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http://jfi.sagepub.com/content/28/3/399The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0192513X06296427
2007 28: 399Journal of Family IssuesKarsten Hank and Hendrik Jrges
European PerspectiveGender and the Division of Household Labor in Older Couples : A
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Gender and the Division ofHousehold Labor inOlder Couples
A European Perspective
Karsten Hank
Hendrik JrgesMannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging,University of Mannheim, Germany
Using microdata from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in
Europe (SHARE), this study takes a cross-national perspective to investigate
the division of household labor among older couples (aged 50 years or more).
Across nine continental European countries, the authors find considerable
variation in the overall distribution of housework between partners, withmore egalitarian countries in northern Europe and more traditional countries
in southern Europe. A multilevel analysis shows that about half of the
between-country variance in the division of housework is due to differences
in older couples characteristics, but that there are no country-specific effects
of the main microlevel explanatory variables. Finally, the authors find a sig-
nificant effect of macrolevel gender inequalities on couples division of
housework, suggesting that older couples living in more gender-egalitarian
countries are more likely to exhibit an equal sharing of household labor.
Keywords: gender; division of household labor; older couples; Europe;
SHARE
Research on productive aging is growing rapidly (cf. Morrow-Howell,Hinterlong, & Sherraden, 2001; OReilly & Caro, 1994). Most of therelated literature deals with involvement of the elderly in volunteering (e.g.,
Caro & Bass, 1995; Erlinghagen & Hank, 2006), grandparenting (e.g.,
Hayslip & Kaminski, 2005; Pebley & Rudkin, 1999), or other work usuallyperformed for parties outside the individuals household. However, work
performed within ones own household also has a substantial economic
value. Without home production, one would have to buy substantially
Journal of Family Issues
Volume 28 Number 3
March 2007 399-421
2007 Sage Publications
10.1177/0192513X06296427
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399
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more household services on the market (e.g., de Ruijter, Treas, & Cohen,
2005; Stoller & Cutler, 1993). Although gender differences in other types
of unpaid or informal work are also recognized (e.g., Herzog & Morgan,1992; Hook, 2004), they are particularly pronounced in the division of
housework between spouses. Despite some changes across cohorts, with
more recently born women doing less and their male partners doing
somewhat more (both relative and total), today men generally contribute
at most one third of core housework tasks (e.g., Bianchi, Milkie, Sayer,
Folbre, & Matheson, 2000; Breen & Cooke, 2005; Shelton & John, 1996).
Several studies dealing with postretirement changes in couples division
of household labor show that the total amount of housework done mayincrease after retirement for both men and women, but that the traditional
preretirement pattern largely persists (e.g., Dorfman, 1992; Solomon,
Acock, & Walker, 2004; Szinovacz, 2000). So far, however, the division of
household labor among older couples has not been analyzed in a cross-
national perspective. Recent investigations for the general population
strongly suggest that macrolevel factors, particularly gender inequalities,
play a significant role in the distribution of housework between spouses
(e.g., Breen & Cooke, 2005; Davis & Greenstein, 2004; Fuwa, 2004).Using data on couples aged 50 and older derived from the Survey of
Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), this article estimates
hierarchical linear models to investigate the relationship between societal
context and the division of routine household labor in nine continental
European countries. Before presenting the empirical analysis, we will
briefly review the linkage between micro- and macrolevel aspects of
gender and housework.
400 Journal of Family Issues
Authors Note: Both authors contributed equally to this article. We are grateful for comments
by two anonymous reviewers. This research was supported by the European Community Fifth
Framework Programs Quality of Life project under EC Contract QLK6-2002-002426
(AMANDA). This article is based on data from Early Release 1 of SHARE 2004, which is pre-
liminary and may contain errors that will be corrected in later releases. The SHARE data col-
lection has been funded primarily by the European Commission through the Fifth Framework
Program (Quality of Life Project QLK6-CT-2001-00360). Additional funding came from the
U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01 AG09740-13S2, P01 AG005842, P01 AG08291, P30
AG12815, Y1-AG-4553-01, and OGHA 04-064). Data collection in Austria (through theAustrian Science Fund, FWF) and Switzerland (through BBW/OFES/UFES) was nationally
funded. Please address correspondence to Karsten Hank, Mannheim Research Institute for the
Economics of Aging, University of Mannheim, Building L 13, 17, D-68131 Mannheim,
Germany; e-mail: [email protected].
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Gender and the Division of Housework
Various economic models play a prominent role in much of the literatureon household labor. Although the new home economics approach, put forward
by Becker (1981), proposes that men and women specialize to maximize
household utility or efficiency, the resourcebargaining power perspective
focuses on power relations in the family (based on, for example, educational
or income differentials between the partners), and the economic dependency
model is centered on the assumption that women are forced to exchange
household labor in return for economic support from a male breadwinner (cf.
