Time Availability and Relative Resources as Determinants of the Sexual Division of Domestic Work

Based on data from the 1992 Canadian General Social Survey on time-use, the time spent in housework and in child care are analyzed for women and men who are working full-time in dual-earner families. It is found that living with children under 19 years of age increases the average time spent in housework and child care and reduces that in paid work for both men and women. Time availability considerations, associated with the time demands of the family and the capacity to respond given the time in paid work, are found to be important determinants, especially for time spent in child care. However, there were also important elements of gender asymmetry in the results, pointing to the importance of relative resources and gender itself as relevant considerations. In particular, women\u27s time in housework is increased when their husbands spend more time in paid work, but men are not affected by the employment time of their wives. In addition, women do less housework when they earn more than half of family income