IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v34y2020i2p155-173.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender Divisions of Paid and Unpaid Work in Contemporary UK Couples

Author

Listed:
  • Anne McMunn

    (University College London (UCL), UK)

  • Lauren Bird

    (Imperial College, UK)

  • Elizabeth Webb

    (University College London (UCL), UK)

  • Amanda Sacker

    (University College London (UCL), UK)

Abstract

This article uses data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study to describe how contemporary British couples divide a range of work types. Our findings support the hypothesis, suggested by previous authors, that a shared egalitarian ideology is required for gender equality in divisions of work. In response to bargaining theories, the article also hypothesises that differentials in educational attainment within couples are more strongly associated with gender divisions of work when a couple’s gender ideology is in conflict. Interaction analysis does not support this hypothesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Anne McMunn & Lauren Bird & Elizabeth Webb & Amanda Sacker, 2020. "Gender Divisions of Paid and Unpaid Work in Contemporary UK Couples," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(2), pages 155-173, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:34:y:2020:i:2:p:155-173
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017019862153
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017019862153
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017019862153?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wendy Sigle-Rushton & Jane Waldfogel, 2007. "Motherhood and women's earnings in Anglo-American, Continental European, and Nordic Countries," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 55-91.
    2. Rebecca E Lacey & Anne McMunn & Elizabeth Webb, 2018. "Informal caregiving and markers of adiposity in the UK Household Longitudinal Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(7), pages 1-15, July.
    3. Khoudja, Yassine & Platt, Lucinda, 2018. "Labour market entries and exits of women from different origin countries in the UK," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 85154, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. George Argyrous & Lyn Craig & Sara Rahman, 2017. "The Effect of a First Born Child on Work and Childcare Time Allocation: Pre-post Analysis of Australian Couples," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(2), pages 831-851, March.
    5. Janeen Baxter & Belinda Hewitt, 2013. "Negotiating Domestic Labor: Women's Earnings and Housework Time in Australia," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 29-53, January.
    6. Nabanita Datta Gupta & Leslie Stratton, 2010. "Examining the impact of alternative power measures on individual time use in American and Danish couple households," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 325-343, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Menta, Giorgia & Lepinteur, Anthony, 2021. "Boys don’t cry (or do the dishes): Family size and the housework gender gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 164-188.
    2. Alfred J. Lawrence & Umama Fatima & Faiza Ali & Ancey Abraham & Saima Arif & Tahmeena Khan, 2023. "COVID-19 and Its Impact on Diverse Aspects of Women’s Lives," Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Centre for Women's Development Studies, vol. 30(2), pages 148-169, June.
    3. Senhu Wang & Lambert Zixin Li, 2023. "Double Jeopardy: The Roles of Job Autonomy and Spousal Gender Ideology in Employed Women’s Mental Health," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 473-490, February.
    4. Agnieszka Kasperska, 2022. "Working from Home and Employee Perception of Career Prospects in Europe: the Gender and Family Perspectives," Working Papers 2022-31, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    5. Alejandra Rodríguez Sánchez & Anette Fasang & Susan Harkness, 2021. "Gender division of housework during the COVID-19 pandemic: Temporary shocks or durable change?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 45(43), pages 1297-1316.
    6. Elena Grinza & Francesco Devicienti & Mariacristina Rossi & Davide Vannoni, 2017. "How Entry into Parenthood Shapes Gender Role Attitudes: New Evidence from Longitudinal UK Data," Working papers 042, Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino.
    7. Massimiliano Pau & Micaela Porta & Giancarlo Coghe & Jessica Frau & Lorena Lorefice & Eleonora Cocco, 2020. "Does Multiple Sclerosis Differently Impact Physical Activity in Women and Man? A Quantitative Study Based on Wearable Accelerometers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(23), pages 1-13, November.
    8. Emily Christopher, 2021. "Capturing Conflicting Accounts of Domestic Labour: The Household Portrait as a Methodology," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 26(3), pages 451-468, September.
    9. Senhu Wang & Adam Coutts & Brendan Burchell & Daiga KamerÄ de & Ursula Balderson, 2021. "Can Active Labour Market Programmes Emulate the Mental Health Benefits of Regular Paid Employment? Longitudinal Evidence from the United Kingdom," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 35(3), pages 545-565, June.
    10. Florianne C. J. Verkroost, 2022. "A Bayesian multivariate hierarchical growth curve model to examine cumulative socio‐economic (dis)advantage among childless adults and parents," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(4), pages 2234-2276, October.
