American Heterosexual Emerging Adults’ Reasoning about the Fairness of Household Labor

• In Event: Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Topic -Diversity, Equity & Social Justice

Abstract

Past research has shown that most emerging adults do not expect equality in their future households (Askari et al., 2010; Erchull et al., 2010; Dernberger & Pepin, 2019). Specifically, emerging adults expect that men will perform less housework than women (Erchull et al., 2010; Askari et al., 2010). However, scholarship has yet to investigate whether emerging adults find their expected future divisions fair. Inquiry into fairness perceptions is necessary because fairness perceptions have been linked with marital satisfaction (Brown, 2014), marital commitment, (Tang & Curran 2013), and psychological distress (Voydanoff & Donnelly, 1999).The present study investigated American heterosexual emerging adults’ perceptions and reasoning about the fairness of a gendered division of household labor in a third-party situation, their future expected division of labor, and their parents’ division of labor.
A total of 161 American heterosexual (88.20% European American; 50.93% cisgender women), emerging adults (Mage = 20.60, SD = 1.21) participated in this study. Power analysis showed our sample size to be adequate to detect a medium effect size (f = .25). Participants completed an online survey that included measures on expected future labor division (Chore List; Askari et al., 2010; expected chores, α = .84; expected childcare, α = .91), a scale assessing if they thought their expected division was fair ( i.e., “yes”, “no”, and “maybe”), fairness perception of a hypothetical gendered division (Midgette, 2020), assessment of parents’ division of household labor (Sabattini & Leaper, 2004), gender ideology (Gere & Helwig, 2012), and ambivalent sexist attitudes (Glick & Fiske, 1996; α = .86). It was expected that individuals who held egalitarian attitudes would be more likely to perceive their parents’ labor division as unfair. Further, we expected that emerging adults who perceived their parents’ division as unfair would also be more likely to consider a hypothetical gendered division scenario unfair, and to expect equality in their own future divisions.
The majority of participants perceived their parents’ and future expected division to be fair (see Table 1). On the other hand, participants were less likely to consider a hypothetical gendered division as fair. One-way ANOVAs revealed a significant main effect of parental fairness judgment on ambivalent sexism, F(2, 158) = 4.79, p < .009, ηp2 = .05, but not gender ideology (see Table 1 for percentages). Tukey’s HSD test revealed that those who considered their parents’ division unfair held significantly lower ambivalent sexist attitudes (see Table 1). Contrary to our expectations, fairness perceptions in one context were not predictive of fairness perceptions in other contexts. However, a multinomial logistic regression on fairness perceptions by the three situations revealed that participants were more likely to say fair than not fair in evaluating their parents’ division and expected future household labor division, than a hypothetical gendered division (See Table 2). The current findings provide initial evidence that emerging adults may be more morally critical of a hypothetical gendered division than of their own family’s past and future division.

Authors

• Devon D'Andrea, Saint Joseph's University
  Presenting Author

• Morgan Bower, Saint Joseph’s University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ann Mcconnon, Saint Joseph’s University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Clare E Conry-Murray, Saint Joseph’s University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Allegra Midgette, Texas A&M University - College Station
  Non-Presenting Author