THE DIVISION OF HOUSEHOLD LABOR AND ITS EFFECT ON WORK-LIFE
BALANCE AMONG SPOUSES AND COHABITING PARTNERS: A COMPARISON
OF GENDER RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, GERMANY, THE
NETHERLANDS, AND PORTUGAL
A Thesis
Presented to the faculty of the Department of Sociology
California State University, Sacramento
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirement for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
Sociology
by
Iris Iristay
FALL
2013
© 2013
Iris Iristay Doc
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ii
THE DIVISION OF HOUSEHOLD LABOR AND ITS EFFECT ON WORK-LIFE
BALANCE AMONG SPOUSES AND COHABITING PARTNERS: A COMPARISON
OF GENDER RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, GERMANY, THE
NETHERLANDS, AND PORTUGAL
A Thesis
by
Iris Iristay
Approved by:
, Committee Chair
Mridula Udayagiri, Ph.D.
, Second Reader
Randall MacIntosh, Ph.D.
Date
iii
Student: Iris Iristay
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University
format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the library and credit is to be
awarded for the thesis.
, Graduate Coordinator
Amy Qiaoming Liu, Ph.D.
Date
Department of Sociology
iv
Abstract
of
THE DIVISION OF HOUSEHOLD LABOR AND ITS EFFECT ON WORK-LIFE
BALANCE AMONG SPOUSES AND COHABITING PARTNERS: A COMPARISON
OF GENDER RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, GERMANY, THE
NETHERLANDS, AND PORTUGAL
by
Iris Iristay
With growing participation of women in the labor force, new challenges continue to rise
for women to meet daily demands of the home and work environment. Social scientists
have re-focused their research efforts to identify what factors are critical in helping
women balance their work and family life. This study is a comparative analysis of how
the division of household labor among spouses and cohabiting partners living in the
United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal is a key contributing factor in
balancing the work and home environment. The findings of the study based on the 2002
International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) data set indicate that individuals who
believe that men and women should be treated more equally experience higher levels of
work-life balance. This effect increases when individuals perceive that their spouses or
v
cohabiting partners spend more weekly hours on household labor. Being more financially
dependent on a spouse or cohabiting partner also increases work-life balance for an
individual; however, this effect decreases when the individual does less than his/her fair
share of household labor. Additionally, an individual experiences less work-life balance
when he/she perceives that the spouse or cohabiting partner does more than the fair share
of household labor. Throughout the study, results indicate that women compared to men
experience less work-life balance which points to the traditional gender role pressures
within the home environment that women to this day have to face. Living in Germany or
in the Netherlands compared to living in the United States increases an individual’s
work-life balance while living in Portugal has no such effect. The positive country-effects
suggest that there is stronger governmental support in Germany and in the Netherlands
for spouses or cohabiting partners who are dual-income earners.
, Committee Chair
Mridula Udayagiri, Ph.D.
Date
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Dr. Udayagiri tremendously for being a continuous source of
intellectual support. She has been an incredible mentor who encouraged and supported
me in every step of the way to follow my research goals. I am so grateful not only for
having had the opportunity to study sociological theory under her, but for experiencing
academic research at its best while working for her. I would also like to thank Dr.
MacIntosh immensely for being part of my thesis committee. I am so incredibly fortunate
and thankful to have had Dr. MacIntosh as my statistics professor. He is a powerhouse of
statistical methodology and my role model of what tough statistical research questions
social scientists ought to ask. I aspire to follow in his footsteps. My further thanks goes
out to Dr. Liu who was my first source of contact in the CSUS Department of Sociology.
She showed me that I had come to the right place at the right time to solidify my
sociological knowledge and to use it to achieve my career goals. I am ever so grateful to
Dr. Liu for believing in me and for never doubting that I could land a dream job in
governmental research. Thank you to Sanhita Gupta for enabling me to get into a
fantastic research position and for always checking in on me during the thesis writing
process. Lastly, I would like to thank my family and my dear husband Joseph for lovingly
supporting me all along the way. Thank you, Joseph, for always believing in me, for
being patient, for making me laugh, and for continuously nourishing my love for
research. You helped me fix my wings. Now, I can fly again!
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... vii
List of Tables ......................................................................................................................x
List of Figures ................................................................................................................. xiii
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1
Significance of the Study ........................................................................................12
2. LITERATURE REVIEW ...........................................................................................20
Introduction .............................................................................................................20
Theoretical Perspectives .........................................................................................21
Work-Life Balance versus Role or Work-Family Conflict .....................................21
Role-Strain and Role-Spillover Theories ................................................................23
Border Theory .........................................................................................................26
Making the Case for Role-Strain and Role-Spillover Theories ..............................27
Concept of the Perception of Fairness of the Division of Household Labor ..........28
Legitimizing Principles ...........................................................................................32
Time Availability ...........................................................................................33
Resource Dependence ....................................................................................34
Gender Role Ideology ....................................................................................35
Social Structural Theory, Gender Stratification, and Gender Role Theory ...........36
viii
Macro-level/Socio-structural Variations ................................................................42
The United States ..........................................................................................45
Germany ........................................................................................................47
The Netherlands ............................................................................................48
Portugal .........................................................................................................49
3. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY ......................................................51
Hypotheses ..............................................................................................................51
Data Source .............................................................................................................54
Variable Measures ..................................................................................................56
Dependent Variable ................................................................................................56
Mediator Variables ..................................................................................................57
Independent Variables ............................................................................................59
Control Variables ....................................................................................................60
4. RESULTS AND INTERPRETATION ......................................................................67
Mean Values and ANOVA Results ........................................................................68
Crosstabulation Results for Religious Affiliation ...................................................79
Regression and Process Results ..............................................................................80
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ......................................................................100
Strengths and Limitations .....................................................................................106
Directions for Future Research .............................................................................110
Suggestions for Improvement ...............................................................................113
References .......................................................................................................................115
ix
LIST OF TABLES
Tables
Page
Table 1: Total number of respondents for the United States, Germany,
the Netherlands, and Portugal, by gender ..........................................................68
Table 2: Total mean values of work-life balance for all respondents
by country affiliation ..........................................................................................69
Table 3: Independent samples t-test results with significant mean values for
respondents by gender and country affiliation ...................................................69
Table 4: ANOVA and significant Scheffe post-hoc tests results for dependent and
independent variables ..........................................................................................71
Table 5: Crosstabulation results for religious affiliation by country ................................80
Table 6: Multiple regression for gender role ideology on work-life balance
(respondents residing in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands,
and Portugal only) ..............................................................................................82
Table 7: Process mediation analysis of perception of fairness of the division
of household labor with direct and indirect effects of gender role ideology
on work-life balance ..........................................................................................83
Table 8: Multiple regression for time availability (respondent’s hours worked
weekly) on work-life balance (respondents residing in the United States,
Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal only) ..................................................85
x
Table 9: Process mediation analysis of perception of fairness of the division
of household labor with direct and indirect effects of
time availability on work-life balance ...............................................................87
Table 10 A: Process mediation analysis of the perception of fairness of the division
of household labor with direct and indirect effects of
resource dependence on work-life balance ........................................................89
Table 10 B: Effect of predictor variables and covariates from Process mediation
analysis of the perception of fairness of the division of
household labor with direct and indirect effects of resource
dependence on work-life balance .......................................................................89
Table 11: Multiple regression for respondent’s weekly household labor hours
on work-life balance (respondents residing in the United States, Germany,
the Netherlands, and Portugal only) ...................................................................91
Table 12: Process mediation analysis of respondent’s weekly household labor
hours with direct and indirect effects of gender role ideology on
work-life balance ...............................................................................................92
Table 13: Multiple regression for spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household
labor hours on work-life balance (respondents residing in the United States,
Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal only) ..................................................94
Table 14 A: Process mediation analysis of spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly
household labor hours with direct and indirect effects of gender role
ideology on work-life balance ...........................................................................97
xi
Table 14 B: Effect of predictor variables and covariates from Process mediation
analysis of spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household labor
hours with direct and indirect effects of gender role ideology on
work-life balance ...............................................................................................97
Table 15: Decision outcomes for all tested hypotheses ....................................................99
xii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figures
Page
Figure 1: 2000-2001 marginal tax rate comparison of second earners versus single
earners* in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal ............6
Figure 2: Days and paid percentage of maternity leave in the United States, Germany,
the Netherlands, and Portugal .............................................................................7
Figure 3: Length of maternity leave in days in the United States, Germany, the
Netherlands, and Portugal ...................................................................................8
Figure 4: GEM rank, value, and distinct categories for the United States, Germany, the
Netherlands, and Portugal ...................................................................................9
Figure 5: Parliamentary seats held by women by all four countries .................................10
Figure 6: Women’s employment rate by country, including the United States,
Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the OECD total ...............................14
Figure 7: Concept map ......................................................................................................53
xiii
1
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Over recent decades, gender roles of both men and women have increasingly
changed and moved from traditional to more egalitarian roles (Apparala, Reifman, and
Munsch 2003). Since the 1960s, women have progressively entered the work force as
part-time, full-time and independent workers due to groundbreaking changes in equal
rights for women, especially in the work environment (Crompton and Lyonette 2006). In
the United States and in many countries that are part of the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), women represent over half of the labor force
(OECD 2004). Yet, much of the unpaid household labor is performed still largely by
women which raises questions as to how working women manage to create balance
between the demands of the work and life environment. This study evaluates to which
degree the perception of fairness of the division of household labor is a factor in
managing work-life balance. However, including the perception of fairness of the
division of household labor as a factor into work-life balance research is not meant to
single out its importance. Rather, its inclusion attempts to point to the fact that a more
detailed understanding of the mechanisms involved in the work-life balancing act –
especially under the lens of continuous reshaping of gender role expectations – can only
be reached by multi-layered, cross-country, as well as macro-and micro-level factor
analysis.
Before the noticeable increase of women in the work force occurred in the later
2
part of the 20th Century, the concept of work-life balance had not been of major concern
for academics in the social sciences; traditional gender role ideology – in which men are
viewed generally as the breadwinner and women as the caretaker of the home
environment – was deeply ingrained in all levels of society (Crompton and Lyonette
2006). Historically, the division of labor was divided among men and women, with men
as sole breadwinners earning money for the family by means of paid labor while
women’s duties consisted of unpaid labor within the home environment (Crompton 1999;
Crompton and Lyonette 2006).
Since the last turn of the century, it has been evident that in many countries, the
traditional breadwinner model has given way to the dual-earner model. With equal rights
policies and laws put into place, women began to reevaluate their gender roles and to
increase their educational levels as well as employment ambitions (Crompton and
Lyonette 2006). While employment opportunities for women have become the means to
supplement family income, they have also been a vehicle to a woman’s independence
from the husband’s/cohabiting partner’s income as well as to her own gender
empowerment. With the decrease in industrialization and the increase of the service
sector, the male breadwinner model has been rapidly challenged by the influx of women
workers (Crompton and Lyonette 2006). However, wages in the service sector are low,
often forcing both spouses/cohabiting partners to work in order to meet financial needs.
Especially minority women occupy many low-paying, un-benefitted jobs in the service
industry such as in adult care-giving, childcare, and public/private housekeeping. Women
employed as private domestic workers face even larger socio-structural barriers, as their
3
importance and participation in the labor force are persistently undervalued (Romero
2002). Many women face the stigma of being domestic workers and underreport the kind
of domestic labor they are engaged in. Domestic labor is often an informal contract
between two parties, and is not reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) nor
counted as part of the formal labor force or toward the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of
the United States economy (Romero 2002). Currently, the United States Census does not
distinguish among the many types of domestic household work and applies a single code
for all domestic work, therefore, underreporting the actual types and numbers of domestic
workers. Unless female domestic workers receive the opportunity not only to declare
their informal yet taxable wages without being stigmatized but to state their true
occupation to the United States Census, their type of work and actual number in the work
force remain largely invisible to the population and governmental institutions.
Especially in the aftermath of global financial recession, unemployment in all
sectors has decreased only slowly and continues to hurt many families, and makes the
necessity of women to work even more evident; in the United States, many contracting
and labor jobs in the construction sector had been lost due to the ‘crash’ of the housing
market and financial institutions. Because many construction jobs are held by men, losing
these kinds of jobs makes it even more important for women as wives or cohabiting
partners to be able to financially support the family.
Governments of the United States and Europe have realized the financial and
societal capital that women’s employment has to offer: if women work, their financial
income can be a key factor in reducing family poverty, reducing the reliance on welfare
4
programs, and redefining the value of unpaid housework by allowing others to do paid
care-giving and housekeeping jobs – while the working woman allocates her time
increasingly toward work (Crompton and Lyonette 2006; Orloff 2009). Yet, the increase
in paid care-giving jobs does not necessarily indicate that gender ideology, care-giving,
and the division of household labor have moved toward more equality (Orloff 2009).
Although the United States has been one of the frontrunners in the employment rate of
women since the 1960s with 43 percent in 1966, European countries as well have
continuously promoted women’s employment. Among women’s employment, the United
States has experienced the largest upward trend among working women who are married
and have small children (Apparala et al. 2003). The Bureau of Labor Statistics (1998)
reported that in the 1990s, 61 percent of married women were working and had children
under the age of six years.
Dual-earner households have increased in numbers, in fact, “the number of
families with working couples today is double the number of families with only the male
partner employed” (Saginak 2005:162). In comparison to the 1950s, households with
only a male breadwinner were double the number of households with dual earners. While
some women have the choice to enter the work force (because their husbands earn
enough for the family’s financial needs), many other women have to work out of
financial necessity (Crompton and Lyonette 2006). To this day, however, women have
traditionally and disproportionately engaged in household labor, putting many unpaid
hours into household chores and child-caring/care-giving activities (Braun, LewisEpstein, Stier, and Baumgaertner 2008). Although there are societal, cultural, and
5
individual differences in how spouses view the labor force participation and the division
of household labor, it is argued in this study that it is especially women who are faced
with a growing conflict to balance the home and work environment. The comparative
research study inquires about the complex interaction of factors that affect the degree to
which especially cohabiting women compared to cohabiting men in the United States,
Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal experience a conflict between the duties of the
home and the duties of the work environment.
Paradoxically, some women experience an increased sense of fairness of the
division of household labor and, therefore, more work-life balance, even though they
engage in the majority of household labor and are to varying degree financially
dependent on their husbands’ income (Ruppanner 2008). The perception of fairness of
the division of household labor seems to affect balance between the work and home
environment. Women’s and their spouses’/cohabiting partners’ attitudes toward genderspecific division of household labor can influence perceived fairness of the household
division of labor (Braun et al. 2008; Ruppanner 2008).
While the attitude toward gender-specific roles is an individual characteristic, it
can also be influenced by the cultural or societal norms of gender roles within a specific
society. Policies and laws such as childcare support, motherhood benefits, or taxation of
dual-income earners, as well as flexibility in the work environment can affect women’s
work and household labor participation as well (OECD 2004). This research study takes
into account these additional complex country-specific or ‘societal’ differences that can
mediate women’s work-life balance (Crompton and Lyonette 2006).
6
The OECD (2004) reported (Figure 1, p. 6) that women as second earners were
taxed on average at a higher rate than women who earned the same amount as single
earners. Women as second earners were taxed even more when they earned 100 percent
of Average Production Worker (APW) income compared to earning just 67 percent of
APW income. Among the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal, the
Netherlands has the lowest and most equal tax rate ratio between second and single
earners, while Germany has the highest tax rate ratio. Analyzing the tax rate ratio
between second and single income earners can provide more insight on the degree to
which government regulations enable spouses and partners (often women) to enter the
labor force as second income earners without incurring unequal taxation.
Figure 1: 2000-2001 marginal tax rate comparison of second earners versus single
earners* in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal
Women earning 67% of APW*
Women earning 100% of APW
Type of
Second
Ratio second
Second
Ratio second
taxation
earner/single
earner
earner/single
system
Single
earner
United
Single
29
22
1.3
30
26
1.2
Optional/Joint
Germany
50
34
1.5
53
42
1.3
Joint
Netherlands
33
27
1.2
41
36
1.1
Separate
Portugal
17
13
1.3
20
18
1.1
Joint
States
* The married couple has two children and the husband earns 100% of Average Production Worker
earnings (APW).
** Average Production Worker earnings
Source: OECD 2004
The length of maternity leave and the percentage of wages paid during maternity
7
leave are other indicators as to how governments support working mothers who just had a
baby. According to Figure 2 (p. 7) and 3 (p. 8), Portugal allows the mother to take 120
days of paid maternity leave compared to the United States in which working mothers
receive only 84 days of maternity leave. Whether maternity leave in the United States is
paid depends on the company, the benefit package, and how long the mother worked in
her current job prior to giving birth; very few companies will pay maternity leave in the
United States (Institute for Women’s Policy Research 2007). Contrary to the United
States, the governments of the Netherlands, Germany, and Portugal protect the rights of a
working woman to take maternity leave by providing a financial safety net for the woman
during her child-caring time at home.
Figure 2: Days and paid percentage of maternity leave in the United States,
Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal
Country
Length of
Percentage of wages paid in covered
Provider of
maternity
period
benefit
leave in days
United States
84
Not available
N/A
Germany
98
100
Statutory health
insurance
scheme, state,
employer
Netherlands
112
100
Social insurance
Portugal
120
100
Social insurance
Source: OECD 2010
8
Figure 3: Length of maternity leave in days in the United States,
Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal
140
120
120
112
98
100
84
80
60
40
20
0
Netherlands
Germany
Portugal
United States of
America
Source: OECD 2010
Globally, equal opportunities for women have improved continuously, however,
each country has specific policies and laws in place that either enable or prevent to
various degrees married women from pursuing a career while having a satisfying family
life. Equal opportunity policies are additional factors responsible for women’s mediation
of work-life balance. On a social structural scale, governmental policies and laws are
reflections of gender role ideologies by which a specific society is marked. Although
individuals within a society can adhere to varying gender role ideologies from traditional
to more egalitarian, there are scales such as the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) to
identify the degree to which a society has removed structural/governmental barriers to
promote women’s equality in the public sector.
9
Figure 4: GEM rank, value, and distinct categories for the United States,
Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal
Country
GEM
GEM
Seats in
Female
Female
Ratio of
Rank
Value
parliament
legislators,
professional
estimated
held by
senior officials
and technical
female to
women (%
and managers
workers (% of
male earned
of total)
(% of total)
total)
income
Netherlands
6
0.859
36.0
26.0
50.0
.64
Germany
9
0.831
30.6
37.0
50.0
.58
United States
15
0.762
16.3
42.0
56.0
.63
Portugal
22
0.692
21.3
34.0
50.0
.59
Source: United Nations Human Development Programme 2007
Of the four countries under investigation as illustrated in Figure 4 (p. 9), the
Netherlands has the highest GEM value of 0.859 and is followed by Germany with 0.831,
the United States with 0.762, and Portugal with 0.692. While the United States has on
average the largest percentage of female legislators, female professionals, and female to
male income ratio among all four countries (Figure 4, p. 9), it has the lowest percentage
of parliamentary seats held by women (Figure 5, p. 10) and ranks only at place 15
worldwide in overall gender empowerment. The degree to which women are empowered
within a country by governmental laws and regulations might be linked to how well they
are represented in parliament (United Nations Human Development Programme 2010).