Brines, 1993; Greenstein, 2000, for example). These theories are compatiblewith general formulations of the relative resource hypothesis (a person with
higher income will do less housework) and the time availability hypothesis (a
person who spends more time in paid work will spend less time in house-
work), which are putatively gender neutral, emphasize choice, and assume
that housework allocation is governed by the rules and principles of exchange
relations (Coltrane, 2000, p. 1214; see also Shelton & John, 1996, pp. 304ff.).
However, it has been suggested that womens employment, time avail-
ability, resources, conscious ideology, and power do not account for whywives still do the bulk of family work (Thompson & Walker, 1989, p. 857)
regardless of demographic or life-course characteristics. The partners
gender appears to be so influential that it is often considered to be the sin-
gle most important determinant of the division of household labor. Theories
on socializationgender role attitudes, for example, contend that people
socialized to believe in gender-segregated work will conform to those
beliefs (e.g., Coverman, 1985; Cunningham, 2005). Thus, men and women
with traditional attitudes are expected to share less housework, whereas
men and women with nontraditional attitudes are expected to share house-
work more equally. It is assumed that people are automatically socialized
into rigid gender roles from childhood onward, going along with the devel-
opment of relatively fixed attitudes and/or deeply gendered personalities.
These strict assumptions are rejected by more recent gender construction
theories that incorporate the symbolic and performance dimensions of gender
(cf. Shelton & John, 1996). As Coltrane (2000) posits, Doing specific house-
hold tasks provides opportunities to demonstrate to oneself and to others that
one is a competent member of a sex category with the capacity and desire toperform appropriately gendered behaviors (p. 1213). Thus, housework pro-
duces not only household commodities but also gendered identities through-
out the life course.
Hank, Jrges / Division of Household Labor 401
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Gender ideology determines what a proper gender role is. Just as gender
ideologies vary across individuals (e.g., Greenstein, 1996), the social con-
struction of gender is highly context dependent and varies across nations orcultures. Mason (1997) defines the societal gender system as
the socially constructed expectations for male and female behavior that are
found (in variable form) in every human society. A gender systems expecta-
tions prescribe a division of labor and responsibilities between women and
men and grant different rights and obligations to them. (p. 158)
Resulting macrolevel gender inequalitiesthat may be promoted or ame-
liorated by the welfare state (Orloff, 1996; see also Geist, 2005)materi-
alize in various spheres (cf. Huber, 1990) such as the educational system
(e.g., Jacobs, 1996), the labor market (e.g., Chang, 2000), or the political
arena (e.g., Elder, 2004). Naturally, they are also reflected in spouses divi-
sion of work in the family (e.g., Sarkisian & Gerstel, 2004; Sundstrm &
Duvander, 2002; Thompson & Walker, 1989) and in the household. Thus,
Coltrane (2000) suggests that the almost universally observed pattern of
household labor
can only be understood by attending to the symbolic significance of house-
hold labor in the social construction of gender and by analyzing the social,
cultural, economic, and political contexts in which men and women form
families, raise children, and sustain households. (p. 1208)
Starting from Baxters (1997) five-country studycovering the United
States, Sweden, Norway, Canada, and Australiaa number of studies have
explicitly investigated the division of housework in advanced industrializedsocieties from a cross-national perspective (for an analysis of less devel-
oped countries, see, for example, Sanchez, 1993, 1994). A universal find-
ing is that wives contribution to household chores is still greater than their
husbands, even in the most egalitarian countries (e.g., Davis & Greenstein,
2004). More differentiated insights can be derived from recent work using
multilevel modeling. For example, Batalova and Cohen (2002), who focus
on the role of premarital cohabitation, show that national cohabitation rates
in countries with higher levels of overall gender equality have equalizing
effects on couples division of housework regardless of their own cohabita-
tion experience. Fuwa (2004) elaborates on the role of macrolevel gender
inequalities, arguing that male control over the political economy and
male dominated ideologies at the macrolevel may act as discount factors
402 Journal of Family Issues
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against the power of individual womens resources (p. 752; see also
Blumberg, 1984). Thus, she expects that individual-level factors will have
weaker effects on the division of household labor for women who live incountries with less pronounced gender equalityand vice versa. Using the
same data source (the 1994 International Social Survey Programme; ISSP)
and selection of 22 countries on which the study by Batalova and Cohen
(2002) is based, Fuwa (2004) indeed finds that women living in less egalitar-
ian countries benefit less from their individual assets in the negotiation of
housework. This is supported by an analysis of a subset of countries from the
1994 ISSP, which shows that equal sharing of household tasks is particularly
rare in countries with a conservative welfare state regime, independent ofthe partners relative resources, time availability, or gender ideology (Geist,
2005). Finally, utilizing the 2002 ISSP on Gender Roles, Stier and Lewin-
Epstein (2005) examine the effects of employment-supportive policies,
gender inequalities in the labor market, and general attitudes toward gender
roles on households division of unpaid work in 25 countries. Although it is
shown that employment policies have no direct effect on couples division of
labor, the authors findings suggest that gender inequalities in the labor
market and a countrys gender ideologies do affect the level of gender equal-ity in the family.
