Why Don't Men Do More Housework? A Job Characteristics Exploration of Gender and Housework Satisfaction

Pamela K. Adelmann

IPR working papers from Institute for Policy Resarch at Northwestern University

Abstract: Men tend to participate less in unpaid household work than women. As one potential reason why, this study explores a job characteristics explanation of men's satisfaction with housework, and with paid work, compared to women. Measures of self-direction, physical demands, time pressure, and satisfaction were compared for men and women from a national survey. Findings show that men perceive the characteristics of their housework differently than women, but not more negatively. Women's housework satisfaction is predicted by all three characteristics but men's only by housework time pressure.

In the subset of individuals who occupied both housekeeping and paid employment roles, men made more discrepant ratings of their housework compared to their paid work than women, but this discrepancy favored housework, not paid work. This study suggests there is little about men's perceptions of housework that explains their lack of participation in it.

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wop:nwuipr:95-31

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