10
Figure 5: Parliamentary seats held by women by all four countries
40
36.0
35
30.6
30
25
21.3
20
16.3
15
10
5
0
Netherlands
Germany
United States
Portugal
Source: United Nations Human Development Programme 2007
Not only societal, but cultural, as well as racial, ethnic and religious affiliations
(although racial and ethnic affiliations are not addressed in this research due to such
variables missing in the 2002 ISSP data set) can impact women’s attitudes and perception
about gender roles and their division of labor as well. Gender ideologies shape
perceptions of womanhood which vary by culture and country. This research study
attempts to apply a gendered lens to the structural (country-specific) as well as individual
conditions influencing women’s perception about their own gender roles and the division
of household labor when they navigate their lives between the home and work
environment. The complex societal and individual conditions leading to such choices are
the focal point of this sociological inquiry.
Therefore, the research study attempts to be comprehensive by analyzing macrolevel/societal factors (these are country-level variables in addition to descriptions of
11
explanatory factors such as the GEM scale and country-specific policies) as well as
micro-level/individual factors that have shown to be of relevance in previous research of
work-life balance and fairness perception in the household division of labor. The
complexities in the research present themselves in the overlap of macro- and micro-level
factors. In this case, egalitarian and traditional gender views can be understood in terms
of belonging to both, a micro-level/individual and macro-level/societal sphere because
the specific views of an individual toward gender roles can be influenced by the broader
societal ideology that leans toward either an egalitarian or a more traditional gender view
and division of work and household labor.
Although many women support equal rights for women, they take on a ‘doubleshift’ by going to work as paid employees only to come home and engage in unpaid
household labor and care-giving responsibilities at home (Hochschild 1989). At home,
women also engage in the ‘triple shift’ by doing emotional work in trying to make the
home a pleasant environment for all household members (Hochschild 1989). Assuming
that women face increased stress of struggling to fulfill their own multiple gender roles as
workers, wives, partners, caregivers, and/or mothers, to what varying degrees are their
gender role ideologies and their perceptions about the division of household labor a factor
in achieving balance in the work and home environment (Milkie and Peltola 1999, Peltola
et al. 2004, Schieman et al. 2003)? With more women in the labor force, research on
household labor and work-life balance has increased over the last decades. The main
assumption under investigation posits that – due to greater women labor force
participation – more men would increase their hours in household labor and
12
spouses/cohabiting partners would adopt a more egalitarian view on the division of
household labor as well, ultimately pushing on the individual level in the direction of
societal change, toward gender equality (Lam and Haddad 1992; Apparala et al. 2003).
However, women living in more egalitarian societies may report a decreased
sense of fairness in the division of household labor as well as decreased work-life balance
when the male spouse/cohabiting partner is only minimally involved in household labor
and child-caring activities, suggesting that other factors such as gender role ideology may
be involved. The division of household labor has only disproportionately kept up with the
equal rights movement and women’s increased labor force participation in what
Hochschild has called the ‘stalled revolution’ (Hochschild 1989; Walzer 1996; Glavin
and Schieman 2011). Analyzing the macro- and micro-level conditions which lead to the
perception of equity in the division of household labor can give clues about the
mechanisms that enable cohabiting women as well as men to perceive balance in their
work-life in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal. Pinpointing the
mechanism might also indicate why it has come to a ‘stalled revolution’ and why full
gender equality has not been fully realized yet in paid and unpaid labor.
Significance of the Study
Many jobs in the service and farm industry pay very little for unskilled labor
which often raises the necessity for both spouses to work in order to cover the financial
needs of families, especially the ones with children (Crompton and Lyonette 2006). In the
United States, half of the women are employed in non-manufacturing jobs while 65
percent of the employed women are married and live with the spouse or partner, and 47
13
percent of the overall employed women have a child or children under the age of 18
(Bond and Galinsky 2011). Among the many employed women, “two thirds of working
mothers have children who are preschoolers, and many are involved in the labor force
while their child or children are still infants” (Saginak 2005:162). Women who
participate in the labor force enable their families to bypass or move out of poverty
(Crompton and Lyonette 2006). However, government policies have to be passed which
provide women with equal pay, job securities, childcare support, and favorable taxation
brackets for dual-income earners – practical incentives to encourage women to become a
larger part of the labor force (Guest 2002; OECD 2004). Although women participate
increasingly in the work force, even to the same degree as men in the United States, they
are still paid less than men on average (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2005). In recent
decades, families in which both woman and man work, have increased; yet the home
environment has continuously been perceived by the larger population as the
responsibility of the woman (Hochschild et al. 1989).
14
Figure 6: Women’s employment rate by country, including the United States,
Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the OECD total
80
70
Employment Rate
60
Germany
50
Netherlands
40
Portugal
United States
30
OECD total
20
10
0
1966
1973
1980
1987
1994
2001
2008
(Vertical drop-off lines indicate missing data)
Source: OECD 2010
Comparing the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal, the
employment rate of adult women between 1998 and 2008 (Figure 6, p. 14) has increased
most dramatically in the Netherlands at 70.2 percent with an 11.1 percentage point
change, followed by Germany at 64.3 percent with an 8 percentage point change, and a
moderate to weak 4.2 percentage point change to 62.5 percent in Portugal (OECD 2010).
The United States has experienced a decline in women’s employment rates in 2008 with a
decrease of a 1.6 percentage point change at 65.5 percent, yet the United States is at
second place among the four countries in terms of the employment rate of women.
Overall, despite a slow change, the average employment rate of women in OECD
15
countries has increased between 1998 and 2008 by 2.9 percentage points to 57.8 percent,
indicating growth in women’s overall employment participation.
However, the participation of women in the labor force has only
disproportionately changed the rate men engage in household labor and child-caring/caregiving activities (Livingston and Judge 2008; Coltrane 2000; Bianchi, Robinson, and
Milkie 2006). Although the breadwinner model has been challenged by women’s labor
force participation, the assigned gendered duties of men seem to not have changed
significantly and have largely remained confined to the work environment. According to
research on fathers’ attitudes toward household labor, their participation in the actual
household labor has only to a limited degree correlated with societal changes such as
shifts in gender role ideology and policy change. Women, on the contrary, have taken on
multiple roles as unpaid caregivers at home as well as paid laborers in the work
environment. Women’s workload has increased suggesting that women have not been
freed from the traditional views of women’s domestication. Hence, women presumably
feel an increasingly growing conflict (simultaneously, a challenge to balance the multiple
roles) between the home and work spheres (Livingston and Judge 2008). Yet, there is
some evidence that women who share a more traditional view on the division of
household labor will experience less of a conflict even though they work more paid and
unpaid labor hours than their spouses (Braun et al. 2008). This suggests that the
perception of fairness of the division of household labor may act as a powerful factor in
facilitating work-life balance regardless of actual hours worked. The structural as well as
individual conditions under which women perceive balance or growing conflict need to
16
be investigated with further research studies in order to inform new policies that support
social change toward women’s equal treatment in the work and home environment, make
it fiscally beneficial for women of dual-income families to work, encourage and give men
the choice to take paternity leave at minimal pay-cut, and enable families with dual
earners to balance the work and home environment life (Lachance-Grzela and Bouchard
2010; Coltrane 2010).
Also, most of the previous research has focused on the difference of gender roles,
and not on the complexities women have to manage in the work and home environment
(Hare-Mustin 1988). When analyzing current gender roles, researchers have to
increasingly operate on multiple levels. As an attempt to further explore the impact of
gender ideologies on work-life balance and gender roles and responsibilities, this study
will use the 2002 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP 2004) data set to
highlight some of these elements in gender relations within a comparative framework.
The 2002 ISSP data set is a fitting empirical data research pool because it inquires about
women’s and men’s attitudes towards gender ideology, the division of household labor as
well as their gender role perceptions in the home and work environment which can be
used to assess how spouses and cohabiting partners mediate work-life balance.
Even though women engage on average more in household labor compared to
their male spouses, clearly pointing to a persisting imbalance in the division of household
labor, a review of research studies on the perception of the division of household labor
points to the fact that many women still report fairly low levels of feeling treated unfairly
(Braun et al. 2008; Mikula 1998). In fact, only 20 to 30 percent of women expressed
17
feelings of being treated unfairly according to a literature review by Mikula (1998). The
assumption that the actual labor within the household is a correlating indicator for the
perception of fairness of the division of household labor needs to be reevaluated (Braun
2008). What is considered fair or unequal seems to differ from person to person, and
micro-/individual factors may influence the perception of fairness scale. Yet, the
interpretation of what constitutes fairness may be impacted not only by the individual’s
own view on gender roles but by the gender norms of a specific group or society in which
a woman or man grew up (Braun et al. 2008; Lachance-Grzela and Bouchard 2010;
Coltrane 2010).
After review of the research literature on work-life balance and the perception of
fairness of the division of household labor, social scientists are still working on fully
identifying all significant factors on the micro- as well as macro-level that influence
work-life balance. One of the challenges to identifying the most significant factors to
influence work-life balance is that answers to the question become a matter of
perspective and focus: researchers of work-life balance have often focused on the work
environment and factors such as work hours, benefits, supervisor’s support, flexibility,
state’s or country’s work policies, and gender ideology. Researchers looking more
closely at the home environment have focused on factors such as the perception of
fairness of the division of household labor, time availability, resource dependence, gender
ideology, as well as actual hours put into household work. Although some researchers
such as Milkie and Peltola (1999) have used “perceived unfairness in sharing housework”
(p. 476) as one of the predictors of work-life balance, the perception of fairness of the
18
division of household labor has not been emphasized enough as a key indicator for worklife balance. It is argued in this research study that the perception of fairness of the
division of household labor is one of the more striking indicators for managing work-life
balance. This study does not intend to single out the perception of fairness of the division
of household labor as the key factor in managing work-life balance. On the contrary, it
attempts to point to the fact that by its mere inclusion of the perception of fairness factor,
the study emphasizes that what alleviates women’s work-life conflict may be even more
complex in nature than previously expected. In order to understand the concept of the
perception of fairness of the division of household labor, country-specific, socio-cultural,
macro- as well as micro-level factors – which continuously shape and reshape how
women and men experience and act upon gender expectations – have to be examined
closely. This is not to say that it is the only concept and key factor that allows women and
men to balance their work-life spheres, especially when countries’ policies are taken into
account that allow women to engage in paid labor without them having to worry about
promotions, childcare, and disadvantaged taxation within their dual-earner household.
However, in this study, the perception of fairness of the division of household labor is
emphasized as a ‘meso-marker’ that is both, a micro-level variable as well as a macrolevel type variable which is reflective of gender ideologies embedded in societal
structures.
Coltrane (2010) has called for more comprehensive and complex research designs
that include cross-country and trend studies, as well as regional, racial/ethnic, immigrant,
or gay/lesbian/transsexual groups. Also, Coltrane points out that only a few recent studies
19
such as of Lachance-Grzela and Bouchard (2010) and Cooke (2007) have begun to “take
seriously the economic, political and social context under which couples divide
household labor as well as paid labor” (Coltrane 2010:798). Although this study cannot
include trend studies or a wide array of diverse groups – because, with exception of
regional data, the 2002 ISSP data set lacks such information – it tries to be more
comprehensive by using a cross-national approach to identify societal factors as well as
by adding a diversifying yet little used factor of religious affiliation.
One theoretical approach which Coltrane deems inescapable to better understand
the linkage between micro-/individual and macro-/societal factors that mediate the
division of household labor is to perceive the division of household labor as a reflection
of gender inequality on a larger structural scale within that particular society. Therefore,
this study aims to expand on popular theories such as time availability, resource
dependence, and gender role ideology used to analyze the division of household, and to
integrate social structural theory, social stratification, and gender role theory which have
been used to assess women’s attitudes toward their gender roles, division of household
labor, and social equality.
20
Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
Work-life balance and the perception of fairness of the division of household
labor have been prominent yet very distinct concepts among researchers. Some
researchers have mainly focused on unpaid labor by analyzing the division of household
labor while others have focused solely on paid work by analyzing organizational
constraints and policies of the work environment (Coltrane 2000; Keuzenkamp and
Hooghiemsra 2000; Wierda-Boer 2009). Only over the past few years, have these in itself
extensive research concepts been integrated into more complex research designs aiming
at the overlap of the two research topics. With the goal to build on and contribute to the
research literature of the two concepts and by offering an integrative research approach of
comparing the perception of fairness to work-life balance across four countries, this
research focuses on clarifying to which degree the perception of fairness of the division
of household labor can in fact be used as a key-indicator or ‘meso-marker’ for work-life
balance. Milkie and Peltola (1999) have directly linked and identified the “perceived
unfairness in sharing housework” (p. 476) to work-life balance as one significant
indicator. They analyzed a sample taken from the 1996 General Social Survey of people
who were married and employed. Although their research study consisted of a detailed
analysis to identify gender-specific factors that mediated married women’s and men’s
perceived successes in balancing work-life, they did not include a wider analysis on
societal factors that could as well affect work-life balance. By including a macro-level,
21
cross-country comparison, this research study aims at investigating and describing the
larger structural frameworks that influence cohabiting women’s and men’s individual
characteristics, and therefore, their mediation of work-life balance.
Within the sphere of work-life research, this study draws from several theoretical
perspectives such as Work-Life Balance, Role or Work-Family Conflict, Role-Strain and
Roll-Spillover Theory, as well as Border Theory. Within the sphere of household labor
research, the study will make use of the theoretical concepts of time availability, resource
dependence, and gender role ideology which are known as legitimizing principles and are
commonly used in fairness perception and the division of household labor research. In
addition, the study builds on social structural theory with special focus on gender
stratification or ‘gentrification’ as used by Bondi (1991), and on using gender role theory
to view the perception of fairness of the division of household labor and its effect on
work-life balance through a gendered lens.
Theoretical Perspectives
Work-Life Balance versus Role or Work-Family Conflict
This research study uses the term of work-life balance, rather than role or workfamily conflict, which are earlier terms used to analyze the relationships and challenges
associated with the work and home environment. Work-life balance is a newer concept
described as the “good functioning at work and at home with a minimum of perceived
role conflict” (Clark 2001:751; Guest 2002). It is a concept which focuses on balance
rather than conflict. Yet, the literature on the work-life has not agreed upon a general and
consistent definition: work-life balance is used and defined differently throughout
22
research studies, and it remains in a state of flux waiting to be defined concisely in its
meaning (Frone 2003; McMillan et al. 2011). Marks and MacDermid (1996) describe
positive role balance within the work and family environment as “the tendency to become
fully engaged in the performance of every role in one’s total role system, to approach
every typical role and role partner with an attitude of attentiveness and care” (p. 421).
McMillan et al. (2011) describes Marks’s and MacDermid’s conceptualization of worklife balance as “a continuum with imbalance (in either role) anchoring one end and
balance (again in either role) anchoring the other end” (p. 13). However, because there is
a multitude of factors that affect people’s ability to meet the challenges of the work and
home environment, the degree to which people deal with the two spheres is a flux of
conflict and balance. Work-life balance is still defined in terms of a lessening or absence
of conflict between the roles in the home and work environment, just as conflict poses a
lack of balance (McMillan 2011; Frone 2003). Although the concept and term of worklife balance has developed out of border theory (which is not utilized in this study), the
study will continue to use the term work-life balance to point to factors such as gender
role ideology which allows women to perceive the division of household labor as fair and
to balance their work-life although they engage in the majority of the household labor.
The concept of work-life balance embedded in border theory has been criticized for not
accounting for the ‘double shift’ of women, especially when their roles blur (Glavin et al.
2011; Hochschild 1989). This study inquires in part about the possibility of perceiving
balance between the work and family environment even if the actual division of
household labor is unequal.
23
Role or work-family conflict between the work and home environment is a result
of the stressors that develop when role responsibilities of the work environment infringe
on the role responsibilities of the home environment and vice versa. For the reason that
the home environment with household chores and care-giving duties has traditionally
been assigned to a woman’s role, working women especially are expected to face more
work-life stressors than men. Yet, work-life stressors affect both men and women, and
work-life conflict has been identified in many research studies as being the cause for
health-related physical and psychological illnesses such as depression (Glavin and
Schieman 2011; Schieman, Milkie, and Glavin 2009; Bellavia and Frone 2005; Frone,
Russell, and Cooper 1992). Some researchers resist using the term work-life balance for
they argue that the term work-life balance fails to account for gender role differences
(Caprioni 2004; Smithson and Stokoe 2005). They point to organizational research which
often makes use of the term to describe rather individual and merit-based characteristics
which can facilitate work-life balance while failing to account for structural inequalities
imbedded in social institutions such as the workplace.
The following perspectives have largely dominated work-life research: role-strain
and role-spillover theory on one hand, and border theory on the other. Role-strain and
role-spillover theories differ from border theory in their views on role pressure
incompatibility and role-overlapping.
Role-Strain and Role-Spillover Theories
Role-strain and role-spillover theories describe work-life conflict as “a form of
inter-role conflict in which the pressures from work and family domains are mutually
24
incompatible in some respect” (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985:77; Glavin and Schieman
2011). Role-strain theory – also known as the conflict hypothesis – proposes that the
roles of the work and home environment create a conflict for a person; with the duality of
paid and unpaid work, time becomes limited and energy has to be divided between the
two spheres which creates a strain or conflict for the person (McMillan et al. 2011; Marks
1977; Goode 1960; Wierda-Boer et al. 2009). Conflict between multiple roles can go
both ways: family roles can interfere with work, and roles at work can interfere with the
family environment (McMillan et al. 2011).
Glavin and Schieman (2011) argue that role-strain emphasizes role conflict and
does not provide alternative explanations as to how work-life roles can be perceived
differently by people. Especially with societal changes from the traditional composition
of the nuclear family (with the male as the sole breadwinner) to dual earner households,
and with the development of technologies that allow employees to work from home, there
seems to be the need for a new theoretical model that could account for the changes:
border theory. Yet, role-strain and role-spillover theories provide the needed theoretical
framework for this research study to explain how conflict may be mediated or avoided by
other interfering mechanisms such as gender role ideology to help working women make
sense or justify their mutually incompatible roles.
Role-spillover theory gives explanatory insights as to why women face more
challenges and conflicts between their employee role and roles within the home
environment while the traditional gender role stereotype of men as the provider of the
family allows the man to engage more in work-related activities at home (Glavin et al.
25
2011). His focus on work is often assessed against the traditional stereotype and,
therefore, perpetually normalized and approved (Glavin and Schieman 2011). Yet,
women experience role-spillover quite differently due to the persisting female stereotype
of the woman as homemaker and caregiver. Role-spillover has multiple effects on
women: Women will engage in more emotional and physical work, in what Hochschild
(1989) has described as the ‘double’ and ‘triple shift’ to enact their gender ideals. They
may feel conflicted in that they believe they inadequately fulfill their home
responsibilities due to their work demands (Glavin et al. 2011). In addition, they can
experience the pull of what Blair-Loy (2003) describes as the ‘work-devotion schema’
which “demands that [they] give an immense time commitment and strong emotional
allegiance to [their] firm or career” (p. 7). Role-spillover theory is also used in this
research because the newer school of work-life balance has used the theory to strengthen
the argument that balance should be perceived as a source of enrichment and integration
(McMillan et al 2011). According to some work-life researchers, “integration is grounded
in spillover theory, in that individuals carry attitudes and beliefs from one role to
another” (McMillan et al. 2011:11). Spillover may also explain how people merge or
integrate the work roles with their family roles according to their attitudes (for example,
their attitudes about gender role ideology) and preferences. Attitudes that spill over from
the work into the family environment and vice versa may initiate the negotiation process
between work-life roles and any inequalities that may be attached to them. The varying
physical and emotional responses of women to spillover raise the question as to how
much gender role ideology and the perception of the division of household labor help
26
women to balance their roles of the home and work environment.
