Domestic Labor and Marital Satisfaction: How Much or How Satisfied?

Abstract Using questionnaire data from 96 couples, we examined the relationship between respondents' domestic-labor performance, domestic-labor satisfaction, and marital satisfaction. We analytically separated the dimensions of domestic labor (i.e., household tasks, emotion work, and childcare) and ran separate analyses for men and women. We found that the amount of labor performed is associated with satisfaction with emotion work and childcare arrangements, but not the household task arrangement. Satisfaction with domestic-labor arrangements mediated the relationship between actual domestic-labor performance and marital satisfaction, and the central role of emotion work emerged in our analysis.

[1]  L. Cubbins,et al.  Division of Household Labor as a Source of Contention for Married and Cohabiting Couples in Metropolitan Moscow , 2004 .

[2]  D. Khor,et al.  “Doing Gender” , 2007 .

[3]  G. Kiger,et al.  Working hard and hardly working: domestic labor and marital satisfaction among dual-earner couples , 2001 .

[4]  Janeen Baxter,et al.  Satisfaction with Housework: Examining the Paradox , 1998 .

[5]  S. Walzer.  Thinking About the Baby: Gender and Divisions of Infant Care , 1996 .

[6]  Kristi Williams,et al.  Perceived Housework Equity, Marital Happiness, and Divorce in Dual-Earner Households , 2003 .

[7]  R. Curtis.  Household and Family in Theory on Inequality , 1986 .

[8]  Joseph H. Pleck,et al.  Working wives, working husbands , 1986 .

[9]  Arlie Russell Hochschild,et al.  Paid Work, Parenting, and Housework: Gender Strategies and Myths@@@The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home. , 1991 .

[10]  M. Meehan.  Culture Against Man , 1964 .

[11]  Gary Kiger,et al.  Juggling multiple roles: Perceptions of working mothers , 1996 .

[12]  J. Duncombe,et al.  ‘Workaholics’ and ‘Whingeing Women’: Theorising Intimacy and Emotion Work — The Last Frontier of Gender Inequality? , 1995 .

[13]  Berit Brandth,et al.  Masculinity and Child Care: The Reconstruction of Fathering , 1998 .

[14]  Linda Thompson,et al.  Family Work , 1991 .

[15]  M. Lennon,et al.  Relative Fairness and the Division of Housework: The Importance of Options , 1994, American Journal of Sociology.

[16]  Y. Lavee,et al.  Divison of Labor, Perceived Fairness, and Marital Quality: The Effect of Gender Ideology , 2002 .

[17]  G. Spanier.  Measuring Dyadic Adjustment: new scales for assessing the quality of marriage and similar dyads , 1976 .

[18]  A. J. Walker,et al.  Women and Men in Marriage, Work, and Parenthood. , 1989 .

[19]  P. Thoits,et al.  Stress, coping, and social support processes: where are we? What next? , 1995, Journal of health and social behavior.

[20]  M. M. Ferree,et al.  Gender and Fairness: Marital Satisfaction in Two-Earner Couples , 1998 .

[21]  G. Kiger,et al.  Moral discourse on domestic labor: gender, power, and identity in families☆ , 1999 .

[22]  Catharine R. Stimpson,et al.  Book Review: Arlie Hochschild with Anne Machung, The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home , 1989 .

[23]  T. Greenstein.  Gender Ideology and Perceptions of the Fairness of the Division of Household Labor: Effects on Marital Quality , 1996 .

[24]  Helen J. Mederer.  Division of labor in two-earner homes: task accomplishment versus household management as critical variables in perceptions about family work , 1993 .

[25]  van de Evert Vliert,et al.  Marital conflict about the division of household labor and paid work , 1996 .

[26]  S. Albany,et al.  THE DIVISION OF HOUSEHOLD LABOR , 2007 .

[27]  P. Blumstein,et al.  American Couples: Money, Work, Sex , 1983 .

[28]  M. Benin,et al.  Husbands' and Wives' Satisfaction with the Division of Labor. , 1988 .

[29]  Scott Coltrane,et al.  Research on household labor : Modeling and measuring the social embeddedness of routine family work , 2000 .

[30]  R. Erickson.  Reconceptualizing Family Work: The Effect of Emotion Work on Perceptions of Marital Quality. , 1993 .

[31]  S. Blair,et al.  Wives' Perceptions of the Fairness of the Division of Household Labor: The Intersection of Housework and Ideology , 1992 .

[32]  JULIE E. PRESS,et al.  WIVES' AND HUSBANDS' HOUSEWORK REPORTING , 1998 .

[33]  A. J. Walker.  Gender and Family Relationships , 1999 .

[34]  E. Kluwer,et al.  The marital dynamics of conflict over the division of labor , 1997 .

[35]  M. Perry‐Jenkins,et al.  Class, couples, and conflict: Effects of the division of labor on assessments of marriage in dual-earner families. , 1994 .