses OLS regression models to examine factors shaping the unpaid labor of same-gender couples during the pandemic. Results show that individuals in same-gender couples were as burdened by housework as women in different-gender couples, and that existing theories only partially applied to them. Time availability significantly affected gay men’s domestic labor time but not lesbian women’s. Remote work and job loss may have provided gay men with additional time for housework, similar to patterns observed among men in different-gender couples. By contrast, relative resources significantly influenced lesbian women’s domestic labor time but not gay men’s. Because women experienced higher unemployment rates during the pandemic, income may have become a particularly important bargaining resource in households composed of two women. By extending pandemic-era domestic labor research to queer couples using high-quality data, this study advances a more inclusive understanding of how gendered expectations, economic inequalities, and the intensified demands of unpaid labor shaped households during the COVID-19 crisis.

Authors

• Suyeon Park Jang, University of California-Irvine

• Barbara Pham, University of California-Irvine