The lingering of gendered and stereotyped roles of men and women points to the
structural influence of larger societal gender role ideologies which transcend by means of
policy mandates, socio-cultural, ethnic, and religious traditions into individual
households and parents’ socialization behaviors. Looking at the mechanism of structural
change, role-strain and role-spillover theories can give clues as to how individuals either
perpetuate gender differences or influence structural change toward more equitable
treatment of women.
Border Theory
Border theory is a relatively new perspective and has been used increasingly for
the past ten years (Clark 2000). It is described as “a subjective, cognitive phenomenon
involving perceived integration of work life and home life that is situated in a highly
interdependent work-family context such as the simultaneous work and family demands
that can be present when people bring their paid work into the home” (Desrochers,
Hilton, and Larwood 2005:449; Glavin and Schieman 2011). This perspective allows
researchers to describe people’s work-life stressors in the context of changing workfamily dynamics such as a mother working with a flexible schedule from home, yet
facing interferences from the home environment such as a crying baby. In border theory,
people are described as “border crossers” (Glavin and Schieman 2011:44; Clark 2000).
When they work from home, they blur their roles of worker and spouse, partner, parent,
caregiver, and/or homemaker (Clark 2000). With border theory, the blurring roles of the
home and work spheres a person experiences are not described in terms of a role conflict,
27
but in terms of role blurring intensity (Greenhaus et al. 2006; Galvin and Schieman
2011). Also, Voydanoff (2004) has developed the concept of ‘boundary-spanning
resources’ such as parental leave, family vacation time, and flexibility in the work
schedule which have been identified to mediate work-life balance. For example, more
flexibility to work from home allows a person to minimize the role conflicts, therefore,
experiencing more work-life balance (Clark 2000; Clark 2001).
Making the Case for Role-Strain and Role-Spillover Theories
Border theory will not be applied in this analysis, although the term of work-life
balance – which is derived from border theory – will be used: the rationale behind giving
preference to role-strain and role-spillover theories is the assumption that when roles are
performed, they do not necessarily blur, but occur as a distinct execution of a role
separately from another role, even if they happen at the same time. Role blurring refers to
the degree to which a person can jump back and forth between the roles of the home and
work environment to facilitate work-life balance; this is increasingly possible through
work flexibility and technology which allows people to work from the home
environment. Even though the physical barriers of work and home vicinities are lifted, it
is argued in this study that such removal does not eliminate the conflict that people
perceive when they try to balance all roles of the work and home environment. It is
agreed upon, however, that border theory allows for another new explanatory tool to
describe situations in which people experience no role conflict due to the removed
physical barrier between the work and home environment, made possible by flexible
work schedules and technology.
28
Also, with the assumption that “integrating work and family facilitates transitions
between these domains” (Desrocher and Sargent 2004:41), border theory still seems
rather limited in accounting for persistent gender differences and inequalities in the roles
men and women take on. Being a border crosser by working from home does not
necessarily change the way a man and woman do gender. Also, many low-level, lowpaying jobs (especially in the service industry) require women and men to leave the home
environment, not allowing them to have the flexibility to work from home or via
technology. While it is clear that there should be different theories such as border theory
to address ever-changing social realities, role-strain and role-spillover theories can
account for persistent realities of gender stratification within the public and the private
spheres. Especially role-spillover theory can explain how emotions and attitudes spill
over from the work to the home environment and vice versa, possibly pointing to
mechanisms of gender ideology transfer that link the public spheres with social institution
and embedded gender stratifications to the home environment with its individual actors.
Concept of the Perception of Fairness of the Division of Household Labor
There has been wide-ranging research on household labor. Especially since the
1990s, there have been over 200 academic publications (Apparala 2003, Coltrane 2000).
With women entering the labor force, the dynamics of the family unit has changed. Two
camps have developed over the past 30 years of household labor research: some social
scientists argue that there has been much change in time allocation with more working
women spending less time on household labor and even having more leisure time.
Contrary to that perspective, other social scientists posit that working women experience
29
more labor stresses because they not only put unpaid time into household chores and
care-giving, but spend more time working as well.
According to the perspective of researchers that change has occurred in the
division of household labor, time-use diary research conducted from the early 1960s to
the 1990s in the United States as well as in European countries has provided evidence
that after using control variables which accounted for structural societal changes, men
have increased their participation rate in domestic labor while women’s actual hours put
into domestic labor have decreased (Sullivan 2000). Baxter (1992) has argued that by
comparing working women to non-working women, working women on average do less
housework. With more women in the labor force, this presumably pushes the division of
household labor between couples toward more equality. According to Gershuny (1995),
men increase their hours spent on household labor when women begin part-time work or
when women move from part-time work into full-time employment. Sullivan (2000)
points out that leisure time has increased as well for working women over the past 30
years.
However, although there have been changes in the men’s participation in
household labor, the amount of time put in by men has reduced employed women’s
household labor hours by only a limited amount (Sullivan 2000). Therefore, overall labor
of employed women has increased in what has been called the working women’s ‘double
shift’ (Hochschild 1989). The rationale is explained in terms of limited changes in the
assignment of household labor responsibilities to women (Sullivan 2000). Even if men
engage in more household labor, and seem to accept “an equivalent amount of domestic
30
responsibility, study after study has shown that women retain responsibility for the
management of domestic tasks even when men are (helping in) performing it” (Sullivan
2000:438). This may be due to two factors: the couple’s gender role ideology as well as
the country-specific gender role ideologies which in turn exert influence onto the gender
role ideologies held by the couple.
At this point is should be pointed out that Sullivan (2000), Gershuny (1995), and
Baxter (1992) share the perspective that positive change toward equality in the division
of household labor and especially toward reduced time pressures has occurred. Yet,
Hochschild (1989) contests the positive change toward reduced time pressures and
describes it as rather minute. She stresses that women’s increased labor force
participation has put more rather than less time pressure on women’s household labor.
Hence, her perspective of working women facing more time management conflict due to
the ‘double shift’ stands in direct contradiction to research that working women’s leisure
time has increased.
However, this research study views both perspectives on change in the division of
household labor not necessarily as mutually exclusive; both, reduced as well as increased
time pressures due to work or a ‘double shift’ may both be mediated by gender role
ideology and what is perceived by the couple and the woman as fair. Therefore, the
perception of fairness in the division of household labor is used as another key factor in
contributing to work-life balance in addition to the often used factors of time availability
and actual time spent on household labor.
Still, this research includes the traditional theoretical approaches of time
31
availability, resource dependence and gender role ideology as well, because they do
affect the perception of fairness of the division of household labor and work-life balance
(Braun et al. 2008; Milkie and Peltola 1999). What Sullivan (2000), Gershuny (1995),
and Baxter (1992) seem to omit is the fact that working women who have their own
income and belong to a higher social class may be in a position to renegotiate their
household labor responsibilities by outsourcing childcare and household chores to a paid
third party. Outsourcing work, however, may not change the actual gender role ideology
held by the couple. A financially well-to-do working woman may still view household
labor and care-giving as duties essentially assigned to her or to women in general,
allowing for the enacting or perpetuating of a specific gender role image which would be
a reflection of her larger societal, cultural, ethnic, and/or religious background. Also,
research of case studies has shown that some women who make the same or more money
than their husbands will engage in household and care-giving duties in what is called
“doing gender” (Ruppanner 2008:520; West and Zimmerman 125). This is the woman’s
physical and emotional effort to reaffirm the traditional gender role ideology within the
household in order to counteract her equal or higher socio-economic success compared to
her husband’s in the work environment.
For the research, it is also essential to include both the actual hours of household
labor as well as the work hours of the respondents. Hochschild (1989) has often been
criticized for focusing solely on the unpaid hours of women within the family
environment rather than analyzing the total work load of paid and unpaid work of both
men and women (Beaujot and Liu 2005; Wierda et al. 2009). Bianchi and Raley (2005)
32
have claimed that comparing women’s and men’s total paid and unpaid workload reveals
that both work about the same (Wierda et al. 2009). Frone (2003) stresses that total paid
and unpaid workload negatively affects work-life balance. Yet, the main question then
becomes “Who does what kind of work, and for how long?” Even if men and women are
engaged in the same amount of work hours, it does not imply that the division of
household labor is equally divided among women and men. Inequalities in the division of
labor, especially household labor, might still persist.
Legitimizing Principles
Research on the division of household labor has focused on three main factors:
Time Availability, Resource Dependence, and Gender Role Ideology. All three factors
will be used for this research study in what Braun et al. (2008) have called “Legitimizing
principles” (p. 1146). Both factors – time availability and resource dependence – are
grounded in equity theory proposed by Walster et al. (1978; Braun et al. 2008). Equity
theory posits that fairness in the division of household labor is perceived when both
spouses/cohabiting partners put in and produce equal shares of work effort. The
perception of fairness of the division of household labor can be interpreted in terms of a
person either under- or over-benefitting from the division of household labor (Lively et
al. 2008). If a person engaged in more than his/her fair share of household labor, he/she
would under-benefit from the division of household labor. If a person engaged in less
than his/her fair share of household labor, he/she would over-benefit from the division of
household labor. In sociological research, equity theory has been attentive especially
toward women because, historically, women engage in more household labor than men:
33
therefore, continuously under-benefitting from the division of household labor.
Time Availability
By applying equity theory, input of work usually relates to work hours that a
spouse/cohabiting partner allocates to employment. Research has shown that women who
devote more time toward employment will reduce their time involved in household labor;
while their household hours decrease, some studies have shown that men’s household
work increases (Bianchi et al. 2000; Lewin-Epstein et al. 2006; Braun et al. 2008). Also,
regardless of gender, when spouses/cohabiting partners work and have less time for the
household, they may either lower the standard for household duties and/or employ a third
party (if another household member beyond spouses/cohabiting partners is unavailable)
to do the household labor (Bianchi et al. 2000; Lewin-Epstein et al. 2006; Braun et al.
2006; Braun et al. 2008). It can be argued that if a spouse/cohabiting partner does not
work full-time, he/she has more time available, therefore, should put the available time
into more household labor. Applying equity theory, the spouse who puts more and,
therefore, an unequal amount into household labor, should perceive and legitimize this
division as fair if the other spouse/cohabiting partner works more hours such as full-time
hours in the labor market (Braun et al. 2008). However, if one of the spouses/cohabiting
partners would work longer hours such as 50-plus hours in the labor market – causing the
other spouse/cohabiting partner to be bound to the home environment because of caregiving activities – the division of labor would be perceived as unfair. This points to the
possible necessity of a prior agreement between the spouses/cohabiting partners about the
amount of hours that each attempts to invest in the labor market (Braun et al. 2008).
34
Resource Dependence
By applying equity theory to resource dependence, the output or production of
invested work reflects resources, typically income and/or education that a
spouse/cohabiting partner can access in order to leverage relative power and to negotiate
the division of household labor (Bittman et al 2003; Braun et al. 2008). Lam and Haddad
(1992) use resource dependence theory with the assumption that “the social organization
of married couples’ family role dynamics is based on the continual exchange or rewards
and gratifications” (p. 69). When a woman earns more income and has a higher
education, she is in a position of more independence, especially in regard to marriage
because she will not be reliant on a husband for financial needs. Therefore, the theory
puts forward the idea that with the increased labor force participation of women, the
increasing relative bargaining power of women should move the division of household
labor toward more equality (Apparala et al. 2003; Lam and Haddad 1992). In the notion
of equity theory, a woman who does not earn as much as her husband and/or does not
have a higher education to potentially earn an equal or larger amount of money, will not
seek a life outside of marriage and financial security, therefore, she will be more likely to
legitimize and perceive the unequal division of household labor as fair (Braun et a. 2008).
Looking at both time availability and resource dependence theories, women’s
actual household labor hours do not fully predict whether the division of household labor
is truly unequal. Women who make an equal or larger amount of money than their
husbands may outsource household labor to a third party, reducing their own household
labor time. This may lead to the wrong conclusion that the overall division of household
35
labor between the wife and husband has become more equal. The division of household
labor could still remain unequal due to the ‘elevator effect’ (Braun et al. 2008; Beck
1992). Beck (1992) developed this concept by analyzing why lower classes tend to accept
income inequalities (Braun et al. 2008). His research indicated that as long as welfare
entitlements existed to supplement the income of a lower class family, they would not
contest unfair income levels or at least not perceive their income as unfair. Similar to the
acceptance of income disparities by lower classes, it is argued that any remaining unequal
division of household labor – for example, the wife does less or little housework while
the husband does even less or no housework – is accepted or perceived as fair as long as a
third party alleviates the strain of household labor and care-giving duties for the woman
(Braun et al. 2008).
Gender Role Ideology
The hypothesis of gender role ideology becomes the missing and possibly most
important link within the concept of legitimizing principles. Gender role ideology is a
powerful factor in that it can act as a facilitator of actual gender equality within the
division of household labor, but it can also perpetuate inequality within the division of
household labor. Gender role ideology affects perception of fairness of the division of
household labor to the degree that an actual unequal division of household labor is
perceived as legitimate and fair; a paradox, for it would be the perception of fairness and
equality of an actually unequal division of household labor.
However, in the case of women who are more egalitarian in their gender ideology,
they will push for a more equal division of household labor which only then will be
36
perceived as more fair. Braun et al. (2008) has stressed that egalitarian women push for
more egalitarian rights and, therefore, are more successful in achieving more equal
division of household labor compared to more traditional women. On the other hand,
women with a more traditional gender role ideology are “likely to accept an imbalanced
division of household labor as an integral part of a proper woman’s role, irrespective of
the amount of their labor market employment and even if it leaves them alone with the
household work” (Braun et al. 2008:1147). In this specific case, Katz and Lavee (2002)
explained that traditional women view the unequal division of household labor as fair “if
it (a) corresponds to what they are socialized to value in a relationship (outcome values),
(b) matches their social and normative standards (on the basis of comparison referents),
and (c) is perceived as justifiable or legitimate” (p. 28).
Social Structural Theory, Gender Stratification, and Gender Role Theory
In hunter-gatherer societies, men hunt and women stay at home. This strong bias
persists in most agricultural and industrial societies, and, on that ground alone, appears
to have a genetic origin … My own guess is that the genetic bias is intense enough to
cause a substantial division of labor even in the most free and egalitarian of future
societies … Even with identical education and equal access to all professions, men are
likely to continue to play a disproportionate role in political life, business and science.
(Edward Wilson 1975, quoted in Bonvillain 1998:179)
Assigning gender roles to both men and women has been part of human reality.
The all too familiar images of men as hunters and women as gatherers have lingered
through the centuries. Assumed biological differences between men and women have
37
been grounded in essentialism. To this day, socio-biologists and groups of psychologists
(especially evolutionary and cognitive psychologists) attempt to explain traditional
gender roles by making the “claim that distinctions in social behavior of women and men
are derived from innate genetic differences” (Bonvillain 1998:179). Gender role theory
suggests that there is a polarization of gender roles in which men are identified with the
work environment and women are identified with the family environment (Livingston et
al. 2008). As Prince Cooke (2011) points out, the assigned role of women as housewives
and caregivers has been linked to women’s biological ability to give birth. For the reason
that women are the ones who are able to give birth to children, care-giving has become a
responsibility assigned to women. In addition, care-giving is usually an activity executed
in the household, so the household – as an extension of the ‘natural’ role of the woman –
has become the domain of women in what is known as the cult of domesticity (Bonvillain
1998). Therefore, the work environment is not perceived as a ‘natural’ environment for
the woman, but rather the appropriated domain of the man.
Role theory used by Eagly and Steffen (1984) maintains that people make
stereotyping assumptions when they observe other people in specific roles (Apparala
2003). Especially with Prince Cooke’s assertion that historically women were viewed as
caregivers due to their biological ability to give birth and breastfeed, women were
stereotyped into being more communal and caring for others, while men were stereotyped
into self-confident and able leaders (Apparala 2003; Eagly and Steffen 1984; Hoffman
1977). This stereotyping belief is quite possibly a factor in gendered role distribution of
men representing the public and women representing the private sphere. Gender
38
stereotypes manifested themselves in that roles of men were more valued than women’s,
hence, explaining one angle of the gender gap in unequal wages and the undervalued,
unpaid work of household labor (Bonvillain 1998). The lack of valuing household labor
stems from the fact that it is unpaid (Eisenstein 1979; Bonvillain 1998). Bonvillain
(1998) explains that “given capitalist values implicit in economic and social relations,
social worth is measured by money obtained through one’s labor” (p. 176). When work is
unpaid, it does not gain value and, therefore, is exempt from social recognition. The
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reflects the value of paid versus unpaid work: unpaid
household labor is not accounted for in the GDP while paid care-giving and household
labor is part of the overall GDP. This can be interpreted in Capitalistic terms: if a woman
does unpaid care-giving and household labor, she is considered economically
unproductive. Many industrialized countries, especially the United States with its
Capitalist economy, have assigned care-giving responsibilities to the least powerful
groups such as women (Prince Cooke 2011; Tronto 1993). Hence, gender stratification
becomes evident within women’s care-giving activities: especially when social class
hierarchies are compared, women from lower classes and minority groups will engage in
the care-giving and household labor duties of women from higher classes. Also, while
women from higher classes can more easily employ third-party caregivers and household
aides without affecting the household savings negatively, women from middle and lower
classes are forced to engage in household labor in order to abstain from depleting the
household income. If household labor would be a paid activity, its monetary value would
have to be at a level of other paid jobs in order for employees to cover all basic living
39
expenses (Bonvillain 1998). By not paying women for performing household labor,
wages can be kept low and profits can remain high. It becomes a perpetuation of profit
mechanisms in what Eli Zaretsky (1973) described as “the wage labor system is sustained
by the socially necessary but private labor of housewives and mothers. [Their work]
constitutes a perpetual cycle of labor necessary to maintain life in society. In this sense,
the family is an integral part of the economic system under Capitalism” (p. 79). State
policies can either empower or inhibit women to be part of a valued work force by
determining the extent of compensation, health-care and retirement benefits, care-giving
support and other subsidies for working women (OECD 2004).
Further, Bondi (1991) reexamines the previous research on gender proposing that
gentrification is at the center of understanding the changing roles among women. As she
explains gentrification, she believes that intersections of production and consumption,
agency and structure, as well as cultural and economic conditions have to be understood
through the gender lens. Looking at the intersections, the researcher can gain access to
the mechanisms of gender construction and its change. Her research explores the
mechanisms which lead to women identifying themselves within certain categories
(Bondi 1991). It is a reminder that a researcher has to look at main aspects and their
intertwined complexities, such as the labor market, culture, the individual agents and the
structural system within a society to get a comprehensive picture about gender ideology
within a given society.
