Keeping inequality at home: The genesis of gender roles in housework

J. Ignacio Giménez-Nadal, Lucia Mangiavacchi and Luca Piccoli
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Jose Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal ()

Labour Economics, 2019, vol. 58, issue C, 52-68

Abstract: This article studies how gender role attitudes are transmitted from parents to their children by examining the intrahousehold division of housework time. The Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) is used to analyse the time devoted by parents to housework during their children's late childhood or adolescence and that of the same children once they marry. The results suggest that a greater proportion of housework performed by mothers during childhood is related to a persistence in gender inequality in their children's future families. These gender norms are perpetuated directly to sons through a lower amount of housework performed and indirectly to daughters through the choice of a partner that replicates her father role model. An analysis of the possible transmission mechanisms proposed by the literature suggests a prominent role of the parental role model, according to which children tend to reproduce the situation they experienced during childhood. These findings shed light on the persistence of parental behaviour across generations, underlining the key role of fathers, and contribute to the debate about how gender inequality is transmitted over time.

Keywords: Gender norms; Gender role attitudes; Housework; Intergenerational transfers; Parental role model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J16 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537119300314
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:58:y:2019:i:c:p:52-68

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2019.03.006

Access Statistics for this article

Labour Economics is currently edited by A. Ichino

More articles in Labour Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().