To our knowledge, though, no cross-national research has been carried
out yet that pays particular attention to the gendered division of household
labor among older couples. Filling in this gap for continental Europe, our
study complements recent time-use research that points to significant inter-
gender and intercountry differences in time-use patterns at older ages (cf.
Croda & Gonzalez-Chapela, 2005; Gauthier & Smeeding, 2003). It also
adds a European perspective to the so far almost exclusively U.S.-centered
literature on the division of housework in later life, particularly after retire-
ment. And finally, it investigates possible interactions between couple char-
acteristics and the households country of residence in determining patterns
of household labor.
Method
Data
The data for our study are drawn from the 2004 SHARE (see http://www
.share-project.org for more information). The SHARE is modeled closely
after the U.S. Health and Retirement Study, and it is the first European data
Hank, Jrges / Division of Household Labor 403
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set to combine extensive cross-national information about the socioeco-
nomic status, health, and family relationships of the elderly population (see
Brsch-Supan et al., 2005). Release 1 of the data contains informationabout some 22,000 individuals aged 50 or older from 15,000 households in
10 countries, representing Europes economic, social, institutional, and cul-
tural diversity from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, including Sweden,
Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, France (excluded from our study
because of missing macrolevel information), Switzerland, Austria, Italy,
Spain, and Greece. Probability samples have been drawn in each participat-
ing country; the weighted average household response rate in the face-to-face
part of the survey is 62 percent (a thorough description of methodologicalissues is contained in Brsch-Supan & Jrges, 2005).1 Our analytic sample
was restricted (a) to respondents living in a marital or nonmarital union at the
time of the interview and (b) to couples for whom at least one partner filled
out the surveys self-completion questionnaire (which includes the question
on which our dependent variable is based). This results in a total of 4,135
observations (see Table 1 for details).
VariablesThis article deals with routine housework (Coltrane, 2000, p. 1210). The
construction of the dependent variable modifies Davis and Greensteins
(2004) measure, taking advantage of the fact that the SHARE provides both
partners assessments of who takes the primary responsibility for routine
household chores (see Lee & Waite, 2005, for a discussion of alternative mea-
sures). This is a major improvement over existing data sets such as the ISSP.
The (generic) English version of the SHARE questionnaire asks, Who in the
couple takes or took the main responsibility for cooking, cleaning the house,laundry and ironing? with five answer categories: myself only, myself
mainly, myself and my partner equally, my partner mainly, and my
partner only (coded 1 through 5). Because this question was posed to both
partners, responses were relabeled to distinguish husbands from wives. To
account for possible discrepancies in spouses responses (cf. Kamo, 2000;
Lee & Waite, 2005), we use the mean of their respective answers. This infor-
mation has been recoded, resulting in a variable ranging from 0 (both part-
ners agree that the wife does all housework) to 1 (both partners agree that thehusband does all housework).2
On the right-hand side of the regression, we use a set of standard micro-
level explanatory variables including the partners age, education, (gross)
income,3 employment status, and health, as well as information about the
404 Journal of Family Issues
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405
Table1
DescriptiveStatistics
Austria
Germany
Sweden
Netherlands
Spain
Italy
Denmark
Greece
Switzerland
Genderdivisionofhouseholdlabor
.203
.242
.262
.252
.156
.179
.295
.130
.2
45
Proportionofcoupleswith
.105
.172
.167
.166
.088
.112
.236
.065
.1
43
equaldivision
oflabora
Maleincomefemaleincome
.630
.681
.550
.738
.739
.678
.519
.692
.6
35
Maleinlaborfor
ce
.241
.315
.405
.348
.255
.227
.467
.408
.4
29
Femaleinlaborforce
.200
.293
.450
.270
.126
.154
.462
.214
.3
81
Unmarriedcoupl
e
.038
.048
.083
.039
.076
.017
.077
.012
.0
48
Couplesmeanage
62.268
62.900
63.664
62.004
65.309
62.922
61.228
60.511
63.2
35
Malefemaleage
difference
3.005
2.513
2.898
2.736
2.730
3.663
3.014
5.750
2.8
62
Male,higheduca
tionaldegreeb
.272
.366
.298
.261
.070
.085
.336
.220
.3
12
Female,highedu
cationaldegreeb
.143
.235
.312
.139
.035
.098
.379
.144
.1
90
Householdincom
e(naturallog)
9.456
10.178
10.689
10.527
9.133
9.202
10.857
9.169
10.4
27
Maleretiredfrom
laborforce
.697
.589
.554
.495
.651
.746
.484
.557
.5
19
Femaleretiredfromlaborforce
.470
.431
.461
.140
.135
.368
.427
.241
.3
92
Numberofchildren
2.107
1.939
2.540
2.434
2.727
2.137
2.353
2.079
2.2
28
Malecaresforgrandchildren
.277
.284
.339
.392
.267
.222
.362
.199
.2
01
Femalecaresfor
grandchildren
.339
.332
.415
.446
.349
.305
.396
.230
.2
17
Malelimitedbyhealthproblems
.437
.479
.390
.367
.393
.327
.387
.246
.2
75
Femalelimitedb
yhealthproblems
.425
.503
.423
.476
.487
.376
.405
.250
.3
33
Onlymaleresponseavailable
.036
.032
.099
.068
.023
.066
.048
.030
.0
53
Onlyfemaleresp
onseavailable
.050
.031
.106
.080
.023
.051
.066
.046
.0
16
GEM
.746
.849
1.000
.888
.583
.181
.979
.000
.7
49
N
419
587
605
664
341
410
351
569
189
Note:GEM=
Un
itedNationsgenderempowermentmeasure.