Social structural theory aids in understanding gender stratification and gender role
theory in that gender role differences and gender inequalities are based on larger macro-
40
level structures. Analyzing a society at the macro-level and using social and gender
stratification theory, allows the researcher to identify social institutions such as the
government, employment organizations, and educational institutions and the degree to
which their policies enable or restrict social classes or gender groups to be valued
participants in the public environment. Risman (2004) uses gender as a social structure to
analyze such gender perceptions within societies. She proposes that the complexities of
women’s gender roles become apparent when the researcher investigates how gender role
ideology and inequalities are reflected through the social structure; gender issues rise to
the level of economy and politics. As individuals, women continuously live and redefine
their gender roles; they influence the social structures while the structures provide the
constricting framework for gender role variation. Understanding the intersections
between agency and structure can bring about the changing mechanisms to recreate
gender roles. In this study, looking at the intersections of agency and structure – how
women (agency) within a specific society (structure) experience their femininity through
the lens of being a woman, worker, wife, mother, and/or caregiver – will reveal by crosscountry comparison women’s attitudes towards their gender and how they mitigate
conflicts between home and work spheres.
Social structural theory can explain the influential processes at the macro- (social
institutions), meso- (social networks), and micro-level (influence of socialized normative
behaviors of individuals) that can define a specific country and its inhabitants. In this
notion, the division of labor is such a social construct. Depending on how paid and
unpaid labor is divided among gender, it reflects the social roles of men and women and,
41
therefore, the gender inequalities within a specific society (Eagly and Wood 1999).
Rachel Hare-Mustin (1988) stresses that the research in gender theory has failed
to address the complexities of women’s roles in the family and work environment. She
points out that gender theory such as sex role theory which has informed some Feminist
agendas, has put continuous focus on the differing spheres of men and women. Yet,
women in the United States have to juggle between work and family roles. The author
argues that gender roles have to be reevaluated for modern times and that the multitude of
female roles requires a new kind of approach and theory which accounts for the work and
family intersections of women’s lives. Hare-Mustin’s (1988) work suggests a new
discourse of action to accommodate the varying and complex roles of women in modern
times. The discourse provides a historical and theoretical account which is essential to
gain a solid understanding of the varying gender theories used to analyze changing
gender roles. Therefore, this research study makes use of an integrative approach by
selecting multiple yet complementing theories to account for the complexities of
women’s roles. As Hare-Mustin suggests as well, gender roles have to be embedded into
a larger socio-cultural context, hence, contextually descriptive macro-level variations
among specific countries are used in conjunction with the selected theories.
Social structural theory, gender stratification, and gender role theory inform this
research study in that they help explain how gender roles and ideology within a specific
country affect women’s perception of fairness of the division of household labor and their
ability to balance the home and work environment. Change toward equality among men
and women is desirable, and social role theory “predicts that in countries where women
42
have a large presence in the paid labor force, this distribution of social roles will lead
citizens to perceive men and women on more equal terms and thus to endorse egalitarian
attitudes” (Apparala 2003:191; Eagly and Steffen 1984; Eagly and Wood 1999).
Macro-level/Socio-structural Variations
Crompton (2006) has pointed out that in order to understand how both women
and men mediate work-life balance in different countries, the focus of analysis needs to
be on “gendered allocation of work within the household, as well as the market” (p. 385)
of a specific country under investigation. Crompton and Lyonette (2006) investigated the
effects of governmental policies on work-life balance spouses experience in dual-earner
households. The study used the 2002 ISSP data set and compared findings in Britain,
France, Finland, Norway, and Portugal. In addition to a comparative approach, the
authors used the ‘societal’ approach which analyzes specific cultural differences in
values, ideologies, and in which kinds of policies are implemented. Their research
becomes invaluable for this research study because it provides guidance for conducting
comparative social research while using the same ISSP data set.
Further, by measuring the actual hours a couple puts into household labor, the
degree of equal division of household labor and the direct power relationship between the
couple can be analyzed. However, the degree of equality in the division of household
labor will not reveal how the couple perceives such division. The individuals’ household
needs analysis in a larger country-specific, societal context in order to gain an increased
understanding about the perception of fairness of the division of household labor. As
Sironi et al. (2010) point out “gender inequalities are embedded in social institutions,
43
which affect the roles individuals are expected to inhabit in those institutions” (p. 5). The
division of household labor becomes a reflective indicator of gender inequalities within
public institutions in terms of financial resources availability, power displays, and
normative values of gendered labor arrangements (Curtis 1986; Katz 1991, Davis 2004,
Sironi et al. 2010). The degree to which labor is divided among men and women “are not
just labor ‘rational’ and efficient economic strategies, but also take into consideration
cultural, moral, ideological and historical implications” (Sironi et al. 2010:5-6; Davis
2004). By using a gendered lens, it can be argued, therefore, that the division of
household labor on the individual/micro-level is to a degree a reflection of gender role
ideology and gender stratifications at the macro-level. While societal ideology on the
division of household labor can certainly have an effect on individuals via early
socialization processes and via later economic opportunities to gather financial resources,
individual gender role behavior will in turn perpetuate either traditional models of gender
roles such as the woman as homemaker and the man as breadwinner or move toward
more egalitarian gender roles with a more equitable division of household labor.
Apparala et al. (2003) propose that countries which become increasingly egalitarian will
presumably have a more equal division of household labor. Therefore, the use of crosscountry comparisons may help in analyzing the “links between household labor and other
cultural, institutional, and structural factors” (Coltrane 2000:1218).
Yet, Braun et al. (2008) have criticized that limiting the analysis to only a few
countries would provide only a partial and at best limited explanation of how societal and
individual-level factors contribute to the perception of fairness of the division of
44
household labor. Braun et al. (2008) compared data of 25 countries surveyed in the 2002
ISSP data set to research the degree to which women perceive equity in the division of
household labor. The authors use ‘legitimizing principles’ such as the dependence of
resources among spouses/cohabiting partners, how much time they have available, and
the spouses’ ideology of gender roles. While legitimizing principles might explain the
differences in fairness perception of the division of household labor, societal and cultural
differences within each country are also assumed to influence how individuals view and
evaluate fairness, and manage actual household labor inequality.
However, Ruppanner (2008) investigated the fairness levels in the division of
household labor perceived among women living in Sweden, the Netherlands, and
Hungary by using only a three-country comparison. Her research results proved to be
significant on the country-level. She used the 2002 ISSP module in a quantitative
approach to analyze how married women manage the home and work environment while
putting each country in a short historical context in terms of gender role ideology,
women’s labor force participation, and policy implementation. Her research reaffirms
that using only a few countries in an analysis can be an effective research approach to
analyze the concept of the perception of fairness of the division of household labor.
Hence, this quantitative analysis compares only four countries in the OECD by
integrating societal factors (country-specific variables as well as descriptive content of
the four countries’ political economies) with individual-level variables; it is argued that it
may be more efficient to first investigate the hypotheses in a smaller four-country
comparison, and later on, expand on the hypotheses in future research studies by using a
45
large-scale country comparison of all countries that participated in the 2002 ISSP.
The United States
The United States is a liberal welfare state which ranks fairly low among other
OECD countries in terms of respondents who perceive the division of household labor as
equal. Only 41.0 percent of American women perceived the division of household labor
as fair (ISSP 2004; Braun et al. 2008). In the recent 2008 National Study of the Changing
Workforce (NSCW), the Families and Work Institute reported that in the United States,
75 percent of employed parents in 2008 felt that they lacked time to spend with their
children; this trend increased within sixteen years by 9 percent from 66 percent in 1992
(Bond and Galinsky 2011). The trend also increased from 50 percent in 1992 to 64
percent in 2008 for working couples who felt they lacked time to spend with their
partners. The study suggests that there has been a continuous upward trend of United
States employees feeling a “Time Famine” (Bond and Galinksy 2011:2) which can also
affect how working married couples and unmarried cohabiting partners manage to
balance their work and life environments.
Compared to Northern European countries, the United States did not have specific
laws addressing family and medical leave before 1993. Between 1998 and 2008, there
have been no significant changes in maternal and paternal leave policies; in fact, a
decline from 27 percent in 1998 to 16 percent in 2008 in providing full-time pay for new
mothers who have to temporarily take leave from work due to a birth-related disability
has been reported (Galinsky et al. 2008). Waldfogel (1996) indicated in his research that
the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) enables approximately half of the employees
46
in the United States to take advantage of family leave. In 1993, the federal FMLA was
passed which mandates that male and female employees have the right to take at least
twelve weeks of leave for women to give childbirth with job-guarantee upon return to
work; the leave is unpaid and is only granted when the employee has worked at least
1,250 hours in the year before taking the leave. However, in a study conducted by the
Family and Work Institute, 18 to 21 percent of 1,100 investigated small and large
businesses did not comply with the FMLA law (Galinsky et al. 2008). The Institute for
Women’s Policy Research (2007) reported that the amount of companies in the United
States which offer paid maternity and paternity leave is quite minute, even among
companies with the best benefit packages.
Thoits (1991) argued that working couples in the United States who have children
and do not receive paid family and medical leave may not be able to experience work-life
balance. Especially working married women will be affected by the paid leave
inaccessibility for household labor and care-giving responsibilities often fall on their
shoulders (Thoits 1991). In addition, couples who work in low-income jobs frequently do
not take unpaid leave which FMLA provides because they cannot afford the lack of
income during the leave (Waldfogel 2001). This situation leads to the argument that
FMLA is not effective as a family-friendly policy for population groups that work in lowincome jobs (McDowell et al. 2005). Evans (2002) pointed out that women who work for
smaller companies are likely to have less income and no benefit packages which may be
due to larger societal gender stratifications within the job environment. Also, women are
disadvantaged because they often have no choice but to take unpaid leave to give birth.
47
After childbirth, some women will choose to move from full-time into part-time
employment to bring more balance into their work-life (Orloff 2009). Yet, part-time
employment is rarely paid well, secure, or does not offer medical and retirement benefit
packages (Evans 2002).
However, with the Obama administration, new efforts have been made to support
women in particular with specific tax relief measures (White House 2010). President
Barack Obama has put forth policy measures which extend tax benefits such as the
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as well as the Child Tax Credit (CTC) that are geared
to help especially working single and married mothers. Extending these tax credits to
working families will help approximately 60 percent of working mothers to take care of
their children and families, according to White House assessments. The White House
estimates that about four million single-mother households benefit from the tax credit
extensions.
Germany
Germany belongs to the countries that have traditionally embraced the male
breadwinner model, with the man being responsible for the income and the woman taking
on the household and care-giving responsibilities (Wierda et al. 2009). In this notion,
Germany is also categorized as a fairly traditional welfare state because men and women
have less roles to act upon: the man will engage in the worker role and less in the
houseman role, while the woman is more likely to be a housewife and only to a limited
degree a full-time worker (Wierda 2009). In a study of British and German households
and the use of time, Gershuny (1995b) concluded that in both countries, couples began to
48
rearrange the division of household labor toward more equality when the women became
employed: men increased their household labor when women moved from staying at
home to working or moving from part-time to full-time work. Yet, overall, Germans had
fairly traditional gender views in 2002: according to the 2002 ISSP, every fourth
respondent in Germany thought it was a man’s duty to work, and a woman’s duty to
manage the household and care-giving responsibilities (Wierda 2009; ISSP 2004). Only
42 percent of German women perceived equity in the division of household labor (ISSP
2004; Braun et al 2998). Also, over 50 percent of Germans believed that mothers needed
to stay home when they had children of pre-school age. For the reason that many
Germans seem to adhere to a more traditional gender ideology, it could be argued that the
unequal division of household labor reflects the countries traditional ideology. If both
partners have more traditional ideologies, women might engage in more unpaid and less
paid work (while having less resources to negotiate the division of household labor);
therefore, they may perceive the division of household labor as increasingly fair, helping
them to experience more work-life balance.
The Netherlands
Traditionally, the Netherlands is a conservative welfare state, which has also
relied on the male breadwinner model; yet, it is a country that exhibits more gender
equality similar to Finland and Sweden (Wierda et al. 2009). Therefore, Dutch men and
women engage in multiple roles such as housewife/man and worker in fairly equal
manner: the government has promoted the equal division of household labor (Duyvendak
and Stavenuiter 2004). This is not quite reflected in the 2002 ISSP data which indicates
49
that only 31.6 percent of Dutch women perceive fairness in the division of household
labor (ISSP 2004; Braun 2008). The lower household labor equity score, however, could
possibly be an indication that Dutch women – with a more egalitarian mindset and/or
who have internalized the governmental support toward more egalitarian rights – are
increasingly voicing their dissatisfaction with the unequal division of household labor;
consequently, Dutch women would report lower scores in household labor equity
perception. In addition, Dutch men and women are often employed part-time, for parttime work in the Netherlands is considered a legal right, making the Netherlands a parttime society (Keuzenkamp and Hooghiemstra 2000; Wierda 2009; Treas and Widmer
2000; Ruppanner 2008). Also, the legal right to part-time work has helped facilitate the
positive change in attitude toward mothers who work (Portegijs et al. 2006; Wierda
2009). When Dutch mothers were surveyed in the 2002 ISSP, only 29 percent of
respondents agreed that mothers should stay home if they had preschool-aged children.
Portugal
Portugal is considered a familistic welfare state (Esping-Andersen 1999;
Crompton and Lyonette 2006). In 2008, 62.5 percent of Portuguese women were in the
labor force, which was 4.7 percent higher than the OECD employment rate for women of
57.8 percent. Many women are employed full-time, and among dual-earner households,
67 percent of the households have couples who both are employed full-time (Crompton
and Lyonette 2006). Before 1974, the corporatist regime under Prime Minister António
de Oliveira Salazar deemed wives to be under the legal directive of husbands and
responsible for all household labor and care-giving activities; they were also prohibited
50
from being employed in many vocational jobs (Crompton and Lyonette 2006). Due to
Portugal being a country that is historically marked by male emigration, many women
had to enter the work force to supplement family income and prevent the household from
slipping into poverty. Yet, to this day, the government does not provide sufficient welfare
support, making the family’s well-being dependent on the income of relatives and
spouses. The government does not provide policies that help women in the work
environment. Although there have been a few policy changes, childcare is only minimally
offered by the state while employers provide fairly decent levels of childcare support.
Portugal also has one of the highest equity perceptions of the division of household labor
among women with 63.2 percent (ISSP 2004; Braun et al. 2009). Yet, women in Portugal
spend about 20 hours on household labor (Crompton and Lyonette 2006). Crompton and
Lyonette (2006) point out that in Portugal “there is no evidence of state policies that
explicitly encourage men to take on a larger share of domestic work” (p. 383).
This research study attempts to analyze by means of role-strain and role-spillover
theories the mediating factors for work-life balance. With special focus on social
structural theory, gender stratification, sex role theory, and the country-specific socioeconomic, historical, and gender ideological conditions, this research proposal intends to
dissect the various factors – especially the perception of fairness of the division of
household labor and the legitimizing principles – which influence work-life balance.
51
CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
Hypotheses (Figure 7, p. 53)
Hypothesis HIA – Gender role ideology is significantly correlated to work-life balance
after controlling for gender, age, education, marital status, number of children,
employment status, religion, and country affiliation.
Mediating Hypothesis HIB – The perception of fairness of the division of household labor
mediates the degree to which gender role ideology affects work-life balance after
controlling for gender, age, education, marital status, number of children, employment
status, religion, and country affiliation.
Hypothesis H2A – Time availability is significantly correlated to work-life balance after
controlling for gender, age, education, marital status, number of children, employment
status, religion, and country affiliation.
Mediating Hypothesis H2B – The perception of fairness of the division of household
labor mediates the degree to which time availability affects work-life balance after
controlling for gender, age, education, marital status, number of children, employment
status, religion, and country affiliation.
Mediating Hypothesis H3 – The perception of fairness of the division of household labor
mediates the degree to which resource dependence affects work-life balance after
controlling for gender, age, education, marital status, number of children, employment
status, religion, and country affiliation. Resource dependence is positively correlated with
work-life balance.
52
Hypothesis H4A – Respondent’s weekly household labor hours are significantly
correlated to work-life balance after controlling for gender, age, education, marital status,
number of children, employment status, religion, and country affiliation.
Mediating Hypothesis H4B – Respondent’s weekly household labor hours mediate the
effect of gender role ideology on work-life balance after controlling for gender, age,
education, marital status, number of children, employment status, religion, and country
affiliation.
Hypothesis H5A – Spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household labor hours are
significantly correlated to work-life balance after controlling for gender, age, education,
marital status, number of children, employment status, religion, and country affiliation.
Mediating Hypothesis H5B – Spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household labor
hours mediate the effect of gender role ideology on work-life balance after controlling for
gender, age, education, marital status, number of children, employment status, religion,
and country affiliation.
53
Figure 7: Concept map
54
Data Source
The research study builds on quantitative research designs and theoretical
approaches proposed from both work-life and household labor research in an attempt to
reduce research gaps by focusing on the underutilized yet critical variable of perception
of fairness of the division of household labor; this approach creates an alternative method
for the investigation of work-life balance.
The quantitative analyses include Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), multiple
regression, and Process for path analysis-based mediation computation in combination
with Hayes’s ‘Conditional Process Modeling’ (Hayes 2013). The study relies on a
quantitative research approach by using the data set of the 2002 International Social
Survey Programme: Family and Changing Gender Roles III (ISSP 2004). The 2002 ISSP
data set is used to analyze and compare cross-culturally the degree to which women in
particular experience work-life balance in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands,
and Portugal. The data set is an ideal source for scientific inquiry because it is based on
respondents’ attitudes toward a variety of topics concerning the home environment.
Created in 1983, the program is a continuous and annual research effort with the intent to
collect relevant scientific data on various social topics by either adding a supplemental
questionnaire to an existing national survey or by conducting a separate survey in each
participating country. For almost thirty years, the ISSP has been made possible by the
global collaboration of about 40 countries, among them the United States, Germany, the
Netherlands, and Portugal. In the 2002 ISSP, 34 countries participated. Each participating
country independently funds and collects the data by sampling methods ranging from
55
simple random, systematic random, and clustered, to stratified random sampling, as well
as by either in-person interviews, questionnaires by mail, or self-enumerated
questionnaires (ISSP 2004). After each country has conducted and processed the survey
data, the complete data set from all participating countries is produced and archived by
the Zentralarchiv für Empirische Sozialforschung at the Universität Köln. The first
complete edition of the 2002 ISSP was published September 2004. The Inter-university
Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan is
responsible for the distribution of the complete ISSP data set; the 2002 ISSP data was
made available in the first ICPSR version, number 4106, November 2004.
In Germany, the 2002 ISSP data was administered and analyzed by INFAS, the
Institut für angewandte Sozialwissenschaft GMBH (ISSP 2004). The data was gathered
between February and August of 2002 by supplementing ALLBUS, the German General
Social Survey with a self-guided 2001/2002 ISSP questionnaire in addition to an
interviewer asking questions in person about demographic variables. The sample size
consisted of 1,367 received and eligible responses, with 936 responses from West
Germany and 431 responses from East Germany. The data set was not weighted because
the sample from East Germany was over-sampled.
In the Netherlands, NIPO was the fieldwork institute in charge of the 2002 ISSP
data collection and analysis (ISSP 2004). By method of cluster sampling of addresses, the
surveys were sent out and collected between October 2002 and January 2003 and
consisted of two self-administered questionnaires. However, in some cases, NIPO used
interviewers who would bring by and collect the responses themselves. The sampling size
56
amounted to 1,268 eligible responses, and the sample was not weighted (ISSP 2004).
The fieldwork institute Motivacao-Estudos Psico-sociologicos was in charge of
collecting and analyzing the 2002 ISSP data for Portugal (ISSP 2004). Fieldwork was
conducted between February and July 2003. Using stratified random probability
sampling, the survey consisted of interviews conducted in person with the use of visual
aids. The sample size amounted to 1,092 responses, but the sample had to be weighted
because the rate of non-responders and people who refused to answer the questionnaire
was too high for an unweighted sample. The demographic variables skewing the sample
consisted of gender, age, and education.
