1. Economic Recession and the Gendered Division of Labor David Hawkes Soc 235 Gender Roles Erica Dixon 08/17/2010

2. Interest I have never understood my male friends who don’t participate in certain household tasks with their family, such as cleaning the bathroom, or doing the laundry, or even changing a diaper. It always interested me what made them think they were exempt from the tasks they didn’t “feel like” doing. I always thought it showed a lack of respect to their partner. The topic really caught my attention when we studied it this quarter.

3. Background A large body of research show that women do more housework than men. When men do housework, they call it “helping out” or “pitching in” (Kimmel, 2011). Working women experience what is called the “second shift”, taking care of housework after working all day. After marriage “the amount of time a women spends doing housework increases by 17 percent, whereas a man’s decreases by about 33 percent” (Kimmel, 2011, p. 161).

4. Background There is also a gendered division in the type of household labor done. Men are doing sporadic work ,that might need to be done once a week, like mowing the lawn. Women are doing daily chores, such as doing the dishes and cooking meals.

5. Background Much research has been done to study the gendered division of labor, and many different methods have been used. In the study I read, the authors combined surveys, questionnaires, interviews, and time diaries, as well as including both the husband and the wife, instead of just using one or the other. Even with this more thorough method, the results showed that men continue to dosubstantially less homework than women (Lee, Waite, 2005).

6. Hypothesis . As stated in the article Division of Household Labor and Perceived Justice: A Growing Field of Research, “The gender role ideology hypothesis regards the division of household labor as being primarily dependent on the gender role orientations of women and men and less so on structural conditions,” (Mikula, 1998). My hypothesis, therefore, became the following: Economic recession will change structural conditions to the point where they supersede the gender role orientations of women and men, and therefore further change the gendered division of household labor.

7. Methods Six question survey of thirty people. Random sample from Facebook and a message board online. 29 of the 30 random participants turned out to be female, so the random sample became somewhat of a convenience sample. All participants were married or living with a significant other, and had been affected by the economic recession in the last four years.

8. Methods/survey questions Male or female? Has your household been affected by the economic downturn in the last four years through any change in employment or change in income? If so, please briefly state how it has changed. How many hours a week did you spend on housework before the changes in employment/income in your household? How many hours a week did your spouse or significant other spend on housework before the changes in employment/income in your household? After the change in employment/income, how many hours a week did you spend on housework? After the change in employment/income, how many hours a week did your spouse or significant other spend on housework?

9. Results Question 1 – 29 female, 1 male. Question 2 – A variety of responses, the most significant of which were 13 participants who had suffered from unemployment, and 9 participants who had suffered some other loss of income (pay cuts, loss of overtime, no pay raises to meets cost of living increases.)

10. Results

11. Results

12. Results This shows a 13.8 percent increase for men doing over seven hours of housework per week, while the percentage of housework dropped 4.4 percent for women doing over seven hours of housework per week. While men were reported at doing more than they did before the recession, the amount of housework that women were doing remained fairly constant, with only a small decrease.

13. Conclusion The results of my survey can be read to support my hypothesis. The results showed an increase in men’s contribution to housework after suffering the effects of a recession. The results also showed a small decrease in women’s contributions to housework after the recession. Looking at the numbers, the results do not refute my hypothesis.

14. Conclusion Given the limitations of my research, however, I have to be skeptical of the results. While they do show the change I predicted, it is difficult to draw any solid conclusions from a survey with only thirty participants. This is a very small sample. I do not know the background of the participants. I do not know their socioeconomic status, race, education, or any other details of who they are or what might influence their answers to the survey. In addition, while a basic, six question survey was convenient for quickly gathering some broad information, it certainly lacks the depth of personal interviews, time diaries, and involving both members of the couple participating. It’s possible I could have gotten more in depth, reliable results by interviewing ten couples than I did by surveying thirty individuals.

15. Conclusion Finding a way to do some in depth research on this could add a valuable perspective to the already large body of research on the gendered division of household labor. The home should not be one of the last places that gender inequality is eradicated, but one of the first. People need to see that there are ways to break down the walls of institutionalized gender inequality, and that they should be starting in the home, in what is supposed to be a loving, nurturing, and yes, equal environment.

16. References Kimmel, Michael. 2011. The Gendered Society, Fourth Edition. New York, New York. Oxford. Lee, Yun-Suk, and Waite, Linda J. 2005. “Husbands’ and Wives’ Time Spent on Housework: A Comparison of Measures.” Journal of Marriage and Family. Mikula, Gerold. 1998. “Division of Household Labor and Perceived Justice: A Growing Field of Research.” Social Justice Research.