a.Shareofcoupl
eswithvaluesequaltoorlargerthan.5forthedivisionofho
useworkvariable.
b.InternationalS
tandardClassificationofEducationcategories4orhigher.
Source:SHARE
2004(Release1),authorscalc
ulations.
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partnersmarital status and family responsibilities (see Table 1 for descriptive
statistics). One advantage of our data is that we have true couple information,
that is, individual data for each question asked of each partner. This advan-tage also complicates matters because each individual variable type enters the
analyses twice. Overall, we have thus opted for rather parsimonious but
robust specifications.
We measure household income by the relative income position in each
country. More precisely, we compute country-specific income quintiles,
which enter the regression as a set of dummy variables. This has the addi-
tional advantage of combining flexibility in functional specification with ease
of interpretation. We treat differences in the partners income as an indicatorof relative resources. Relative income of partners is coded as a set of dummy
variables for which the baseline category represents couples whose individ-
ual income is in the same country-specific (individual) income quintile. Thus,
the two dummy variables indicate whether the female partner is in a higher
or lower income quintile than the male partner.
Employment status is used as an indicator of time availability. In the
SHARE, respondents are asked to self-report employment status by select-
ing one of the following categories: (a) retired, (b) employed or self-employed, (c) unemployed, (d) permanently sick or disabled, and (e)
homemaker. We code as working all respondents who say they are currently
employed or self-employed. The employment status variable is also used to
create an indicator for past labor force status (retired), which may have last-
ing effects for retired couples (see below for a discussion).
Because less traditional gender ideologies have been shown to be closely
associated with cohabitation (Batalova & Cohen, 2002; Cunningham, 2005;
South & Spitze, 1994), union type is used to account for the gender ideol-
ogy dimension at the level of couples.
We measure the age (or cohort; this is equivalent in cross-sectional data)
of a couple by the average age of both partners. Age differences between
partners, which might indicate intracouple power relationships, are also
included as control variables. They are measured as the male age minus the
female age. Education enters the analysis as one dummy variable for high
education for each partner, where high education is equivalent to an
International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) code of 4 or
higher (beyond upper secondary education).Past and current family responsibilities are measured by the number
of children the couple has and by a dummy variable that equals 1 if the
respondent said that during the past 12 months, he or she has regularly or
406 Journal of Family Issues
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occasionally looked after grandchildren without the presence of the
parents.
The SHARE contains a large amount of information about the respon-dents health status (including specific diagnoses, symptoms, etc.). In the
context of our study, we are particularly interested in the effect of health-
related limitations on daily activities (such as housework). Our health indi-
cator is derived from a global activity limitation question: For the past 6
months at least, to what extent have you been limited because of a health
problem in activities people usually do? (1) severely limited, (2) limited, but
not severely, (3) not limited. In the empirical part, we do not distinguish
between degrees of limitation.Our main concern, however, is the role of societal factors in older cou-
ples division of household labor. Like Batalova and Cohen (2002) and
Fuwa (2004), we use the United Nations gender empowerment measure
(GEM; see United Nations Development Program, 2004) as a core measure
of macrolevel gender inequalities. The GEM is an index based on the per-
centage of parliamentary seats held by women, the percentage of female
administrators and managers, the percentage of professional and technical
workers who are women, and womens share of earnings income. It rangesfrom 0 to 1, where higher scores represent greater levels of empowerment
for women. Because the GEM is not available for France, this country was
excluded from our analysis.