In order to collect 2002 ISSP data for the United States, the National Opinion
Research Center (NORC) used a supplemental questionnaire at the end of the 2002
General Social Survey (ISSP 2004). Survey addresses were determined by using multistage area probability sampling; the survey fieldwork lasted from February 2002 to June
2002, and was self-administered after the interviewer ended the questioning portion of
the General Social Survey. The sample size consisted of 1,171 responses and was not
weighted because men were under-sampled.
Variable Measures
Dependent Variable
Work-Life Balance: The dependent variable is Work-Life Balance. The variable
was created by merging and scaling four variables from the 2002 ISSP data set. The
variable was recoded to provide the most valid (at least one valid response on the four
questions) mean values regardless of the number of missing cases. Higher means
57
represent greater work-life balance. The four variables used were V48 Too tired from
work to do duties at home: In the past three months it has happened that I have come
home from work too tired to do the chores which need to be done, V49 Difficult to fulfill
fam. [family] responsibility: In the past three months it has happened that it has been
difficult for me to fulfill my family responsibilities because of the amount of time I spent
on my job, V50 Too tired from hhwork [householdwork] to function i [in] job: In the past
three months it has happened that I have arrived at work too tired to function well
because of the household work I had done, V51 Difficult to concentrate at work: In the
past three months it has happened that I have found it difficult to concentrate at work
because of my family responsibilities. The choices of answers were (1) Several times a
week, (2) Several times a month, (3) Once or twice a year, or (4) Never. Lower scores
(answers 1 and 2) indicate less work-life balance while higher scores (answers 3 and 4)
indicate more work-life balance.
Mediator Variables
Perception of Fairness of the Division of Household Labor: The mediator
variable is Benefit Distribution in the Division of Household Labor. In the 2002 ISSP, the
variable V38 Sharing of hh [household] work between the partners was used by asking
respondents the question “Which of the following best applies to the sharing of
household work between you and your spouse/partner.” Response categories were (1) I
do much more than my fair share of the household work, (2) I do a bit more than my fair
share of the household work, (3) I do roughly my fair share of the household work, (4) I
do a bit less than my fair share of the household work, (5) I do much less than my fair
58
share of the household work. The response categories do not reflect a variable that is a
linear measure of fairness: the response score of 3 indicates a fair distribution of the
division of household labor in which neither respondent nor spouse/cohabiting partner
under- or over-benefit from the division of household labor. Therefore, the division of
household labor is perceived as fair and equal. The lower scores of 1 and 2 signify that
the respondent under-benefits from the division of household labor: he/she does more
than his/her fair share of household labor. The higher response scores of 4 and 5 indicate
that the respondent over-benefits from the division of household labor; therefore,
engaging in less than his/her fair share of household labor. Previous researchers such as
Ruppanner (2008) and Braun et al. (2008) used the same variable to confer the concept of
perception of fairness of the division of household labor. Although the response
categories of Benefit Distribution in the Division of Household Labor are interpreted in
terms of a respondent under- or over-benefitting from the division of household labor, the
variable is clearly used in this study to signify that the concept of the perception of
fairness of the division of household labor is under investigation as a mediating factor in
work-life balance.
Actual Hours of Household Labor for Respondent or Spouse/Cohabiting Partner
Respondent’s Weekly Household Labor Hours: The variable V36 How many
hours do you spend on hh [household] work was used; respondents were asked: “On
average, how many hours a week do you personally spend on household work, not
including childcare and leisure time activities?” The categories were (01) 1 hour or less
than 1 hour through (95) 95 hours and more (in the United States: 96 hours and more).
59
Spouse’s/Cohabiting Partner’s Weekly Household Labor Hours: The variable
V37 How many hrs [hours] spouse, partner works on hh [household] was used;
respondents were asked: “And what about your spouse/partner? On average, how many
hours a week does she/he personally spend on household work, not including childcare
and leisure time activities?” The categories were (01) 1 hour or less than 1 hour through
(95) 95 hours and more (in the United States: 96 hours and more).
Independent Variables
Legitimizing Principles: Gender Role Ideology, Time Availability, and Resource
Dependence
Gender Role Ideology: The variable V11 Men’s job is work, women’s job
household was used and renamed Gender Role Ideology. Respondents were asked the
question “A man’s job is to earn money; a woman’s job is to look after the home and
family.” The responses were (1) Strongly agree, (2) Agree, (3) Neither agree nor
disagree, (4) Disagree, (5) Strongly disagree.
Time Availability: The variable Time Availability is based on the variable V240
˂WRKHR ˃ R: Hours worked weekly. Respondents were asked about the “Hours worked
weekly.” In Germany, the question was asked “How many hours per week do you
normally work in your main job, including overtime?” In the United States, the question
was asked “How many hours did you work last week, how many hours do you usually
work a week, at all jobs?” The responses were coded as (01) one hour to (96) 96 hours or
more.
Resource Dependence: The variable V43 Who has the higher income? was used.
60
Respondents were asked “Considering all source of income, between you and your
spouse/partner, who has the higher income?” The response categories for the variable
Resource Dependence are (1) My spouse/partner has no income, (2) I have a much higher
income, (3) I have a higher income, (4) We have about the same income (5) My
spouse/partner has a higher income, (6) My spouse/partner has a much higher income, (7)
I have no income. The response category of 1 indicates no resource dependence and the
response category of 7 indicates complete resource dependence of the respondent.
Control Variables
Gender
Being Female: The variable V200 ˂SEX˃ R: Sex was used with the respondent
being asked about his/her sex. The response categories were recoded into (0) Male and
(1) Female.
Marital Status
Not Married/Cohabiting Partner and Not Married/Not Cohabiting Single
For an appropriate sample size, all married respondents, cohabiting partners, and
non-cohabiting respondents without a partner were selected from the 2002 ISSP data set.
The variable V203 <COHAB> R: Steady life-partner was used; respondents were asked
“(If married) Do you have a steady life partner? (If not married) Do you live together
with a steady partner?” Response categories were (1) Yes (2) No (9) NA, refused (0)
NAP (married, living together with spouse). Category (0) was reinstated with an explicit
code and became the reference category of Married and Cohabiting for two dummy
variables, Not Married/Cohabiting Partner and Not Married/Not Cohabiting Single.
61
Not Married/Cohabiting Partner: The variable Not Married/Cohabiting Partner
had the response categories of (0) Married and cohabiting and (1) Not married, but
cohabiting partner.
Not Married/Not Cohabiting Single: The variable Not Married/Not Cohabiting
Single had the response categories of (0) Married and cohabiting and (1) Not married and
not cohabiting single.
Age
Age: The variable V201 ˂AGE˃ R: Age was used; the question was asked about
“Age of Respondent.” The categories were (16) 16 years of age through (94) 94 years of
age. The variable Age was not recoded to eliminate ages 66 and older. In this study,
respondents of older ages (past 65 years of age) are viewed as a valuable pool of
respondents because increasing numbers of older people remain active in the work force,
and therefore, need to manage work-life balance.
Education
Years of Education: The variable V204 ˂EDUCYRS˃ R: Education I: years in
school was used; respondents were asked about their “Education I: Years in school.” In
Germany, the respondents were asked “How many years from school to university
education but without vocational training?” In the Netherlands, the respondents were
asked “Years of schooling following R’s [Respondent’s] sixth birthday included
vocational training, part time courses excluded.” In the U.S., respondents were asked
“What is the highest grade in elementary school or high school that you finished or got
credit for?” The categories were (06) 1 year or less than 1 year to 6 years (7) 7 years and
62
consecutively through (19) 19 years or more.
Number of Children by Age Categories
Number of Children (0 to 5, 6) and Number of Children (6, 7 to 17)
Number of Children (0 to 5, 6): The variable V67 Number of people in hh
[household]: kids up to 5, 6 was used; respondents were asked “And what about children
up to the age of 5/6 years (depending on the start of compulsory schooling in
respondent’s country?” After reinstating the missing category of (00) No children – due
to the high number of cases that belonged to the category – into a valid category of (0),
the categories were recoded into (0) No children and consecutive numbers up to (10) 10
children.
Number of Children (6, 7 to 17): The variable V66 How many people in hh
[household]: 6, 7 – 17 yrs [years] was used; the respondents were asked “And what
about children between 6/7 (depending on the start of compulsory schooling in
respondent’s country) and 17 years of age.” In Germany, the age cut-off range was 6-17
years, while in the Netherlands the age cut-off range was 4-17 years. After reinstating the
missing category of (00) – due to the high number of cases – into a valid category of (0),
the categories were (0) No children, followed by consecutive ages (01) 1 child through
(10) 10 children.
Employment Status
Part-time Employment, Housewife/man, and Other Employment Status
To ensure an appropriate sample size, all full-time, part-time employed,
housewife/man categories, and other employment status categories were pre-selected
63
from the original employment variable in the ISSP data set. Of these categories, three
dummy variables were created with full-time employment as the reference category:
Part-time Employment: The dummy variable is based on the original variable
V239 ˂WRKST˃ R: Current employment status. Respondents were asked about
“Respondent: Current employment status – current economic position, main source of
living.” The response categories were (1) Full-time employed, main job (in the
Netherlands more than 35 hours), (2) Part-time employed, main job (in the Netherlands
15 to 35 hours), (3) Less than part-time (in Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal less
than 15 hours, in the United States temporarily not working), (4) Helping family member,
(5) Unemployed, (6) Student, (7) Retired, (8) Housewife (man), home duties, (9)
Permanently disabled, (10) Other, not labor force (in Germany army/civil service). The
variable Part-time was recoded into response categories of (0) Full-time employment and
(1) Part-time employment.
Housewife/man: The variable Housewife/man was recoded into the response
categories of (0) Full-time employment and (1) Housewife/man.
Other Employment Status: From the original employment variable, categories (3)
through (7) and (10) were combined to create the response category (1) Other
employment status. The additional response category of (0) was created for the reference
category of full-time employment. The dummy variable for Other Employment Status had
to be included in order to maintain an acceptable sample size for all employment dummy
variables.
64
Income
Income: For the variable Income, the original variable V249 <RINCOME> R:
Earnings was used; the question was asked about “Respondent’s earnings.” In Germany,
the “monthly net income after the deduction of taxes and social insurance in Euro” was
used while in Portugal the “R’s [Respondent’s] monthly average net income in Euro
(midpoints)” was used as the income recording standard. In the United States, the “R’s
[Respondent’s] earnings from all jobs in 2000 before taxes or other deductions in $
(midpoints)” was the income recording guideline.
The income variable was recoded into group mean centered values for
comparative use across the four countries. However, after running preliminary analysis,
the income variable had to be excluded as a control variable because its integration
resulted in reducing the overall sample size due to its large number of missing cases.
Continued integration of the variable would have led to biasing the analytical results.
Religious Main Groups
Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Other Religion
The variable V289 <RELIGGRP> R [Respondent]: Religious main groups
(derived) was used to create three dummy variables for Roman Catholic, Protestant, and
Other Religion. For each dummy variable, the reference category is no religion. The
variable V289 <RELIGGRP> R [Respondent]: Religious main groups (derived) was
derived from the variable V288 <RELIG> R [Respondent]: Religious Denomination. In
Germany, the question for variable V288 was asked “Which religious group do you
belong to?” In the Netherlands, the question was asked “Do you consider yourself to
65
belong to a religious group or church? If yes, which of those groups or churches do you
consider yourself to be a member of?” In the United States, the question was asked
“What is your religious preference? Is it Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, some other religion,
or no religion (If Protestant) What specific denomination is that?”
Roman Catholic: The variable Roman Catholic was recoded into response
categories (0) No religion and (1) Roman Catholic.
Protestant: The variable Protestant was recoded into response categories (0) No
religion and (1) Protestant.
Other Religion: After running an initial crosstabulation of the variable V289 for
the four countries, it was determined that other religious denominations such as Christian
Orthodox, Jewish, and Islam had to be recoded into the dummy variable Other Religion
to avoid a lack of sufficient cases. The response categories of Other Religion are (0) No
religion and (1) Other religion.
Macro-/Country-level Variables
Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal
The macro/country-level dummy variables were selected from the country
variable V3: Country with the response categories of (02) Germany (West) (D-W), (03)
Germany (East) (D-E), (06) United States (USA), (11) Netherlands (NL), and (30)
Portugal (P). When the three dummy variables for Germany, the Netherlands, and
Portugal were recoded, the United States became the reference category.
Germany: The dummy variable Germany was recoded with the response
categories of (0) The United States and (1) Germany. The response category of (1)
66
combines all cases for West and former East Germany.
The Netherlands: The response categories of The Netherlands were (0) The
United States and (1) The Netherlands.
Portugal: The response categories of the dummy variable Portugal were recoded
into (0) The United States and (1) Portugal.
67
Chapter 4
RESULTS AND INTEPRETATION
In this chapter, the following tables highlighting ANOVA, regression, and
Process results will be presented and discussed. Interpretation will focus especially on
mean differences between countries and gender differences within countries to explore in
greater detail the socio-structural dynamics and gender role interactions in the United
States, the Netherlands, Germany, and Portugal. Mean differences are illustrated for the
dependent variable work-life balance and all mediator and independent variables.
Regression results for the independent variables of gender role ideology, time
availability, respondent’s weekly household labor hours, spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s
weekly household labor hours and control variables are analyzed for significance levels
and interpreted accordingly for their effects on work-life balance. For Process results,
special attention is given to the mediator variables perception of fairness of the division
of household labor, respondent’s weekly household labor hours, and spouse’s/cohabiting
partner’s weekly household labor hours. The statistical analyses are based solely on the
data set of the 2002 International Social Survey Programme: Family and Changing
Gender Roles III (ISSP 2004).
Table 1 (p. 68) illustrates that each of the four countries has an effective sample
size of at least 1,000 respondents (male and female respondents combined) who are either
married with a cohabiting spouse, not married with a cohabiting partner, or single (total n
of all four countries: n=4,873, United States: n=1,171, Germany: n=1,364, the
68
Netherlands: n=1,249, Portugal: n=1,089). Respondents who are single (not married/not
cohabiting) were included in the analysis by the dummy variable Not Married/Not
Cohabiting Single to contrast the reference category of married/cohabiting respondents.
Table 1: Total number of respondents for the United States, Germany, the
Netherlands, and Portugal, by gender
United States
Germany
The Netherlands
Portugal
Count per country
(n=4,873 for total of
four countries )
1,171
1,363
1,249
1,089
Female (%)
680 (58.1%)
693 (50.8%)
645 (51.6%)
647 (59.4%)
Male (%)
491 (41.9%)
671 (49.2%)
604 (48.4%)
442 (40.6%)
Mean Values and ANOVA Results
Work-Life Balance
Table 2 (p. 69) provides total mean values of work-life balance for all respondents
by country affiliation while Table 3 (p. 69) highlights mean results from independent
samples t-tests for equality of means which were conducted to determine gender
differences within each country for work-life balance. Only the USA and Portugal had
statistically significantly different mean values for work-life balance among men and
women (Table 3, p. 69). In the USA, women had little work-life balance averaging a
mean of 2.99 (SD=0.74) while men had more work-life balance averaging a mean of 3.09
(SD=0.69). In Portugal, the significant mean difference was even higher between men
and women with men experiencing more work-life balance averaging 3.22 (SD=0.66)
while women had little work-life balance by averaging the lowest mean value of 2.98
69
(SD=0.74).
Table 2: Total mean values of work-life balance for all respondents by
country affiliation
Germany
Mean
Work-Life
Balance
Gender Role
Ideology
Time
Availability
Resource
Dependence
Perception of
Fairness of the
Div. of Hh.
Labor
R’s Weekly Hh.
Labor Hrs.
Spouse’s/Cohabiting
Partner’s
Weekly Hh.
Labor Hrs.
USA
Mean
3.21
Std.
Dev.
.614
3.65
The Netherlands
Mean
3.03
Std.
Dev.
.715
1.203
3.72
42.11
11.875
3.77
Portugal
Mean
3.27
Std.
Dev.
.607
3.08
Std.
Dev.
.713
1.439
3.77
1.004
3.42
1.274
41.38
14.531
30.70
13.437
42.37
13.113
1.728
3.81
1.697
3.91
1.862
4.02
1.656
2.83
1.166
2.62
1.100
2.76
1.278
2.92
1.084
14.07
12.299
12.42
15.257
13.33
15.966
26.55
26.767
15.47
15.407
17.31
26.193
15.32
19.235
36.41
36.232
Table 3: Independent samples t-test results with significant mean values for
respondents by gender and country affiliation
Germany
Work-Life
Balance
Gender
Role
Ideology
USA
Netherlands
Portugal
Male
3.19
Mean
(SD)
Female
3.24
Mean
(SD)
Male
Female
3.09
2.99*
Mean
(SD
Male
Female
3.30
3.24
Mean
(SD)
Male
Female
3.22
2.98***
(.62)
(.61)
(.69)
(.74)
(.60)
(.61)
(.66)
(.74)
3.54
3.77***
3.48
3.90***
3.67
3.87***
3.34
3.49***
(1.19)
(1.21)
(1.44)
(1.42)
(1.00)
(1.00)
(1.25)
(1.29)
70
Time
Availability
45.78
37.16***
44.70*
38.37***
36.12
24.46***
45.05
40.07***
(10.46)
(11.89)
(14.60)
(13.81)
(12.51)
(11.66)
(13.34)
(12.48)
Resource
Dependence
2.73
4.83***
2.88
4.50***
2.49
5.37***
2.85
4.90***
(1.19)
(1.54)
(1.31)
(1.62)
(1.16)
(1.19)
(1.13)
(1.43)
Perception
of
Fairness
of the Div.
of Hh.
Labor
3.60
2.09***
3.21
2.18***
3.56
1.96***
3.60
2.45***
(.89)
(.89)
(.97)
(.98)
(1.02)
(.97)
(.88)
(.95)
R’s
Weekly
Hh. Labor
Hrs.
7.50
20.01***
11.65
12.99
10.47
16.22***
25.53
27.31
(6.37)
(13.31)
(18.45)
(12.34)
(18.34)
(12.50)
(35.14)
(18.10)
Spouse’s/
Cohabiting
Partner’s
Weekly
Hh. Labor
Hrs.
21.17
9.17***
18.35
16.53
18.38
12.21***
29.63
41.52***
(14.73)
(13.59)
(20.93)
(29.51)
(12.63)
(23.77)
(22.55)
(43.12)
*p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001 (two-tailed tests)
Table 4 (p. 71) highlights the results from the one-way Analysis of Variance
(ANOVA) with Scheffe post-hoc test for work-life balance by country affiliation
suggesting that country affiliation poses a measurable influence on respondents’ worklife balance. There was a statistically significant difference between countries as
determined by one-way ANOVA (F(3, 3,130) = 22.466, p<.001). The Scheffe post-hoc
test (Table 4, p. 71) revealed that work-life balance was statistically significantly higher
for respondents living in Germany (3.215±.614) compared to respondents living in each,
the USA (3.039±.715, p<.001) and Portugal (3.088±.713min, p<.01) (Table 2, p. 69).
There were no statistically significant differences between Germany and the Netherlands
71
(3.274±.607, p<.347) or between the USA and Portugal (p<.596) (Table 2, p. 69).
