Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contribitors
- Introduction
- SECTION ONE THE EFFECT OF COGNITION ON INTERACTION PATTERNS
- SECTION TWO UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF POSITIVE INTERACTION
- SECTION THREE COPING WITH DISAPPOINTMENT, CRITICISM, AND BETRAYAL
- SECTION FOUR POWER, CONFLICT, AND VIOLENCE IN MARITAL INTERACTION
- Marital interaction at important transition periods
- Introduction to Section Five
- 14 Adult Attachment, the Transition to Parenthood, and Marital Well-Being
- 15 Allocation and Performance of Household Tasks: A Comparison of New Parents and Childless Couples
- 16 Care Giving and Its Influence on Marital Interactions between Older Spouses
- SECTION SIX Interventions for strengthening relationships
- Conclusions
- Index
- References
15 - Allocation and Performance of Household Tasks: A Comparison of New Parents and Childless Couples
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 July 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contribitors
- Introduction
- SECTION ONE THE EFFECT OF COGNITION ON INTERACTION PATTERNS
- SECTION TWO UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF POSITIVE INTERACTION
- SECTION THREE COPING WITH DISAPPOINTMENT, CRITICISM, AND BETRAYAL
- SECTION FOUR POWER, CONFLICT, AND VIOLENCE IN MARITAL INTERACTION
- Marital interaction at important transition periods
- Introduction to Section Five
- 14 Adult Attachment, the Transition to Parenthood, and Marital Well-Being
- 15 Allocation and Performance of Household Tasks: A Comparison of New Parents and Childless Couples
- 16 Care Giving and Its Influence on Marital Interactions between Older Spouses
- SECTION SIX Interventions for strengthening relationships
- Conclusions
- Index
- References
Summary
W: You have to race around and do the housework in between sleeps, and if the baby doesn't sleep during the day–which has happened a lot lately–you get nothing done, and you end up tired and cranky.
H: And then we fight.
W: You take all your frustrations out on each other.
H: Because I work – I work really hard outside. And I come home and I'm just so tired, and she's like ‘I've had this terrible day, and I haven't got any housework done, and I need some sleep,’ and I'm thinking ‘I really don't need this right now.’ And I think, ‘How hard could it be? Like, you just feed him and put him to sleep and then you go and do your stuff.’
Recent decades have seen marked changes in attitudes toward gender roles and in women's involvement in the labor force. Given these changes, it might seem reasonable to assume that families establish much more equitable patterns of domestic work today than they did in the past. Evidence suggests, however, that this is not the case. With the transition to parenthood, in particular, couples often move toward a traditional division of labor, in which women do the bulk of the child care and other household tasks; further, partners do not necessarily see this situation as “unfair.” In fact, perceptions of unfairness are only weakly linked to patterns of task performance, and seem to be shaped by many aspects of individual and couple functioning.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Understanding MarriageDevelopments in the Study of Couple Interaction, pp. 411 - 436Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
References
, & (1995). Beyond drudgery, power, and equity: Toward an expanded discourse on the moral dimensions of housework in families. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 57, 54–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belsky, J., & Kelly, J. (1994). The transition to parenthood: How a first child changes a marriage. New York: Delacorte Press
Bittman, M. (1991). Juggling time: How Australian families use time. Canberra, Australia: Office of the Status of Women, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
(1991). first-time mothers' accounts of inequality in the division of labour. Feminism and Psychology, 1, 221–246CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1999). Attempting to explain women's perceptions of the fairness of the division of housework. Journal of Family Studies, 5, 3–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , & (1993). Husbands at home: Predictors of paternal participation in childcare and housework. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 1154–1166CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feeney, J. A., Noller, P., & Hanrahan, M. (1994). Assessing adult attachment: Developments in the conceptualization of security and insecurity. In M. B. Sperling & W. H. Berman (Eds.), Attachment in adults: Theory, assessment and treatment (pp. 128–152). New York: Guilford
Goodnow, J. J., & Bowes, J. M. (1994). Men, women, and household work. Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press
(1996). Husbands' participation in domestic labor: Interactive effects of wives' and husbands' gender ideologies. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58, 585–595CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, & (1992). Changes in the marital relationship after the first baby is born: Predicting the impact of expectancy disconfirmation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 944–957CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, & (1986). The division of labor in contemporary marriage: Expectations, perceptions, and performance. Social Problems, 33, 191–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huston, T. L., & Vangelisti, A. L. (1995). How parenthood affects marriage. In M. A. Fitzpatrick & A. L. Vangelisti (Eds.), Explaining family interactions (pp. 147–176). Thousand Oaks, CA: SageCrossRef
, & (1998). The perils of love, or why wives adapt to husbands during the transition to parenthood. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60, 195–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , & (1996). Marital conflict about the division of household labor and paid work. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58, 958–969CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovibond, S. H., & Lovibond, P. F. (1995). Manual for the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) (2nd ed.). Sydney, Australia: Psychology Foundation of Australia
Major, B. (1987). Gender, justice, and the psychology of entitlement. In P. Shaver & C. Hendrick (Eds.), Sex and gender (pp. 124–148). Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Marvin, R. S., & Stewart, R. B. (1990). A family systems framework for the study of attachment. In M. T. Greenberg, D. Cicchetti, & E. M. Cummings (Eds.), Attachment in the preschool years: Theory, research, and intervention (pp. 51–86). Chicago: University of Chicago Press
, & (1987). Household division of labour: The impact of hours worked in paid employment. Australian Journal of Psychology, 39, 273–291CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, & (1998). Wives' and husbands' housework reporting: Gender, class, and social desirability. Gender and Society, 12, 188–218CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, & (1998). Back to the basics: Trends in and role determinants of women's attitudes toward housework. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60, 205–218CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothbard, J. C., & Shaver, P. R. (1994). Continuity of attachment across the life span. In M. B. Sperling & W. H. Berman (Eds.), Attachment in adults: Theory, assessment, and treatment (pp. 31–71). New York: Guilford
, , , & (1988). Changes in the marital relationship during the transition to first time motherhood: Effects of violated expectations concerning division of household labor. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 78–87CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, & (1996). Women's and men's constructions of perceptions of housework fairness. Journal of Family Issues, 17, 358–387CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, & (1997). Becoming mothers and fathers: Parenthood, gender, and the division of labor. Gender and Society, 11, 747–772CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, P. (1994). Love between equals: How peer marriage really works. New York: Free Press
(1990). The distribution of household tasks: Does wife's employment status make a difference? Journal of Family Issues, 11, 115–135CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1979). Multidimensional assessment of marital satisfaction. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 41, 813–823CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1976). Measuring dyadic adjustment: New scales for assessing the quality of marriage and similar dyads. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 38, 15–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , & (1991). Role dissatisfaction and the decline in marital quality across the transition to parenthood. Australian Journal of Psychology, 43, 129–132CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(1991). Family work: Women's sense of fairness. Journal of Family Issues, 12, 181–196CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , & (1999). Meaning and measurement: Reconceptualizing measures of the division of household labor. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61, 712–724CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, R. L. (1980). Strategic behavioral marital therapy: Toward a model for assessment and intervention. In J. P. Vincent (Ed.), Advances in family intervention, assessment and theory (Vol. 1, pp. 229–271). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press
Wolcott, I. (1997). Work and family. In D. de Vaus & I. Wolcott (Eds.), Australian family profiles: Social and demographic patterns (pp. 82–89). Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies
Wolcott, I., & Glezer, H. (1995). Work and family life: Achieving integration. Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies
- 2
- Cited by