Analytical Strategy
To investigate the interaction between micro- and macrolevel determinants
of older couples division of household labor, we estimate hierarchical linear
models (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992). This and similar kinds of multilevel
modeling have become a popular alternative to estimating separate models
for each country (or other levels of context) in the analysis (see Teachman &
Crowder, 2002, for a review). We follow a stepwise procedure, starting with
the empty Model 0, which includes no independent variables at all and
examines the overall couple- and country-level variances. In Model 1, all
couple-level characteristics are entered into the regression with fixed effects
across countries. In Model 2, we allow the coefficients of the three main
couple-level variablesthe malefemale income gap, the partners employ-ment status, and union typeto vary across countries. Finally, Model 3
includes cross-level interactions between the GEM and the intercept as well
as the slopes of the three main couple-level variables.
Hank, Jrges / Division of Household Labor 407
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Empirical Findings
Before presenting our multivariate results, we will briefly discuss twomain descriptive findings, displayed in Figure 1. First, there is an obvious
northsouth divide in the gender division of labor in the SHARE countries.
This is reflected in the distribution of the proportion of couples in which the
partners share household tasks equally (including the small number of cases
where the husband does more). Although, for example, in Greece and Spain
less than 10 percent of couples aged 50 and older exhibit an equal division of
labor in the household, this is the case in about 17 percent of Dutch, German,
and Swedish couples. The top rank is held by the Danes, where one out offour couples shares core household tasks equally.4 Second, there is strong
indication for a close relationship between the division of household labor
among older couples and macrolevel gender inequalities.5 Plotting the pro-
portion of couples with an equal division of housework against the GEM
reveals a clear positive association. The four countries with above average
proportions of older couples sharing housework equallythe Netherlands,
Sweden, Germany, and Denmarkare also the ones with the highest GEM
scores (.8 or more). Similar associations are also found with single items ofGEM, such as the proportion of female members of parliament or the
femalemale wage ratio (details not shown here).
We now turn to the multivariate analysis (see Table 2; note that positive
coefficients indicate a larger share of the male partner in total housework).
In Model 0, the between-country variance of the intercept is statistically
significant. The variance components in this empty model suggest that
about 10 percent of the overall variance in the division of housework is due
to between-country variance (cf. Bryk & Raudensbush, 1992). A similar
order of magnitude is reported in the studies by Fuwa (2004) and Stier and
Lewin-Epstein (2005), for example. Including couple-level variables in
Model 1 reduces the variance of country-level intercepts by almost half
(from .0030 to .0017) and the couple-level variance by 7 percent (from
.0279 to .0259). Turning to our main microlevel explanatory variables, we
find an asymmetric effect of relative income: Men with a lower income than
their female partners tend to do somewhat more housework than those hav-
ing about the same income as their partners (where equal income is defined
as being in the same income quintile), but the difference is not statisticallysignificant (cf. Bittman, England, Sayer, Folbre, & Matheson, 2003).
However, if the wife earns less than her husband, the husbands share in
household duties is significantly lower than in couples with about equal
408 Journal of Family Issues
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income. With regard to time availability, we find that mens participation
in the labor force also decreases males participation in household chores,
whereas if the female partner engages in paid work, her husbands share of
household labor increases. Finally, living in a nonmarital union also increases
mens participation in housework strongly, supporting the view that cohabi-
tation goes hand in hand with less traditional gender ideologies.Both male and female higher education, which is also likely to be posi-
tively correlated with less traditional gender ideologies, contributes to a
more gender-equal division of housework (e.g., Coltrane, 2000). Older
Hank, Jrges / Division of Household Labor 409
Figure 1
Gender Empowerment Measure and Shares of Couples With
Egalitarian Division of Household Labor Across Europe
Note: at = Austria; ch = Switzerland; de = Germany; dk= Denmark; es = Spain; gr = Greece;
it = Italy; nl = Netherlands; se = Sweden.
Source: SHARE 2004 (Release 1), authors representation.