Table 4: ANOVA and significant Scheffe post-hoc tests results for dependent
and independent variables
Dependent and Independent Variables
Work-Life
Balance
Gender Role
Ideology
Time Availability
Resource
Dependence
Perception of
Fairness of the
Div. of Hh. Labor
R’s Weekly Hh.
Labor Hrs.
Spouse’s/Cohabiting Partner’s
Weekly Hh. Labor
Hrs.
Mean Difference (I-J)
USA
.17594***
Portugal
.12680**
USA
Netherlands
-.23452***
Netherlands
Portugal
.18538***
Germany
Portugal
.23000***
USA
Portugal
.29891***
Netherlands
Portugal
.34552***
Germany
Netherlands
11.415***
USA
Netherlands
10.680***
Netherlands
Portugal
-11.670***
Germany
Not significant for mean differences
Germany
USA
.21503**
USA
Portugal
-.30768***
Germany
Portugal
-12.476***
USA
Portugal
-14.126***
Netherlands
Portugal
-13.217***
Germany
Portugal
-20.943***
72
USA
Portugal
-19.108***
Netherlands
Portugal
-21.100***
*p<.05; **p<.01;***p<.001 (two-tailed tests)
Gender Role Ideology
Compared to Portugal (3.428±1.274) with neither a too traditional nor too
egalitarian gender role ideology score, each of the countries Germany (3.658±1.203,
p<.001), the Netherlands (3.774±1.004, p<.001), and the USA (3.727±1.439, p<.001) had
significantly higher mean values signifying more egalitarian gender role ideologies
(Tables 4/p. 71 and 2/p. 69). Independent samples t-tests showed that all countries had
statistically significantly different mean values for male and female respondents’ gender
role ideology (Table 3, p. 69). Women of all four countries had more egalitarian gender
role ideologies than the male respondents. The USA (t(1,155)=-4.961, p<.001) had the
highest mean difference between male and female respondents with men averaging 3.48
(SD=1.44) and women averaging 3.90 (SD=1.42). Portugal (t(1,080)=-1.966, p<.050)
was the country with the smallest mean difference between male and female respondents
for gender role ideology. Portuguese men also had the lowest average mean of 3.34
(SD=1.25) while the women averaged a mean of 3.49 (SD=1.29); both means signify
neither a traditional nor egalitarian gender role affiliation. Yet, Portugal is a “familistic
welfare state” (Crompton and Lyonette 2006:382) which has a history of having a more
traditional gender role ideology.
Perception of Fairness of the Division of Household Labor
One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with Scheffe post-hoc test for the
perception of fairness of the division of household labor by country affiliation suggests
73
that country affiliation is also a factor in influencing the perception of fairness of the
division of household labor, but only for Germany, the USA, and Portugal (Table 4, p.
71). There was a statistically significant difference between the three countries as
determined by one-way ANOVA (F(3, 3,022) = 8.245, p<.001). The Scheffe post-hoc
test revealed that the perception of fairness of the division of household labor was
statistically significantly higher for Germany (2.837±1.166) compared to the USA
(2.622±1.100, p<.01) and lower for the USA (2.622±1.100) compared to Portugal
(2.929±1.084, p<.001) (Table 2, p. 69). After conducting independent samples t-tests for
the perception of fairness of the division of household labor by country and gender, all
countries showed statistically significant mean differences between male and female
respondents (Table 3, p. 69). All mean calculations by gender affiliation show that men
throughout all four countries tended to perceive themselves as engaging in roughly the
same amount of household labor or slightly over-benefitting from the division of
household labor than their female counterparts. The largest mean difference for gender
affiliation appears in the Netherlands (t(799)=22.746, p<.001) with women having the
lowest mean value with an average of 1.96 (SD=0.97) for under-benefitting from the
division of household labor, therefore, doing more than what they perceive as their fair
share of household labor. Due to the Netherlands being a country with a more egalitarian
gender role ideology, it can be argued that Dutch women will be more aware about the
distribution of the division of household labor, and will more likely criticize and report
any unequal division of household labor. Dutch men averaged a mean value of 3.56
(SD=1.02) for doing less household labor, therefore, slightly over-benefitting from the
74
division of household labor. The smallest mean difference between men and women
appears in the USA (t(629)=13.705, p<.001) with women having a mean value of 2.18
(SD=0.98) for under-benefitting from the division of household labor while men perceive
to be doing roughly their fair share of household labor – neither over- nor underbenefitting from the division of household labor – with an average mean value of 3.21
(SD=0.97).
Time Availability
In Table 4 (p. 71), one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) (F(3, 3,094) =
144.477, p<.001) with Scheffe post-hoc test for time availability (for the respondent’s
hours worked weekly) by country affiliation pointed to statistically significant differences
between the four countries. A Scheffe post-hoc test revealed that the hours worked
weekly by the respondent was statistically significantly higher for each, Germany
(42.11±11.875, p<.001), the USA (41.38±14.531, p<.001) and Portugal (42.37±13.113,
p<.001) compared to the Netherlands (30.70±13.437) (Table 2, p. 69). After conducting
independent samples t-tests for the respondent’s hours worked weekly by country and
gender (Table 3, p. 69), all countries showed statistically significant mean differences
between male and female respondents. All mean calculations by gender affiliation show
that men throughout all four countries tend to work more hours weekly than their female
counterparts. The largest mean difference for gender affiliation appears in the
Netherlands (t(809)=13.771, p<.001) with women working weekly an average of 24.46
(SD=11.66) hours – which is considered part-time in the Netherlands – while Dutch men
work weekly an average of 36.12 (SD=12.51) hours – which is considered full-time work
75
status in the Netherlands. Dutch men and women work the least per week with an average
of 30.7 hours weekly (SD=13.43) compared to any male and female respondents of the
other three countries (Table 2, p. 69). According to Table 2, their combined mean average
for weekly work hours is considered part-time. The smallest mean difference of weekly
work hours between men and women appears in Portugal (t(799)=5. 555, p<.001) with
women having a mean value of 40.07 (SD=12.48) hours while men work a weekly
average of 45.05 (SD=13.34) hours (Tables 4/p. 71 and 3/p. 69). Portuguese women work
the most per week, on average full-time, compared to any other women of the other three
countries. Portugal is considered a “familistic welfare state” (Crompton and Lyonette
2006:382) in which family members are supposed to take care of each other within the
family. Also, Portugal has been a country of male emigration, therefore, making it
necessary for women to increasingly work in order to fill needed positions and to help the
family stay out of poverty. Due to the government not providing enough social welfare
support, it becomes even more necessary for women to participate in employment.
Resource Dependence
One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for resource dependence within
marriage or partnership (for income distribution between spouses or cohabiting partners)
initially showed statistically significant differences among the four countries with the
ANOVA result (F(3, 2,998) = 2.857, p<.05) (Table 4, p. 69). The Scheffe post-hoc test,
however, revealed that the mean differences for resource dependence were not
statistically significantly different (p>0.05) for the four countries.
76
Respondent’s Weekly Household Labor Hours
Further one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with Scheffe post-hoc tests was
conducted for the R’s Weekly Hh. Labor Hrs. (for hours the respondent spends weekly on
household labor), and the results showed statistically significant differences between the
four countries as determined by one-way ANOVA (F(3, 3,003) = 92.935, p<.001) (Table
4, p. 71). A Scheffe post-hoc test revealed that the hours the respondent spent weekly on
household labor were statistically significantly lower for each, Germany (14.07±12.299,
p<.001), the USA (12.42±15.257, p<.001) and the Netherlands (13.33±15.966) compared
to Portugal (26.55±26.767, p<.001) (Table 2, p. 69). The results may reflect that in
Germany, the USA, and the Netherlands there may be greater egalitarianism in gender
roles than in Portugal. More societal egalitarianism would suggest that women engage in
less and men in more weekly household labor. After conducting independent samples ttests for the respondent’s hours spent weekly on household labor by country and gender
(Table 3, p. 69), however, only Germany and the Netherlands showed statistically
significant mean differences between male and female respondents. All mean
calculations by gender affiliation show that men throughout all four countries tended to
spend less hours weekly on household labor than their female counterparts. The largest
mean difference for gender affiliation appears in Germany (t(684)=-18.152, p<.001) with
women spending an average of 20.01 (SD=13.31) hours on household labor while
German men spend an average of 7.50 (SD=6.37) hours on household labor. This
confirms to a larger degree that although Germans spend on average less time on
household labor than men and women in Portugal, Germany embraces the male
77
breadwinner model which assigns the man the duty to provide income and the woman the
duty of taking care of the home environment. Therefore, German men and women will
still engage in an unequal division of household labor, with a woman engaging in almost
four times more the amount a man spends on household labor. Female respondents in the
Netherlands (t(797)=-5.170, p<.001) spend an average of 16.22 (SD=12.50) hours on
household labor, while male respondents spend an average of 10.47 (SD=18.34) hours on
household labor. Although the Netherlands is a fairly egalitarian country which has
actively promoted gender equality, the historic male breadwinner model may
continuously exert influence in the home environment when men and women engage in
household labor: Dutch men still participate in less household labor than women.
Spouse’s/Cohabiting Partner’s Weekly Household Labor Hours
After running the one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with Scheffe post-hoc
tests for the Spouse’s/Cohabiting Partner’s Weekly Hh. Labor Hrs., the results for the
ANOVA (F(3, 2,966) = 116.081, p<.001) also showed statistically significant differences
between the four countries (Table 4, p. 71). The Scheffe post-hoc test revealed that the
hours the spouse or cohabiting partner spent weekly on household labor were statistically
significantly higher for each, Germany (15.47±15.407, p<.001), the USA (17.31±26.193,
p<.001) and the Netherlands (15.32±19.235, p<.001) compared to Portugal
(36.41±36.232) (Table 2, p. 69). After conducting independent samples t-tests for the
respondent’s spouse’s or cohabiting partner’s hours spent weekly on household labor by
country and gender (Table 3, p. 69), Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal showed
statistically significant mean differences between male and female respondents. Mean
78
calculations by gender affiliation showed that female respondents in Germany and the
Netherlands reported that their spouses or cohabiting partners tended to spend less hours
on household labor than their female counterparts, while female respondents in Portugal
estimated that their spouses or cohabiting partners spent much more weekly hours on
household labor than the women themselves. The largest mean difference for gender
affiliation appears in Germany (t(862)=12.463, p<.001) with spouses of female
respondents spending a weekly average of only 9.17 (SD=13.59) hours on household
labor while spouses of male respondents spend a weekly average of 21.17 (SD=14.73)
hours on household labor. The second largest mean difference by gender was among
Portuguese respondents (t(570)=-4.493, p<.001). Female respondents in Portugal said
that their spouses spent a weekly average of 41.52 (SD=43.12) hours on household labor
– which is nearly twice as many household labor hours (25.53) that Portuguese male
respondents reported for themselves – while male respondents said their spouses spent a
weekly average of 29.63 (SD=22.55) hours on household labor. Portuguese men were
close in their estimates on how many weekly hours their spouses or cohabiting partners
spent on household labor when the mean value was compared to the mean hours that
female respondents estimated for themselves (27.31). The lowest statistically significant
mean difference (t(596)=4.557, p<.001) was among Dutch male and female respondents.
Female respondents said their spouses spent on average 12.21 (SD=23.77) hours weekly
on household labor while male respondents stated that their spouses spent a weekly
average of 18.38 (SD=12.63) hours on household work. On average, respondents in each
of the four countries do overestimate the hours of involvement of the spouse or
79
cohabiting partner in weekly household labor, but the large overestimation of Portuguese
respondents on their spouses’ or cohabiting partners’ involvement in household labor is
intriguing. It could be argued that due to Portugal’s history of being a familistic welfare
state, stronger emphasis on the family and household environment may be key to the
Portuguese engaging in more household labor hours. There may also be additional
cultural factors that spur women to overemphasize their spouses’ or cohabiting partners’
involvement in household labor: for example, stressing the involvement of a spouse or
cohabiting partner could signify the well-functioning of a family unit or bolster a family’s
reputation. On the contrary, a more accurate estimation of household labor hours may
also require a more critical estimation of how much a spouse or cohabiting respondent
puts into household labor hours. Countries such as Germany, the USA, and the
Netherlands that have a more egalitarian gender role ideology than Portugal may
encourage women to develop a heightened consciousness on how much a spouse or
cohabiting partner is involved in the household labor, therefore, leading to more accurate
estimations for the spouses’ or cohabiting partners’ household labor involvement. Further
research would be required to correlate specific factors to Portuguese women’s large
overestimation of weekly household labor hours spent by their spouses or cohabiting
partners.
Crosstabulation Results for Religious Affiliation
Crosstabulation comparison of percentages between religious main groups for
each country (Table 5, p. 80) showed the prevalence of no religious affiliation among
Dutch respondents with 65.1 percent, Protestant affiliations in Germany with 37.0 percent
80
(the highest percent within the country) as well as in the USA with 53.4 percent, and a
strong Catholic affiliation in Portugal with 87.3 percent.
Table 5: Crosstabulation results for religious affiliation by country
Countries
n=4,855
USA
No
Religion
14.5%
Roman
Catholic
24.7%
Protestant
53.4%
Other
Religions
7.4%
Germany
29.5%
Netherlands
Portugal
Total
100.0%
29.7%
37.0%
3.8%
100.0%
65.1%
18.5%
12.0%
4.4%
100.0%
9.9%
87.3%
.6%
2.1%
100.0%
This research study intended to investigate whether religious affiliations had any
influence on a respondent’s work-life balance. However, religious affiliations used as
dummy variables in following regression analyses proved statistically insignificant. It is
intriguing that religious affiliations have not had any kind of effect on managing worklife balance, which may suggest that gender role ideology (among other mentioned
independent factors) may be one of the more critical factors in affecting work-life
balance; possibly overwriting any degree of correlation between religious affiliation and
work-life balance. This study will abstain from any further discussion on religious
affiliation.
Regression and Process Results
Hypothesis H1A: Gender role ideology is significantly correlated to work-life
balance after controlling for gender, marital status, employment status, education, age,
number of children, religion, and country affiliation.
Table 6 (p. 82) lists the multiple regression coefficients and standard errors for
81
work-life balance with time availability as the main predictor variable after controlling
for gender, age, education, marital status, number of children ages 17 and under, religion,
and country affiliation. The result indicates that gender role ideology is correlated with
work-life balance. Respondents who have a more egalitarian gender role ideology
experience more work-life balance. Work-life balance, however, is decreased by 0.108
points for female respondents compared to male respondents. Also, compared to being a
married respondent, work-life balance decreases by .111 points for a respondent who has
a cohabiting partner.
Among the positive correlations, a one-year increase in the respondent’s age
increases work-life balance by .003 points. Working part-time increases work-life
balance by .126 points compared to full-time employment, while having another
employment status with less than part-time hours also raises work-life balance by .100
points. On a country-level comparison, living in Germany compared to living in the
United States increases work-life balance by .180 points. Living in the Netherlands
compared to living in the United States increases work-life balance even more, by .207
points. There is, however, no statistically significant country-level effect of living in
Portugal compared to the United States on work-life balance. Although the United States
has the second highest average for a more egalitarian gender role ideology, respondents
experience the least work-life balance. Female respondents in the United States reported
a higher egalitarian gender role ideology compared to female respondents from the other
three countries. Some of the explanations for this contradictory condition could lie within
the societal structure of the United States. Work conditions with sometimes limited health
82
care and caregiving benefits as well as decreased accessibility to social insurance for the
general population may be factors in work-life balance management.
Table 6: Multiple regression for gender role ideology on work-life balance
(respondents residing in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands,
and Portugal only)
Independent Variable:
Gender role ideology
Dependent Variable: Work-life balance
B
Beta
.037***
(.011)
.065
-.108***
(.026)
.003*
(.001)
.001
(.001)
-.111**
(.040)
-.044
(.029)
-.032
(.028)
-.024
(.014)
.126***
(.035)
-.008
(.076)
.100*
(.042)
-.004
(.033)
.008
(.035)
-.114
(.061)
-.081
.180***
(.034)
.207***
(.037)
.071
(.042)
.119
Control Variables:
Being Female (male=0)
Age
Years of Education
Not Married/Cohabiting Partner (married and
cohabiting=0)
Not Married/Not Cohabiting Single (married and
cohabiting=0)
Number of Children (0 to 5, 6)
Number of Children (6, 7 to 17)
Part-time Employment (full-time=0)
Housewife/man (full-time=0)
Other Employment Status (full-time=0)
Roman Catholic (no religion=0)
Protestant (no religion=0)
Other religion (no religion=0)
.051
.019
-.055
-.031
-.021
-.031
.070
-.002
.051
-.003
.005
-.035
Country-level Variables:
Germany (United States=0)
Netherlands (United States=0)
Portugal (United States=0)
.139
.040
83
Constant
2.851***
(.079)
.043
R-square
Note: n=3,059; b=unstandardized regression coefficient with standard error in parenthesis; Beta=
standardized regression coefficient.
*p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001 (two-tailed tests)
The hypothesis that gender role ideology is significantly correlated to work-life
balance is supported.
Mediating Hypothesis H1B: The perception of fairness of the division of
household labor mediates the degree to which gender role ideology affects work-life
balance after controlling for gender, marital status, employment status, education, age,
number of children, religion, and country affiliation.
As shown in Table 7 (p. 83), mediation analysis indicates a direct effect at .0298
(p<0.05) of gender role ideology on work-life balance.
Table 7: Process mediation analysis of perception of fairness of the
division of household labor with direct and indirect effects of gender
role ideology on work-life balance
Dependent Variable (Y)=Work-life balance
Independent Variable (X)=Gender role ideology
Mediator (M)=Perception of fairness of the division of household labor
Direct effect of X on Y
Effect
Std. Error
p
LLCI
ULCI
.0298
.0129
.0214
.0044
.0551
BootLLCI
BootULCI
-.0014
.0027
Indirect effect of X on Y
Effect
Perception
of Fairness
of the Div.
of Hh. Labor .0003
Boot Std. Error
.0010
84
There is, however, no indirect effect of gender role ideology on work-life balance
through the mediator variable perception of fairness of the division of household labor.
The bias-corrected 95% bootstrap confidence interval for the indirect effect includes zero.
The hypothesis that the perception of fairness of the division of household labor
mediates the degree to which gender role ideology affects work-life balance is not
supported.
Hypothesis H2A: Time availability is significantly correlated to work-life balance
after controlling for gender, marital status, employment status, education, age, number of
children, religion, and country affiliation.
Table 8 (p. 85) lists the multiple regression coefficients and standard errors for
time availability on work-life balance after controlling for gender, age, education, marital
status, number of children ages 17 and under, religion, and country affiliation. The result
indicates that time availability (respondent’s hours worked weekly) is negatively
correlated to work-life balance. With a one-hour increase in work time per week, the
respondent’s work-life balance decreases by .008 points. Work-life balance further
decreases by .138 points for female respondents compared to male respondents. Also,
compared to being a married respondent, work-life balance also decreases by .091 points
for a respondent who has a cohabiting partner.