    11. Darmody, Merike & Smyth, Emer & Russell, Helen, 2020. "The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for policy in relation to children and young people: a research review," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number SUSTAT94, June.
    12. Ariane Agunsoye & Jerome Monne & Janette Rutterford & Dimitris P. Sotiropoulos, 2022. "How gender, marital status, and gender norms affect savings goals," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 157-183, May.
    13. Aga Kasperska & Anna Matysiak & Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska, 2023. "Managerial Preferences towards Employees Working from Home: Post-Pandemic Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 2023-16, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    14. Anna Matysiak & Agnieszka Kasperska & Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska, 2023. "Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Work From Home on Careers in the Post-Covid Context," Working Papers 2023-28, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    15. Giorgio Di Gessa & Baowen Xue & Rebecca Lacey & Anne McMunn, 2022. "Young Adult Carers in the UK—New Evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-13, October.
    16. Natalie Nitsche & Daniela Grunow & Ansgar Hudde, 2023. "Couples’ ideological pairings, relative income and housework sharing," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2023-033, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Amaia Altuzarra & Catalina Gálvez-Gálvez & Ana González-Flores, 2020. "Do Spanish Dual-Earner Couples Share Unpaid Work Equally?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 731-763, August.
    2. Hippolyte d'Albis & Karina Doorley & Elena Stancanelli, 2021. "Older mothers' employment and marriage stability when the nest is empty," PSE Working Papers halshs-03203063, HAL.
    3. Christian Neumeier & Todd Sørensen & Douglas Webber, 2018. "The Implicit Costs of Motherhood over the Lifecycle: Cross‐Cohort Evidence from Administrative Longitudinal Data," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(3), pages 716-733, January.
    4. Joanne S. Muller & Nicole Hiekel & Aart C. Liefbroer, 2020. "The Long-Term Costs of Family Trajectories: Women’s Later-Life Employment and Earnings Across Europe," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(3), pages 1007-1034, June.
    5. Ina GANGULI & Ricardo HAUSMANN & Martina VIARENGO, 2014. "Closing the gender gap in education: What is the state of gaps in labour force participation for women, wives and mothers?," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 153(2), pages 173-207, June.
    6. Christine Erhel & Mathilde Guergoat-Larivière, 2010. "Labour Market Status, Transitions and Gender: a European Perspective," Post-Print hal-00616799, HAL.
    7. Christine Erhel & Mathilde Guergoat-Larivière, 2010. "Labour Market Status, Transitions and Gender: a European Perspective," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00616799, HAL.
    8. Claudia Olivetti & Eleonora Patacchini & Yves Zenou, 2020. "Mothers, Peers, and Gender-Role Identity," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 266-301.
    9. Cecilia Obeng & Mary Slaughter & Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi, 2022. "Childcare Issues and the Pandemic: Working Women’s Experiences in the Face of COVID-19," Societies, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-11, July.
    10. Botha, Ferdi & Ribar, David C., 2023. "For worse? Financial hardships and intra-household resource allocation among Australian couples," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    11. Jacobo Muñoz-Comet & Stephanie Steinmetz, 2020. "Trapped in Precariousness? Risks and Opportunities of Female Immigrants and Natives Transitioning from Part-Time Jobs in Spain," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(5), pages 749-768, October.
    12. Sarkar, Sudipa & Sahoo, Soham & Klasen, Stephan, 2019. "Employment transitions of women in India: A panel analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 291-309.
    13. Olivier Thévenon & Angela Luci, 2012. "Reconciling Work, Family and Child Outcomes: What Implications for Family Support Policies?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 31(6), pages 855-882, December.
    14. Nieto, Adrián, 2021. "Native-immigrant differences in the effect of children on the gender pay gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 654-680.
    15. Ariane Aumaitre, 2022. "Three Tales of Gender Equality in a Post-Industrial World," LIS Working papers 849, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    16. Kamila Kolpashnikova, 2018. "American Househusbands: New Time Use Evidence of Gender Display, 2003–2016," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 1259-1277, December.
    17. Leslie S. Stratton, 2020. "The determinants of housework time," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 133-133, May.
    18. Tor Eriksson & Nicolai Kristensen, 2014. "Wages or Fringes? Some Evidence on Trade-Offs and Sorting," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(4), pages 899-928.
    19. Luis Gamboa & Blanca Zuluaga, 2013. "Is There a Motherhood Penalty? Decomposing the Family Wage Gap in Colombia," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 421-434, December.
    20. Javier García-Manglano, 2015. "Opting Out and Leaning In: The Life Course Employment Profiles of Early Baby Boom Women in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(6), pages 1961-1993, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender divisions of work; gender ideology;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:34:y:2020:i:2:p:155-173. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.