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410
Table2
DeterminantsofCouples
DivisionofHousework:ResultsofHierarchicalLinearModels
Model0
Model1
Model2
Model3
SE
SE
SE
SE
Intercept
.2176**
.0184
.2177**
.0147
.2175**
.0141
.2172**
0.0064
GEM
.1168**
0.0194
Maleincomefemaleincomea
.0234**
.0065
.0246*
.0077
.0246*
0.0088
GEM
.0089
0.0250
Maleinlaborfor
ceb
.0454**
.0111
.0461**
.0117
.0452**
0.0119
GEM
.0227
0.0212
Femaleinlaborforceb
.0618**
.0079
.0616**
.0086
.0620**
.0096
GEM
.0115
.0252
Unmarriedcoupl
e
.0493**
.0121
.0600**
.0160
.0527*
.0177
GEM
.0364
.0592
Couplesmeanage
.0021**
.0005
.0021**
.0005
.0022**
.0005
Malefemaleage
difference
.0002
.0006
.0002
.0006
.0001
.0006
Male,higheduca
tionaldegree
.0147*
.0067
.0152*
.0066
.0150*
.0066
Female,highedu
cationaldegree
.0161*
.0075
.0157*
.0075
.0170*
.0075
Householdincom
e,1stquintile
.0118
.0083
.0113
.0082
.0123
.0083
Householdincom
e,2ndquintile
.0109
.0082
.0104
.0081
.0102
.0081
Householdincom
e,4thquintile
.0099
.0082
.0099
.0081
.0093
.0082
Householdincom
e,5thquintile
.0080
.0084
.0068
.0084
.0071
.0084
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411
Maleretiredfrom
laborforceb
.0149
.0116
.0156
.0115
.0139
.0116
Femaleretiredfromlaborforceb
.0226**
.0074
.0234**
.0073
.0244**
.0074
Numberofchildr
en
.0106**
.0020
.0105**
.0020
.0108**
.0020
Malecaresforgr
andchildren
.0145
.0084
.0147
.0084
.0148
.0084
Femalecaresfor
grandchildren
.0178
.0081
.0174
.0081
.0177*
.0081
Malelimitedbyhealthproblems
.0008
.0056
.0007
.0055
.0004
.0055
Femalelimitedbyhealthproblems
.0152**
.0054
.0147**
.0054
.0142**
.0054
Onlymalerespon
seavailable
.0422**
.0114
.0413**
.0114
.0409**
.0114
Onlyfemaleresp
onseavailable
.0310**
.0110
.0305**
.0109
.0298**
.0110
Variancecompon
ents
Intercept
.0030**
.0017**
.0017**
.0002**
Maleincomefemaleincome
.0002
.0002
Maleinlaborforce
.0001
.0001
Femaleinlaborf
orce
.0001
.0002
Unmarriedcouple
.0010
.0008
Level1
.0279
.0259
.0257
.0257
Note:GEM=
Un
itedNationsgenderempowermentmeasure.
a.Referencecategory:maleincome=
femalein
come.
b.Referencecate
gory:males(females,respectiv
ely)whoareneitheremployed
norretired.
significantat10%.
*significantat5%.
**signific
antat1%.
Source:SHARE2004(Release1),authorscalc
ulations.
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412 Journal of Family Issues
couples (i.e., those with a higher mean age) exhibit the expected more tra-
ditional pattern of housework, whereas the age difference between the part-
ners has no significant effect. Similarly, the coefficients of the dummyvariables for different levels of household income turn out to be statistically
insignificant. However, there is some indication for a nonlinear relationship
between mens participation in household tasks and household income: The
negative coefficients for the lowest and highest income quintiles suggest
that the contribution of the male partner might be lowest at the upper and
lower bounds of the income distribution.
If the woman has retired, her husbands share of household labor
increases. At first glance, this might seem to be a surprising result, contra-dicting findings of previous studies (e.g., Szinovacz, 2000). In our model,
however, the reference category consists of women who are neither gainfully
employed nor retired. Because these are mostly housewives, retirement in our
model is an indicator of womens previous labor force participation, which
is likely to facilitate a somewhat more equal division of housework between
the partners even after retirement (assuming continuity in household roles;
e.g., Dorfman, 1992).6 Male retirement tends to be negatively correlated
with the dependent variable, but the respective coefficient is not statisticallysignificant.
Family obligations have an effect on older couples division of house-
hold labor in the senses that an increase in the number of children is asso-
ciated with a decrease in males participation in household chores and that
men caring for grandchildren also take larger responsibilities within their
own households. Limitations by health problems are not significant if they
affect men, but they do result in a stronger engagement of the husband in
household duties if the female partners health is limited. As a final couple-
level control variable, we use information about whether only the male or
only the female partner answered the question about the division of house-
work. Consistent with previous studies (e.g., Kamo, 2000), mens involve-
ment in household chores is reported to be stronger if the informant is a
man himself, whereas it appears to be significantly weaker if only the
wifes response is available (see below for further discussion).
Allowing the relative resources, time availability, and gender ideology
indicators to vary across countries in Model 2 does not change the coeffi-
cients derived from the previous model. The variance components for theslopes of the respective variables are not statistically significant, which
means that their effects do not differ by country. Model 3 finally includes
the GEMs effect on the intercept and on the slopes of the malefemale
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Hank, Jrges / Division of Household Labor 413
income gap, the partners employment status, and union type. The coeffi-
cient for the effect of the GEM on the intercept is .1168 and is statistically
significant. This means that holding constant microlevel characteristics,mens contribution to housework in more gender-egalitarian countries is
substantially larger than elsewhere. Moreover, including the GEM reduces
the remaining between-country variance of the intercept by almost 90
percent, from .0017 to .0002! However, as already indicated in Model 2,
the coefficients for the main microlevel variables generally do not vary
between countries with higher or lower GEM scores. The only exception is
the marginally significant effect of the GEM on the slope of the male
income < female income dummy, suggesting that men in countries withhigher values of GEM contribute somewhat more housework if they earn
less than their female partner, whereas this is not the case in countries with
lower values of GEM.