On a country-level comparison, living in Germany compared to living in the
United States increases work-life balance by .142 points. Living in the Netherlands
85
compared to living in the United States increases work-life balance as well by .126
points. Living in Portugal compared to the United States has no country-level effect on
work-life balance. In the Netherlands, the significant results may point again to a
‘societal’ effect because the Dutch have the least weekly work hours compared to the
other three countries. In addition, the Netherlands and Germany are both countries with
social insurance which may also be a contributing factor for allowing respondents from
these two countries to experience more work-life balance. Further, Germany is also a
country which has more paid holidays and vacation days than any of the four countries.
This structural condition can also help Germans to better manage their work-life balance
even though they work more weekly hours than respondents from the United States.
Table 8: Multiple regression for time availability (respondent’s hours worked
weekly) on work-life balance (respondents residing in the United States,
Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal only)
Independent Variable:
Dependent Variable: Work-life
balance
B
Beta
Time Availability
-.008***
(.001)
-.163
-.138***
(.026)
.002
(.001)
.433
(.001)
-.091*
(.041)
-.028
(.030)
-.035
(.028)
-.023
(.014)
-.107
Control Variables:
Being Female (male=0)
Age
Years of Education
Not Married/Cohabiting Partner (married and cohabiting=0)
Not Married/Not Cohabiting Single (married and cohabiting=0)
Number of Children (0 to 5, 6)
Number of Children (6, 7 to 17)
.037
.001
-.047
-.020
-.024
-.032
86
Part-time Employment (full-time=0)
Housewife/man (full-time=0)
Other Employment Status (full-time=0)
Roman Catholic (no religion=0)
Protestant (no religion=0)
Other religion (no religion=0)
.010
(.041)
.597
(.446)
.057
(.082)
-.008
(.034)
-.002
(.036)
-.096
(.062)
.006
.025
.019
-.006
-.001
-.031
Country-level Variables:
Germany (United States=0)
Netherlands (United States=0)
Portugal (United States=0)
Constant
R-square
.142***
(.036)
.126**
(.039)
.010
(.042)
3.407***
(.090)
.054
.095
.089
.006
Note: n=3,059; b=unstandardized regression coefficient with standard error in parenthesis; Beta=
standardized regression coefficient.
*p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001 (two-tailed tests)
The hypothesis that time availability is significantly correlated to work-life
balance is supported.
Mediating Hypothesis H2B: The perception of fairness mediates the degree to
which time availability affects work-life balance after controlling for gender, marital
status, employment status, education, age, number of children, religion, and country
affiliation.
In Table 9 (p. 87), mediation analysis points to a direct negative effect at -.0098
(p<.05) of time availability, the respondent’s hours worked weekly, on work-life balance.
There was, however, no indirect effect of the respondent’s hours worked weekly on
87
work-life balance through the mediator variable perception of fairness of the division of
household labor. The bias-corrected 95% bootstrap confidence interval for the indirect
effect includes zero.
Table 9: Process mediation analysis of perception of fairness of the
division of household labor with direct and indirect effects of time
availability on work-life balance
Dependent Variable (Y)=Work-life balance
Independent Variable (X)=Time availability
Mediator (M)=Perception of fairness of the division of household labor
Direct effect of X on Y
Effect
-.0098
Std. Error
.0015
p
LLCI
ULCI
.0000
-.0127
-.0069
Indirect effect of X on Y
Effect
Perception
of Fairness
of the Div.
of Hh. Labor .0002
Boot Std. Error
.0001
BootLLCI BootULCI
.0000
.0005
The hypothesis that the perception of fairness mediates the degree to which time
availability affects work-life balance is not supported.
Mediating Hypothesis H3: The perception of fairness of the division of household
labor mediates the degree to which resource dependence affects work-life balance after
controlling for gender, marital status, employment status, education, age, number of
children, religion, and country affiliation. Resource dependence has a positive effect on
work-life balance.
Due to previous research pointing to resource dependence within marriage or
88
partnership (income distribution between spouses or cohabiting partners) as a factor in
the perception of fairness of the division of household labor, the relationship of the two
variables and their effect on work-life balance was explored through mediation analysis
in this study. Process analysis tested the positive effect of resource dependence on worklife balance mediated by the perception of fairness of the division of household labor. In
Tables 10 A and B (p. 89), results indicate that increasing resource dependence is directly
related to more work-life balance. The positive effect is .0215 (for a one-tailed test at
p<0.05).
The positive effect, however, is offset when the respondent over-benefits from the
division of household labor and does less than their fair share in the household. The
indirect effect of resource dependence on work-life balance through the perception of
fairness of the division of household labor is -.0040. One viable explanation as to why
over-benefitting for the division of household labor can negatively affect the positive
relationship between resource dependence and work-life balance is that a respondent may
have feelings of guilt that he/she is engaged in less than his/her fair share of household
labor, while the spouse or cohabiting partner has a higher income than the respondent.
Higher income may be ascribed a higher value in the relationship, and to balance out the
skewed income distribution between the spouses or cohabiting partners, the respondent
believes that he/she ought to engage in more household labor. Not doing more household
labor, however, could evoke feelings of guilt, ultimately making it tougher for the
respondent to experience work-life balance.
89
Table 10 A: Process mediation analysis of the perception of fairness of the
division of household labor with direct and indirect effects of
resource dependence on work-life balance
Dependent Variable (Y)=Work-life balance
Independent Variable (X)=Resource dependence
Mediator (M)=Perception of fairness of the division of household labor
Direct effect of X on Y
Effect
Std. Error
p
LLCI
ULCI
.0215
.0118
.0700
-.0018
.0447
BootLLCI
BootULCI
-.0084
-.0013
Indirect effect of X on Y
Effect
Boot Std. Error
Perception
of Fairness
of the Div.
of Hh. Labor -.0040
.0017
Table 10 B: Effect of predictor variables and covariates from Process mediation
analysis of the perception of fairness of the division of household
labor with direct and indirect effects of resource dependence
on work-life balance
Independent Variables:
Dependent Variable: Work-life balance
B
Std. Error
LLCI
ULCI
Perception of the division of
household labor
Resource dependence
.0485**
.0154
.0183
.0786
.0215*
.0118
-.0018
.0447
Female
-.0726
.0412
-.1533
.0081
Age
.0040**
.0015
.0011
.0069
Education/years of schooling
.0003
.0014
-.0025
.0031
Cohabiting partners/not
married (married=0)
Single (married=0)
-.0739
.0460
-.1641
.0163
-.0675
.0832
-.2306
.0956
Children in household up to
5, 6 years of age
.0025
.0299
-.0562
.0611
90
Children in household 6,
7-17 years of age
Part-time (full-time=0)
-.0225
.0163
-.0544
.0094
.1580***
.0450
.0698
.2462
Homemaker (full-time=0)
.0601
.0819
-.1005
.2207
Other employment status
(full-time=0)
Roman Catholic
(no religion=0)
Protestant (no religion=0)
.1643**
.0553
.0558
.2727
-.0111
.0411
-.0917
.0694
-.0134
.0424
-.0965
.0696
Other religions
(no religion=0)
Germany
-.0954
.0739
-.2403
.0494
.1787***
.0407
.0988
.2585
Netherlands
.2070***
.0456
.1176
.2965
Portugal
.0251***
.0527
-.0783
.1285
Constant
2.6993***
.1077
2.4881
2.9106
R-square
.0557
*p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001 (two-tailed tests)
The hypothesis that the perception of fairness of the division of household labor
mediates the degree to which resource dependence affects work-life balance while
resource dependence has a positive effect on work-life balance is supported.
Hypothesis H4A: Respondent’s weekly household labor hours are significantly
correlated to work-life balance after controlling for gender, age, education, marital
status, number of children, employment status, religion, and country affiliation.
In Table 11 (p. 91), regression analysis pointed to no statistically significant
relationship between the hours a respondent spent weekly on household labor and worklife balance (p<.89).
91
Table 11: Multiple regression for respondent’s weekly household labor hours on
work-life balance (respondents residing in the United States,
Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal only)
Independent Variable:
R’s Weekly Hh. Labor Hrs.
Dependent Variable: Work-life balance
B
Beta
.000
(.001)
-.003
-.094**
(.033)
.004*
(.001)
.001
(.001)
-.080
(.046)
-.038
(.080)
-.003
(.030)
-.028
(.016)
.158***
(.044)
.087
(.081)
.180**
(.056)
-.014
(.041)
-.002
(.042)
-.085
(.075)
-.072
.201***
(.041)
.225***
(.045)
.053
(.053)
2.915***
(.086)
.138
Control Variables:
Being Female (male=0)
Age
Years of Education
Not Married/Cohabiting Partner (married and
cohabiting=0)
Not Married/Not Cohabiting Single (married and
cohabiting=0)
Number of Children (0 to 5, 6)
Number of Children (6, 7 to 17)
Part-time Employment (full-time=0)
Housewife/man (full-time=0)
Other Employment Status (full-time=0)
Roman Catholic (no religion=0)
Protestant (no religion=0)
Other religion (no religion=0)
.066
.014
-.043
-.011
-.002
-.039
.092
.025
.077
-.010
-.001
-.027
Country-level Variables:
Germany (United States=0)
Netherlands (United States=0)
Portugal (United States=0)
Constant
.155
.031
92
R-square
.051
Note: n=3,059; b=unstandardized regression coefficient with standard error in parenthesis;
Beta=standardized regression coefficient.
*p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001 (two-tailed tests)
The hypothesis that respondent’s weekly household labor hours are significantly
correlated to work-life balance is not supported.
Mediating Hypothesis H4B: Respondent’s weekly household labor hours mediate
the effect of gender role ideology on work-life balance after controlling for gender, age,
education, marital status, number of children, employment status, religion, and country
affiliation.
Because the study explores the relationship among specific variables and their
potential influence on work-life balance, the hours a respondent spent weekly on
household labor were further investigated in Process analysis of the mediator variable and
its effect on the relationship between gender role ideology and work-life balance.
Table 12: Process mediation analysis of respondent’s weekly household
labor hours with direct and indirect effects of gender role ideology
on work-life balance
Dependent Variable (Y)=Work-life balance
Independent Variable (X)= Gender role ideology
Mediator (M)= Respondent's weekly household labor hours
Direct effect of X on Y
Effect
Std. Error
p
LLCI
ULCI
.0306
.0131
.0194
.0049
.0562
93
Indirect effect of X on Y
Effect
R’s Weekly
Hh.
Labor Hrs. .0002
Boot Std. Error
.0009
BootLLCI
BootULCI
-.0016
.0021
In Table 12 (p. 92), mediation analysis points to a direct effect at .0306 (p<0.05) of the
respondent’s gender role ideology on work-life balance. There was, however, no indirect
effect of the respondent’s gender role ideology on work-life balance through the mediator
variable respondent’s hours spent weekly on household labor. The bias-corrected 95%
bootstrap confidence interval for the indirect effect includes zero.
The hypothesis that respondent’s weekly household labor hours mediate the effect
of gender role ideology on work-life balance is not supported.
Hypothesis H5A: Spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household labor hours
are significantly correlated to work-life balance after controlling for gender, age,
education, marital status, number of children, employment status, religion, and country
affiliation.
As the ISSP data set offers a variable highlighting the hours spent on household
labor by the respondent’s spouse (as estimated by the respondent), the same regression
and Process analyses were run to determine any statistical significance of the spouse’s
household labor hours on the respondent’s work-life balance. Regression analysis
indicates a statistically significant relationship between the hours spent on household
labor by the respondent’s spouse and the respondent’s work-life balance (Table 13, p.
94
94).
Table 13: Multiple regression for spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household
labor hours on work-life balance (respondents residing in
the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal only)
Independent Variable:
Dependent Variable: Work-life balance
B
Beta
Spouse’s/Cohabiting Partner’s
Weekly Hh. Labor Hrs.
Control Variables:
-.002**
(.001)
-.062
Being Female (male=0)
-.098**
(.033)
.004**
(.001)
.000
(.001)
-.076
(.046)
.009
(.082)
.002
(.030)
-.027
(.016)
.146**
(.044)
.098
(.082)
.156**
(.055)
-.008
(.041)
-.001
(.042)
-.087
(.074)
-.075
.193***
(.041)
.230***
(.045)
.069
(.053)
2.933***
(.086)
.133
Age
Years of Education
Not Married/Cohabiting Partner
(married and cohabiting=0)
Not Married/Not Cohabiting Single
(married and cohabiting=0)
Number of Children (0 to 5, 6)
Number of Children (6, 7 to 17)
Part-time Employment (full-time=0)
Housewife/man (full-time=0)
Other Employment Status (fulltime=0)
Roman Catholic (no religion=0)
Protestant (no religion=0)
Other religion (no religion=0)
.074
.004
-.041
.003
.002
-.038
.084
.028
.067
-.006
-.001
-.028
Country-level Variables:
Germany (United States=0)
Netherlands (United States=0)
Portugal (United States=0)
Constant
.158
.041
95
R-square
.053
Note: n=3,059; b=unstandardized regression coefficient with standard error in
parenthesis; Beta=standardized regression coefficient.
*p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001 (two-tailed tests)
Table 13 (p. 94) lists the multiple regression coefficients and standard errors for
the spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household labor hours on work-life balance
after controlling for gender, age, education, marital status, number of children ages 17
and under, religion, and country affiliation. The result indicates that more hours spent
weekly on household labor by the respondent’s spouse are negatively correlated to the
respondent’s work-life balance. With a one-hour increase in the spouse’s or cohabiting
partner’s weekly household labor time, the respondent’s work-life balance decreases by
.002 points. If the respondent is disproportionately engaged in household labor – possibly
due to longer weekly work hours – the spouse or cohabiting partner would need to invest
more weekly household labor hours. Under this scenario, it would be very likely that the
respondent experiences less work-life balance. Although following interpretation would
require further testing, the result could also indicate that respondents may experience
feelings of guilt when they estimate that their spouses or cohabiting partners engage in
more household labor hours. Work-life balance further decreases by .098 points for
female respondents compared to male respondents. Also, with each year of age, the
respondent’s work-life balance increases by .004 points which could indicate that
respondents who get older might adopt additional coping strategies that allow them to
better manage work-life balance.
Being a respondent who is employed part-time compared to full-time, increases
96
work-life balance by .146 points. Compared to respondents with full-time employment
status, having another employment status with less than part-time hours increases worklife balance as well by .156 points.
On a country-level comparison, living in Germany compared to living in the
United States increases work-life balance by .193 points. Living in the Netherlands
compared to living in the United States increases work-life balance as well by .230 points
– slightly more than for respondents who live in Germany. There is, however, no
statistically significant country-effect of living in Portugal compared to living in the
United States on work-life balance. Compared to the United States, Germany and the
Netherlands are two countries which have more employment fringe benefits, paid
holidays and vacations, and social insurance which are all factors in better managing
work-life balance.
The hypothesis that spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household labor hours
are significantly correlated to work-life balance is supported.
Mediating Hypothesis H5B – Spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household
labor hours mediate the effect of gender role ideology on work-life balance after
controlling for gender, age, education, marital status, number of children, employment
status, religion, and country affiliation.
As highlighted in Tables 14 A and B (p. 97), Process analysis indicated a direct
effect at .0264 of gender role ideology on work-life balance (p<.0433). As the previous
correlation had confirmed as well, higher scores toward more egalitarian gender role
97
ideology is correlated and has a direct positive on work-life balance.
Table 14 A: Process mediation analysis of spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s
weekly household labor hours with direct and indirect effects of
gender role ideology on work-life balance
Dependent Variable (Y)=Work-life balance
Independent Variable (X)=Gender role ideology
Mediator (M)= Spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household labor hours
Direct effect of X on Y
Effect
.0264
Std. Error
p
LLCI
ULCI
.0131
.0433
.0008
.0520
BootLLCI
BootULCI
Indirect effect of X on Y
Effect
Boot Std. Error
Spouse’s/Cohabiting
Partner’s
Weekly Hh.
Labor Hrs.
.0025
.0014
.0005
.0067
Table 14 B: Effect of predictor variables and covariates from Process mediation
analysis of spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household labor
hours with direct and indirect effects of gender role ideology on
work-life balance
Independent Variables:
Dependent Variable: Work-life balance
B
Std. Error
LLCI
ULCI
Hours respondent’s spouse spent
on household labor
Gender role ideology
-.0017**
.0006
-.0029
-.0004
.0264*
.0131
.0008
.0520
Female
-.1147***
.0334
-.1802
-.0492
Age
.0045**
.0015
.0016
.0075
Education/years of schooling
.0000
.0014
-.0028
.0028
Cohabiting partners/not married
-.0813
.0463
-.1721
.0094
98
(married=0)
Single (married=0)
.0253
.0832
-.1378
.1884
Children in household up to 5, 6
years of age
Children in household 6, 7-17 years
of age
Part-time (full-time=0)
.0061
.0302
-.0532
.0654
-.0264
.0163
-.0584
.0055
.1481***
.0446
.0606
.2355
Homemaker (full-time=0)
.1057
.0826
-.0562
.2676
Other employment status (fulltime=0)
Roman Catholic (no religion=0)
.1616**
.0555
.0527
.2705
.0045
.0415
-.0768
.0858
Protestant (no religion=0)
.0070
.0428
-.0769
.0908
Other religions (no religion=0)
-.0655
.0750
-.2126
.0816
Germany
.1955***
.0412
.1146
.2763
Netherlands
.2320***
.0455
.1428
.3213
Portugal
.0701
.0532
-.0343
.1745
Constant
2.8169***
.1024
2.6161
3.0176
R-square
.0559
*p<0.05; **p<0.01; ***p<0.001 (two-tailed tests)
There is also a positive indirect effect at .0025 of gender role ideology on worklife balance through the weekly hours spent on household labor by the respondent’s
spouse. The bias-corrected 95% bootstrap confidence interval for the indirect effect does
not include zero. The effect of gender role ideology on work-life balance increases when
respondents perceive that their spouses or cohabiting partners spent more hours on
household labor. Work-life balance also increases when the respondents are either older,
have a part-time job, less than a part-time job, live in Germany, or live in the
Netherlands. Work-life balance decreases, however, when respondents are female
compared to male which suggests that women have to assume multiple and demanding
roles of workers, mothers, caregivers, and home-managers. Additional research needs to
be conducted to test for a possible interaction between the respondent’s gender and the
spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household labor hours and their effects on the
99
relationship between gender role ideology and work-life balance. This could point to
deeply entrenched traditional gender role ideologies within the individual, his/her
surroundings, and/or the larger socio-structural context which posit that women are
assigned the duties of the home environment while men are assigned the duties of the
work environment.
The hypothesis that spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household labor hours
mediate the effect of gender role ideology on work-life balance is supported.
Table 15 (p. 99) provides a complete list of decision outcomes for all hypotheses
tested in this research study.
