What makes men change their housework time?

I report the first multivariate longitudinal analysis of men's housework time. My data come from the two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) conducted in 1987--88 and 1992--94. I use fixed effects models to analyze the predictors of changes in men's housework hours, and compare the results with those for women. First I determine the effects on housework time of entry into and exit from marital and cohabiting unions. I find that men reduce their housework time when they form (heterosexual) couple households, and increase it when they leave such households. Women do the opposite, increasing their housework time when they enter coresidential unions and reducing it when they exit. Next I analyze the predictors of changes in the housework time of men in stable coresidential unions at both times. I focus on the effects of changes in men's earnings relative to their spouses' or partners', and on the effects of changes in their own and their partners' employment hours. I find that changes in relative earnings do not affect men's housework time. Changes in employment hours matter, however: men add to their housework time when their employment hours are reduced, and when their partners' are increased. They reduce it with increases in their employment hours, and with reductions in their partners'. The results for women are similar. Finally I examine the predictors of changes in time spent on specific chores. For both men and women, it is the time spent on meal preparation---the most time-consuming task to begin with---that is most sensitive to changes in marital status and employment hours. Time spent on housecleaning and laundry, chores that both men and women describe as being the least pleasant, also is affected strongly by marital status and employment transitions. I conclude that like marital status transitions cause men's and women's housework time to diverge, while like changes in employment hours cause them to converge. Though it is difficult to draw macro conclusions from individual-level data, it is reasonable to infer from my findings that the increasing parity between men and women in labor force participation drives a narrowing of the gender gap in housework time.PhDDemographyIndividual and family studiesSocial SciencesSociologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/131662/2/9929838.pd