Following a reviewers recommendation, we also estimated Model 3
separately for men and women (see appendix). As expected from our own
previous findings, the predicted average division of household labor is
larger in the male model (.2317) than in the female model (.2031). In
particular, the positive association between mens contribution to house-hold chores and cohabitation or health limitations of the female partner
appears to be stronger if the interviewee is male. Moreover, the variance
of country-level intercepts is larger in the male model (.0018 vs. .0005),
pointing to a greater cross-national heterogeneity in mens than in
womens responses to the housework question in the SHARE. In contrast
to the initial (couple-level) Model 3 and the male model, the positive
effect of the GEM on the cohabitation slope is marginally significant if the
respondent is female. This finding, however, cannot be considered as suf-
ficiently robust to argue that gender ideology would be more effective in
attaining a more egalitarian division of housework in more gender-equal
countries.
Discussion
Using microdata from the SHARE, this study is the first to investigate
the division of household labor among older couples in a cross-nationalperspective. Across continental Europe, we find considerable variation in
the overall distribution of household labor. One may roughly distinguish
between more egalitarian countries in northern Europe, such as Sweden and
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414 Journal of Family Issues
particularly Denmark, on one hand, and more traditional countries in the
southern parts of Europe, above all Spain and Greece, on the other hand.
Because we are dealing with cohorts born in 1954 or earlier, it is not sur-prising to find a generally lower level of mens participation in housework
than might have been expected from studies that are representative of the
whole population (e.g., Davis & Greenstein, 2004, p. 1265).
The outcome of the multivariate analysis suggests an asymmetric, that is,
gendered, effect of the partners relative income. If the wife earns less than
her husband, for example, the husbands share in household duties is signifi-
cantly lower than in couples with about equal income, but there is no statis-
tically significant effect of relative income if the reverse case is considered.Mens participation in the labor force decreases males participation in
household chores, whereas the female partners engagement in paid work
increases her husbands share of household labor. In addition to this support
for the time-availability hypothesis, we find evidence that less traditional
gender ideologiesindicated by cohabitation and higher education
contribute to a more gender-equal division of housework. However, our
multilevel analysis reveals no country-specific effects of these couple-level
characteristics. The latter finding is different from Fuwa (2004), who pro-vides evidence that relevant microlevel factors have weaker effects on the
division of household labor for women who live in countries with less pro-
nounced gender equality. The lack of support for the macrolevel discount fac-
tor argument in our study may result from a common baseline level of gender
equality in our sample of nine countries, which might be too high to allow the
identification of effects such as those revealed in Fuwas analysis of 22 more
diverse nations.
Although our results point to a greater cross-national heterogeneity in
mens than in womens responses to the housework question in the SHARE,
a general finding is that about half of the between-country variance in the
division of housework is due to cross-country differences in couples
characteristics. Still, we find a significant effect of macrolevel gender
inequalities on couples division of housework. Even when controlling for
individual characteristics of the household, couples living in countries
with higher scores of GEM are more likely to exhibit an equal sharing of
household labor (see Figure 1). Discussing the mechanisms through which
gender empowerment may work, Batalova and Cohen (2002) suggest thatnorms about the division of labor may . . . be affected by womens visi-
bility in positions of public authority and prestige (p. 753). This points to
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Hank, Jrges / Division of Household Labor 415
the role of broader cultural mechanisms in shaping cross-national variations
in the division of household laborand although the GEM accounts for a
major share of the between-country variance in the distribution of house-work, our analysis still points to the presence of (statistically) significant,
unobserved macrolevel heterogeneity. Bianchi et al. (2000) conclude that
much of the increase in mens share of housework observed in younger U.S.
cohorts is because of their increased willingness to perform this labor,
which is likely to have resulted from
changed attitudes about what is expected, reasonable, and fair for men to
contribute to the maintenance of their home [. . . as well as from . . .] cul-tural change in ideas about womens work. It is likely more acceptable for
men to cook and clean, indeed, welcomed, for men to show competence at
making a home-cooked meal, for example. (p. 219)
Such intertemporal cultural changes are visible as cross-cultural differences
in our investigation.7
This study has some limitations that call for further research. First and
foremost, the current SHARE data allow only a cross-sectional view. Thatis, we cannot observe actual changes in housework after retirement. Our
rough cross-sectional evidence as well as previous U.S. research suggests
that such changes tend to be small. However, the magnitude of these
changes is likely not only to increase in the future (when new generations
of more highly educated women will enter retirement), but also to vary
across national contexts. Exploiting such intertemporal and intercountry
variations should be a promising field for future research. Second, com-
pared to the ISSP, for example, the sample of countries currently repre-
sented in the SHARE is relatively small. In particular, former Socialist
societies are yet missing. Future studies of the division of housework
among older couples should not only aim at an extension of the spatial and
time dimensions of their analyses, though. They should, third, also try at the
microlevel to account for complementary productive activities of elders
inside and outside their own homes (see Hook, 2004) and at the macrolevel
to include indicators that allow development of a better grasp of the cultural
factors contributing to the persistence of the gendered division of (house-
hold) labor.8 Although some suggestions in this latter regard have alreadybeen put forward (such as national cohabitation rates, used by Batalova &
Cohen, 2002), much more systematic work needs still to be done.
