The Tolerable Household: Ideology and the Persistence of Unequal Domestic Arrangements

• In Event: Open Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 5: Gender, Work, and Inequality

Abstract

Over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, women's roles in industrialized societies have changed profoundly, while men's roles have shifted far less dramatically. Although gender gaps in paid and unpaid work have narrowed in some contexts, substantial cross-national differences in the division of domestic labor persist. Despite the durability of these inequalities, relatively little is known about how they are perceived and justified by those who live within them. While research on economic inequality has examined why unequal systems are tolerated, comparable analyses of gender inequality in intimate domains remains limited.
This study extends theories of economic inequality justification to the household, introducing the concept of ideological accommodation to capture how women interpret and tolerate unequal divisions of domestic labor. It asks: to what extent is inequality in everyday domestic life tolerated, and through which ideological mechanisms is such tolerance sustained? By focusing on housework and care as central sites of persistent gender inequality, the study offers a new perspective on how unequal gender arrangements are maintained in practice. Drawing on data from the 2022 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) Family and Changing Gender Roles module across 32 countries, the analysis investigates how efficiency-based reasoning, ideological naturalization, and economic dependence shape women's tolerance. Multilevel models assess both individual-level mechanisms and the conditioning role of national gender inequality.
Findings show support for the efficiency-based reasoning. Essentialist beliefs and economic dependence show weaker effects once national context is considered. Most strikingly, tolerance varies across countries. Women in more gender-unequal societies exhibit higher overall acceptance. Where gender inequality is greater, even egalitarian women tend to accept existing arrangements. This suggests that perceptions of what is acceptable adjust to prevailing conditions, aligning 'what is' with 'what ought to be'

Author

• Yr Orlygsdottir, University of Chicago