The Division of Household Labor

In her 1994 article "Employment Schedules Among Dual-Earner Spouses and the Division of Household Labor by Gender" Harriet B. Presser's objective is to examine the relationship between employment schedules and household labor. In her opinion, employment schedules are an important determinant of the amount of time available for household labor and thus a possible explanation for why men typically do less housework than women. However, Presser fails to examine the effects of childcare responsibilities, cultural backgrounds, and coinciding circumstances on the division of household labor.

Presser hypothesizes that the presence of husbands at home while the wives are employed increases the participation of husbands and decreases the participation of wives in household tasks. Her hypothesis is based primarily on the fact that when employment schedules of spouses do not overlap, wives are less able to do tasks such as preparing dinner and cleaning up after meals for both themselves and their husbands.

Presser also believes that husbands who are at home while their wives are employed feel more of a psychological obligation to increase their participation in household tasks-especially during daytime hours, which are traditionally associated with both paid and unpaid work instead of leisure activities. Presser aims to disprove the current assumption in sociological research that virtually all spouses have daytime jobs and that employment schedules are irrelevant in determining the amount of time available for housework.

Presser's empirical analysis attempts to broaden the understanding of how employment schedules affect family life and to define "available time" in relation to housework by using more rigorous definitions of paid employment than are used in current literature.

Presser's analysis is based on a subsample of dual-earner couples from the 13,017 men and women aged 19 and over interview in the 1986-1987 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). The NSFH is a national probability sample that double-sampled Puerto Rican Americans, Mexican-Americans, single-parent families, families with stepchildren, cohabitating couples, and recently married persons. Means and regressions are used to adjust for the double sampling. In addition to the interview, participants in the NSFH survey completed a self-administered questionnaire. Married respondents' spouses also completed a self-administered questionnaire, but were not interviewed.

Presser's subsample consists of 2,388 dual-earner married couples in which complete data on employment status and time spent on household tasks was available for each spouse. This subsample is reduced to 1,845 when complete data on overlap in employment schedules between spouses is required. The subsample is reduced to 1,875 when only work shift is analyzed.

The two major dependent variables in Presser's analysis are the relative division of household labor between husbands and wives and the absolute number of hours each spouse spends on the various tasks. The NSFH survey studies nine household tasks, including the two traditionally male tasks of automobile and household maintenance and the three neutral tasks of shopping, paying bills, and driving others around. However, Presser's analysis focuses on the four most time-intensive tasks traditionally done by females-preparing meals, washing dishes and cleaning up after meals, cleaning house, and washing, ironing, and mending clothes.

The five independent variables used in Presser's analysis are the overlap in employment schedules of each spouse, employment shifts of each spouse, relative resources of each spouse, gender role ideology, and the stage in life course of each spouse.

Presser found that overall, wives spend about 33.4 hours per week on household tasks, while husbands spend an average on 17.6 hours per week on household tasks. The amount of hours worked per week for pay was 36.4 for women and 46.7 for men. This means the women in Presser's study spent a total of 68.8 hours per week on paid and unpaid employment, while men spent 63.4 hours on the same tasks. However, Presser states that these figures do not include time spent on childcare-which typically increases a woman's workload.

Presser's analysis generally shows the predicted relationships between housework and employment schedules. The following are some of Presser's findings:

• Only the wife's gender ideology increases the husband's household labor.
• The wife's professional or managerial occupation is particularly important in reducing gender discrepancies in household labor.
• Husbands who were alone during the day generally did a larger share of traditionally female household tasks.
• Higher educational levels for husbands increase their participation in household labor.
• The older the husband relative to the wife, the fewer hours of housework he performs.
• The greater the ratio of the husband's earnings to the wife's earnings, the less time he spends on household labor.

Presser concludes that wives are likely to continue doing less housework, regardless of their husband's participation as long as women's representation in professional or managerial occupations continues to increase, couples continue to have more egalitarian gender ideals, and domestic services are increasingly purchased. She suggests that whether or not this means wives will have fewer children and the age difference between spouses will narrow remains a topic for future research. However, several other questions are raised by Presser's research.

One significant criticism of Presser's research is that she only briefly examines the effects of childcare responsibilities on each spouse's total workload. The difference in total paid and unpaid employment for men and women without considering childcare responsibilities is only 5.4 hours per week, which does not seem substantial-especially considering that men typically contribute a larger portion of the total household income. In American society, income is typically equated with power. Women in Presser's research may believe their extra 5.4 hours of labor are necessary to offset their husband's greater economic contributions to the household.

In her research Presser ignores the possible effects of race and cultural background, which have been previously proven to be significant factors in the division of household labor. For example, Asian-American couples typically grow up in cultures that exhibit more traditional gender ideologies and would thus be less likely place importance on the equal division of household labor. This cultural perspective could possibly take precedence over the more practical considerations Presser's addresses in her research about the effects of employment schedules on household labor.

Another criticism of Presser's research is that some of her findings appear to interact with each other in significant ways that she fails to explore. For example, according to Presser husbands with higher educational levels spend more time on household tasks. Other sociological research has consistently proven that men with higher educational levels typically have more egalitarian gender ideologies. However, Presser states that only the wife's gender ideology increases the husband's hours of housework. According to Presser, men appear to be more responsive to their wives' gender role expectations than to their own when it comes to completing household tasks traditionally done by females.

In conclusion, Presser's "Employment Schedules Among Dual-Earner Spouses and the Division of Household Labor" adds to the study of gender inequality by considering the possible effects of employment schedules on the division of household labor. However, her research raises several significant questions regarding the circumstances that coincide with employment schedules.