Table 15: Decision outcomes for all tested hypotheses
HYPOTHESIS
DECISION
H1A
Supported
H1B
Not Supported
H2A
Supported
H2B
Not Supported
H3
Supported
H4A
Not Supported
H4B
Not Supported
H5A
Supported
H5B
Supported
100
Chapter 5
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Regardless of gender, almost any employed worker faces to some degree the
challenges of balancing the work and home environment. Work-life balance has been a
newer concept with special focus on the well-functioning of the work and home
environment by minimizing role conflict (Clark 2001; Guest 2002). Women, however,
have been associated historically with the home environment, and by women making up a
continuously growing part of the labor force, they are confronted with the ‘double shift’:
making it harder especially for them to minimize role conflict and to balance the work
and home environment (Hochschild 1989). While research results for men have been
described in this study and are treated as an essential component in understanding
gendered relationships, the attempt has been made to apply a gendered lens throughout
the study, emphasizing women’s complex duties as wives, partners, mothers, caregivers,
home-managers, and workers. Research on work-life balance has often focused on paid
work rather than unpaid work within the home environment and how factors within the
paid work environment such as workplace policies, flexibility or fringe benefits can help
balance work-life spheres (Coltrane 2000; Kreuzenkamp and Hooghiemsra 2000;
Wierda-Boer 2009). In order to widen the pool of potential factors influencing work-life
balance, this study has drawn from research on the division of household labor to identify
independent factors such as gender role ideology, time availability, and resource
dependence, as well as mediating factors such as the perception of fairness of the division
of household labor as a potential ‘meso-marker’ and the weekly household labor hours
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which potentially affect work-life balance. Milkie and Peltola (1999) conducted one of
the first research studies which focused directly on the perception of fairness of the
division of household labor and its effect on work-life balance. Although their study
included gender-specific mediation factors that pointed to gender differences in how
employed married couples managed their work-life balance, the study did not include
broader macro-level/country-specific variables. Hence, this study also attempted to create
statistical measures to account for macro-level/country-level effects on work-life balance.
The data set used for the analyses stems from the 2002 International Social Survey
Programme: Family and Changing Gender Roles III (ISSP 2004).
Research results identified a more egalitarian gender role ideology correlated with
more work-life balance. Also, work-life balance decreased for women or for respondents
who had a cohabiting partner (but were not married). This suggests that marriage as a
legal bond may provide spouses with a sense of security that alleviates some of the
pressures on work-life balance. By investigating the effects of gender role ideology on
work-life balance, the analysis confirmed that part-time or less than part-time
employment are also factors in having more work-life balance. On a macro/country-level,
only respondents from Germany and the Netherlands compared to respondents from the
United States exhibited more work-life balance. This may be due to specific policies that
are in place in Germany and the Netherlands which allow for better management of
work-life balance (Voydanoff 2004). Although in many countries gender roles have
moved from traditional (male breadwinner) to more egalitarian (dual-income earner)
roles, there still remain structural barriers such as unequal or low pay, and limited social
102
or health insurance for working women. While Germany and the Netherlands are labeled
conservative welfare states which historically embrace the male breadwinner model, both
countries rate high on the GEM index which points to less structural barriers (such as
more equitable pay) in the work environment (United Nations Human Development
Programme 2007; Ruppanner 2008).
In Germany, tax rates for second income earners are highest compared to the
Netherlands, the United States, and Portugal, yet days of paid maternity and paternity
leave are high (OECD 2010). Even if dual-income earners are disadvantaged to some
degree, Germany has made efforts in increasing work-life balance by offering not only
longer periods of paid maternity leave but extending the leave to fathers as well;
therefore, allowing women to quickly re-enter the workforce after giving birth to
minimize gaps in employment and/or jeopardizing career opportunities (Voydanoff
2004). In the Netherlands, the right to part-time work is institutionalized, therefore,
prevalent as a preferred employment status (Ruppanner 2008; Moors 1995). Many Dutch
women compared to Dutch men will take advantage of part-time work, especially after
giving birth (Ruppanner 2008). Hence, it can be inferred that living in the Netherlands –
as a society that has normalized part-time employment and that has a more egalitarian
gender role ideology – has a positive “societal” (Crompton and Lyonette 2006:389;
Ruppanner 2008) effect on work-life balance. Yet, a more egalitarian gender role
ideology within a country does not automatically suggest that the division of household
labor has also moved toward a more equitable household division of labor between men
and women (Orloff 2009). Even when a country such as the Netherlands exhibits an
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increased egalitarian gender role ideology and has governmental policies in place which
allow women and men to better manage their work-life, institutionalized part-time work
may lead women to push their male spouses less to engage in a more equitable division of
household labor (Ruppanner 2008).
Further, more work hours affect work-life balance negatively, while being a
woman or having a cohabiting partner decreases work-life balance. Again, this may
signify that women are especially affected by the ‘double’ and ‘triple shift’ and struggle
to achieve work-life balance when they work longer hours only to come home to resume
responsibilities in the home environment (Hochschild 1989). Due to part-time work being
institutionalized in the Netherlands compared to the United States, respondents in the
Netherlands can take advantage of working less per week, and therefore, experience the
country-effect that the Netherlands has on increased work-life balance. Although German
respondents work slightly more than respondents in the United States, Germany not only
has statutory health insurance but is one of the countries with the most holidays and paid
vacations, especially when compared to the Unites States (OECD 2010; Voydanoff
2004). These employment and health benefits within the German system may enable
Germans to better manage and perceive more work-life balance while working more
hours on a weekly average than respondents from the United States.
For the effects of gender role ideology or time availability on work-life balance,
the perception of fairness of the division of household labor has not been a mediating
factor. Mediation analysis, however, indicated that increased resource dependence on the
spouse’s or cohabiting partner’s income is positively correlated with work-life balance.
104
This effect is reduced, however, when the respondent over-benefits from the division of
household labor by doing less than his/her fair share of household labor. This indirect
effect could be explained by potential guilt that a respondent might experience, knowing
that the spouse or cohabiting partner earns more money while the respondent him/herself
is keenly aware that he/she does not engage adequately in household labor (Greenhaus
and Beutell 1985; Greenhaus et al. 2006). According to Braun et al. (2008), resource
dependence equates to relative bargaining power in negotiating the amount of household
labor in which a spouse or cohabiting partner engages. Using equity theory and the
legitimizing principle, if a spouse or cohabiting partner is more dependent on resources
from the other party, he/she will legitimize his/her greater involvement in household
labor, perceiving the division of household labor as fair even though the division of
actual household labor hours is unequal (Braun et al. 2008). Resource dependence, hence,
can cause a respondent to assign more value to the spouse who earns the higher income,
therefore, believing that he/she should engage in more household labor. If the respondent,
however, fails to do his/her perceived fair share of household labor, he/she most likely
transposes feelings of guilt onto his/her work-life balance. Using role-spillover theory, an
individual’s attitudes and emotions can spill over from the work to the home environment
and vice versa. For the reason that gender role ideologies can transfer and link the public
spheres with social institution and embedded gender stratifications to the home
environment with its individual actors, individuals can struggle – through an emotion
such as guilt – to reconcile inter-role conflict through complex gender role pressures
within the work and home environment (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985; Greenhaus et al.
105
2006). Further research needs to be conducted in order to apply a more detailed gender
lens and identify specific gender differences for the mediating effect of the perception of
fairness of the division of household labor which negatively offsets the effect of resource
dependence on work-life balance.
Weekly hours a respondent spent on household labor did not affect the
respondent’s work-life balance, nor did they have any mediating indirect effect of the
positive correlation between a more egalitarian gender role ideology and work-life
balance. Weekly household labor hours spent by a spouse or cohabiting partner, however,
affected the respondent’s work-life balance negatively. This negative correlation might
point to a respondent working longer hours which would create an unequal division of
household labor between the respondent and the spouse; consequently, this would
decrease the respondent’s work-life balance. In addition, the respondent may even
experience feelings of guilt for his/her own disproportionate work and household labor
involvement. Further, the correlation between gender and work-life balance was stronger
for female compared to male respondents. The fact that the effect on work-life balance is
weaker for a female respondent points to women’s multiple, demanding, and often
competing roles such as workers who may not receive strong enough governmental
and/or organizational support to offset their duties at home as mothers, caregivers, and
home-managers. Traditional gender roles and expectations supported by the larger
society can make the balancing of the work and family environment even more
challenging for women, especially when working women compare themselves to other
women in a traditional society. This can lead women to “doing gender” (Ruppanner
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2008:520; West and Zimmerman 1987:125), to engage in even more household labor in
order to signify their support for a traditional gender ideology and division of household
labor. When the spouse’s weekly household labor hours were identified as indirectly
increasing the positive effect of a more egalitarian gender role ideology on work-life
balance, this might also suggest two competing gender role views on a gender-specific
individual level which are not further investigated in this research study but touched upon
in the following hypotheses: For one, even more egalitarian men may still have remnants
of more traditional gender role ideologies internalized, and would not find fault in their
wives or female cohabiting partners engaging in more weekly household labor hours.
Secondly, more egalitarian women would welcome it if their husbands or male
cohabiting partners engaged in more weekly household labor hours, therefore, alleviating
some of the women’s stresses of the home environment, and increasing their work-life
balance.
Strengths and Limitations
This study has several strengths but also limitations which should be discussed by
reiterating briefly the data set that was used for the analyses. One of the strengths of
using the 2002 ISSP data set is that yearly data sets from the International Social Survey
Programme are cross-national with the intent to collect data that can be used for
replications on social science issues across all participating countries (ISSP 2004). The
survey data is collected and processed with proper weighting measures from a reputable
institution in each participating country. The sample sizes for each country are large
enough to use the analytical results for representative samples of each country under
107
investigation (ISSP 2004). The data set is made available for public use by the
Zentralarchiv für Empirische Sozialforschung at the Universität Köln. The 2002 ISSP
survey with the module’s focus on family and changing gender roles has been an ideal
data set for the researcher to investigate which additional factors drawn from the division
of household labor affect work-life balance. The data set offers more variables than were
used for this research study, therefore, leaving opportunities for continued exploration of
other factors that may influence work-life balance.
In addition, research studies that have used the same perception of fairness of the
division of household labor variable have often interpreted the categories on a scale of a
less fair to a more fair division of household labor. The value of a fair division of
household labor lies in the middle score of 3; scores of 4 or 5 state that the respondent
perceives to be doing a bit less or much less than their fair share of household labor. The
strength of this research study, however, consists of the differing and possibly improved
interpretation of the categories, with lower scores of 1 and 2 meaning the respondent
under-benefits from the division of household labor, and higher scores of 4 and 5
signifying the respondent over-benefits from the division of household labor. On a
conceptual and theoretical level, the perception of fairness of the division of household
labor is complicated in so far as perception of fairness can have varying meanings to
spouses or cohabiting couples. This has become evident in the descriptions of the
legitimizing principles which are used to assess how fair a specific division of household
labor is perceived by men and women (Braun et al. 2008). Using equity theory and the
perception of fairness of the division of household labor in a research study point to the
108
mechanisms that legitimize an unequal division of household labor. Although time-use
diary research has been an alternative to investigating the division of household labor and
has shown that men’s participation in domestic tasks has increased, women still remain
largely in charge of managing domestic tasks – even if men execute them (Sullivan
2000). Also, even if men put equal hours into household labor, the type of task may be
more gender-specific such as mowing the lawn or washing the car; both being public
outdoor activities which reinforce more traditional gender roles (Bonvillain 1998; Frone
2003). This suggests that lingering traditional gender role ideologies of a country and/or
of an individual continue to exert influence on the management and division of household
labor among couples or cohabiting spouses.
There are a few disadvantages to the 2002 ISSP data set. Racial and ethnic
variables are not included in the data set. This exclusion, however, could be justified by
putting forward the notion that cross-country comparisons would be too limited: only
very few races and ethnicities would overlap between countries if the variables were
included. Also, racial and ethnic variations are often very complex within a country and
any attempt to engage in cross-country comparison would have to be conducted in the
utmost sensible manner. Yet, it appears to be of great disadvantage to not have racial,
ethnic, and country of origin variables included. Women from lower classes and minority
groups are often the most vulnerable to experience gender stratification and its effects on
the division of household labor and work-life balance. Due to the ‘elevator effect’, these
groups may also be the ones more likely to accept unequal treatment within the work and
the home environment (Braun et al. 2008; Beck 1992). Especially when looking at the
109
United States and other industrialized countries, care-giving responsibilities in the public
sphere have been assigned predominately to underprivileged minority groups, increasing
the stresses of the ‘double shift’ even more for women of these groups; working long,
underpaid hours especially in the service sector with limited access to good health and
social benefits while assuming long, unpaid hours of household labor and care-giving
activities when they get home (Prince Cooke 2011; Tronto 1993). Although adding these
critical variables to the ISSP data set would make the information gathering and
weighting process more intricate, it would provide an even more powerful research tool
to investigate in greater detail and under a racial and ethnic lens the complexities of
social interactions between individuals, societies, and countries.
Within the data set, the income variable has been a problematic measure because
the overall sample size indicated too many missing cases. An income measure is often a
necessary covariate factor which ought to be included in regression and Process analyses.
Yet, the income variable had to be excluded because it would have introduced bias into
the research results. To mitigate this limitation, the education variable became the proxy
for the income variable, but continuously had no effect on work-life balance in this study.
Previous research studies have picked one variable over the other; regardless though of
this approach, it is ideal to include both variables, income and education, into this kind of
research design. In equity theory, fairness of the division of household labor is assessed
by inputs and outputs of each spouse or cohabiting partner; weekly hours worked would
be the input, and income the resulting outcome of the effort (Braun et al. 2008; Walster
and Berscheid 1978). Further, the 2002 ISSP data set is an older data set. Within the past
110
decade, changes in attitudes among respondents from the United States, Germany, the
Netherlands, and Portugal may have occurred. Although there is a newer module 2012
International Social Survey Programme: Family and Gender Roles IV currently in the
process of being published, it is not publicly available yet. If a newer data set would have
existed, the researcher could have approached the study from a methodological point of
trend analysis, including changes in attitudes from the last three modules of 1994, 2002,
and 2012.
Directions for Future Research
This research study investigated division of household labor factors as predictors
for work-life balance among respondents in only four countries, the United States,
Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal. Although using only four countries in this
analysis is a methodologically viable approach in order to test hypotheses on a small
cross-country scale, future research should also include large-scale country comparisons
of all countries that participated on the 2002 ISSP data set. In addition, trend analysis of
changing attitudes about gender roles within the work-life context could offer more
details in social processes and how changes in gender role ideologies over time have
affected respondents’ views on the division of household labor and on other critical
attitudes that can affect their work-life balance. As Coltrane (2010) has stressed, there is a
great need for more comprehensive and complex research designs that not only use crosscountry comparisons and trend analysis but take into account the “economic, political and
social context under which couples divide household labor as well as paid labor”
(Coltrane 2010:798). For the reason that this research study did not focus on what kind of
111
household labor respondents and spouses/cohabiting partners of respondents were
engaged in and for how long, future research should also include more of such measures
to get detailed accounts on how household labor is divided among spouses or cohabiting
partners and who takes responsibility in the household for the management of such tasks.
Even if spouses or cohabiting partners engaged in equal amounts of household labor, the
kind of household labor they are involved in could still perpetuate more traditional
gender role ideologies: the man mowing the lawn or cleaning the car, while the woman
cooks and cares for the children (Bonvillain 1998; Frone 2003; Sullivan 2000). So, even
with an equal amount spent by both on cumulative paid and unpaid household labor, the
woman could still be assigned more traditional care-giving duties (Wierda et al. 2009).
In addition, this research study did not further investigate the interaction effect of
gender on the relationship between gender role ideology and work-life balance. This,
however, raises the question: Would egalitarian male respondents, compared to
egalitarian female respondents, experience more work-life balance when their
spouses/cohabiting partners engaged in more household labor? The results could confirm
or refute the notion that traditional gender roles are still deeply imbedded within men and
women, even if they described themselves as having a more egalitarian gender role
ideology. Previous research on fairness perception of the division of household labor has
pointed to the paradox that women who have a more traditional gender role ideology can
perceive the division of household labor as fair even though they engage in paid labor as
well as unpaid labor in the form of doing more than their fair share of household labor,
therefore, under-benefitting from the division of household labor (Braun et al. 2008).
112
Under these conditions, this raises the question whether women are potentially engaging
(consciously or subconsciously) in a thought process that could paradoxically enable
them to also experience more work-life balance. This would be, however,
counterintuitive to the research finding in this study that respondents with more
egalitarian gender role ideologies experience more work-life balance, while the
perception of fairness of the division of household labor has no mediating effect on that
relationship. In this regard, the findings may deserve further scientific inquiry by using
Process analysis with multiple mediation variables to explore the complex relationships
between gender, gender role ideology, time availability, resource dependence,
respondent’s and spouse’s/cohabiting partner’s weekly household labor hours, and
perception of fairness of the division of household labor on work-life balance.
Also, an attempt in future research should be made to expand on the theoretical
concept of equity theory and resource dependence by including both income and
education into quantitative analyses (Braun et al. 2008; Walster and Berscheid 1978).
Both variables can point to the complexities of mechanisms that are in place which
determine spouses’ or cohabiting partners’ perception of fairness of the division of
household labor. According to Ruppanner’s research (2008), women in the Netherlands,
for example, perceive more fairness in the division of household labor when they have
more years of education. This is clearly the opposite of what would be expected since
education is treated as a proxy for resource dependence and gives women a legitimizing
mechanism to perceive the division of household labor as less fair (Braun et al. 2008).
Women’s higher income has been linked to a decreased perception of fairness of the
113
division of household labor. These legitimizing principles are intricately linked with
performing gender roles. The fact that spouses engage in “doing gender” (Ruppanner
2008:520; West and Zimmerman 1987:125) becomes even more complex when both
financially dependent and independent women engage in more household labor –
reaffirming traditional gender roles – to counteract resource inequities between
themselves and their husbands or male cohabiting partners.
Suggestions for Improvement
While research on work-life balance has pointed to factors such as more
flexibility in work hours, options to work from home, better fringe benefits, improved
maternity and paternity leave, and daily childcare and breastfeeding support at the
workplace that help women and men balance the work and home environment,
governmental institutions can also implement laws and regulations which support more
gender equality within a society (OECD 2010, Voydanoff 2004). Allowing the husband
or male cohabiting partner to take time off to care for an infant or child, and the
government improving the tax rate for second income earners are both steps toward a
more equal division of labor within the work and home environment. Institutionalized
paternity leave would support a gender role ideology that moves the father into the home
environment, encouraging men to take on a more equitable care-giving responsibility
without jeopardizing job loss or career advances. By means of structural governmental
changes in paternal leave policies, role-spillover could have positive effects in allowing
more male spouses or cohabiting partners to engage in physical and emotional work by
caring for newborns (Glavin and Schieman 2011; McMillan et al. 2011). Such structural
114
country-level changes in care-giving policies carry the potential to move gender role
ideology of a country in a more egalitarian direction, challenging the traditional
breadwinner model and enabling more men not only to perform ‘female tasks’ within the
home environment but to assume management of such housekeeping and care-giving
tasks (Sullivan 2000).
In this notion of receiving structural governmental support, better tax rates for
second income earners would allow more women to leave the home environment to
engage in the employment market without incurring higher tax rates for dual-income
families. Historically, women have been both assigned the duties of the home
environment and disadvantaged in the work environment. To this day, women are facing
the ‘double’ and ‘triple shift’ making it especially hard for them to manage work-life
balance (Hochschild 1989). While women on an individual level can stand up for more
equality in the division of household labor and at the workplace, it is also the society’s
responsibility to institutionalize gender equality. A continuous effort has to be made to
identify remaining inequalities and to keep them visible until they are addressed by the
governmental institutions. Further research studies are part of this continuous effort to
identify individual conditions and attitudes within a larger social and economic countrylevel context under which spouses or cohabiting partners divide their paid as well as
unpaid household labor and perceive work-life balance (Coltrane 2010). This research
study has attempted to point to some of the complexities of gender roles and how
remaining inequalities within the division of household labor affect male and female
spouses and cohabiting partners in managing their work-life balance.
115
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