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416
Appendix
DeterminantsofCouplesDivisio
nofHousework:ResultsofHierarchicalLinearModels,WithSeparate
EstimationsforMaleandF
emaleRespondents
Model3:Male
Model3:Female
SE
SE
Intercept
.2317**
.0054
.2031**
.0083
GEM
.1236**
.0165
.1119**
.0251
Maleincomefemaleincomea
.0265*
.0109
.0241**
.0102
GEM
.0215
.0311
.0053
.0288
Maleinlaborfor
ceb
.0457**
.0138
.0501*
.0142
GEM
.0250
.0238
.0231
.0241
Femaleinlaborforceb
.0591**
.0113
.0644**
.0120
GEM
.0282
.0300
.0021
.0317
Unmarriedcoupl
e
.0678**
.0203
.0411
.0237
GEM
.0155
.0690
.0635
.0786
Couplesmeanage
.0027**
.0005
.0019**
.0006
Malefemaleage
difference
.0007
.0007
.0004
.0007
Male,higheduca
tionaldegree
.0138
.0077
.0163*
.0081
Female,highedu
cationaldegree
.0131
.0088
.0192*
.0092
Householdincom
e,1stquintile
.0094
.0098
.0163
.0102
Householdincom
e,2ndquintile
.0065
.0096
.0121
.0100
Householdincom
e,4thquintile
.0015
.0096
.0137
.0100
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417
Householdincom
e,5thquintile
.0100
.0099
.0091
.0104
Maleretiredfrom
laborforceb
.0117
.0137
.0175
.0142
Femaleretiredfromlaborforceb
.0266**
.0085
.0217*
.0091
Numberofchildren
.0091**
.0024
.0129**
.0025
Malecaresforgrandchildren
.0104
.0100
.0145
.0104
Femalecaresfor
grandchildren
.0180
.0096
.0139
.0100
Malelimitedbyhealthproblems
.0057
.0065
.0054
.0068
Femalelimitedb
yhealthproblems
.0179**
.0064
.0094
.0066
Variancecompon
ents
Intercept
.0018**
.0005**
Maleincome
femaleincome
.0005
.0004
Maleinlaborforce
.0002
.0002
Femaleinlabo
rforce
.0004
.0004
Unmarriedcou
ple
.0013
.0024
Level1
.0337
.0369
Note:GEM=
Un
itedNationsgenderempower
mentmeasure.
a.Referencecate
gory:maleincome=femalein
come.
b.Referencecate
gory:males(females,respectively)whoareneitheremployed
norretired.
significantat10%.
*significantat5%.
**signific
antat1%.
Source:SHARE
2004(Release1),authorscalc
ulations.
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418 Journal of Family Issues
Notes
1. For details on survey participation, item nonresponse, and imputations in the Survey ofHealth, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), see de Luca and Peracchi (2005) and
Kalwij and van Soest (2005).
2. In 95 percent of our observations, both partners chose the same or a neighboring answer
category. Values indicating that the male partner does the main share or even all of the house-
work are observed for less than 2 percent of our sample.
3. Missing values are a particular concern in the case of income variables. In our study we
use imputed information about income provided from the data by the SHARE group. See
Brugiavini, Croda, Paccagnella, Rainato, and Weber (2005) for a detailed description of the
applied imputation procedures.
4. The proportion of older French couples with an equal division of household labor (asestimated from the SHARE data) is 16 percent, that is, slightly above the average of the nine
countries included in our full analysis.
5. To ease the interpretation of the size effect of the United Nations gender empowerment
measure, we rescaled the values published by the UN so that the country in our sample with
the lowest score has value zero and the country with the highest score has value one.
6. The coefficients of the variables for participation in the labor force and retirement are
significantly different from each other (both for males and for females). Although this provides
some indication for postretirement changes in the division of household labor, these changes
are obviously too small to affect the basic distribution of work between men and women.
7. A closely related issue concerns cross-national variations in equity points. An unequal(i.e., not 5050) distribution of household labor need not necessarily be perceived as unfair.
However, only since the 1990s has research begun to isolate conditions associated with label-
ing divisions of housework as fair or unfair (Coltrane, 2000). Recent work by Davis (2004) not
only reveals cross-national differences in womens average perceptions of fairness of the divi-
sion of household labor, but also shows that these differences are affected by a countrys polit-
ical and economic history as well as by womens overall empowerment.
8. This is not to say that economic factors contributing to greater gender material equality
would be irrelevant (cf. Breen & Cooke, 2005).
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