Cultural Variation in the Link Between Planning Family Activities and Family-to-Work Conflict

• In Event: Family Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5: Employment, Economic Context, and Family

Abstract

Gender and family scholars increasingly argue that raising children requires not only the physical labor of housework and childcare, but also a cognitive dimension comprised of “emotional thinking work” such as planning and organizing family life. Some studies have linked this “mental labor” to greater family-to-work conflict. However, we know little about whether, how, and why the link between mental labor and family-to-work conflict (FWC) may vary by country-level factors such as dominant cultural attitudes regarding gender. In this study, we examine how the division of planning and organizing family activities relates to FWC for mothers and fathers across 30 countries. We examine how this link varies by country-level (or “cultural”) gender attitudes, and by parents’ gender. Data come from the 2022 ISSP. We limit our sample to employed parents with resident children and partners (n=6,275). Using multilevel linear regression models, we find that being the primary planner/organizer of family activities (compared to sharing with one’s partner) is associated with greater FWC for mothers but not fathers (overall). National culture also shapes these patterns. Among fathers living in ideologically traditional countries, having a partner who shoulders the planning is associated with greater FWC. For mothers, the lower FWC that those in shared planning arrangements enjoy relative to those who shoulder planning is magnified in more traditional countries. That is, in cultural contexts that put more emphasis on women’s home/family roles, having a partner who helps plan family life appears especially helpful for employed mothers. Our findings echo research showing that gendered divisions of labor come with costs to both women and men, while sharing family labor benefits parents regardless of gender. We extend this research by showing that cultural context plays an important role in shaping the work-family consequences associated with different divisions of mental labor.

Authors

• Reilly Kincaid, University of Arkansas

• Shagun Sethi, Purdue University

• Jeremy E. Reynolds, Purdue University