Apron strings of working mothers: Maternal employment and housework in cross-national perspective

作者：Treas Judith^*; Tai Tsui o

来源：Social Science Research, 2012, 41(4): 833-842.

DOI：10.1016/j.ssresearch.2012.01.008

• Division of household labor
• Maternal employment
• Cross-national research
• Gender
• Social change
• Institutionalization
• Multi-level models
• Eastern Europe

This paper asks whether maternal employment has a lasting influence on the division of household labor for married women and men. Employing multi-level models with 2002 ISSP survey data for 31 countries, we test the lagged accommodation hypothesis that a long societal history of maternal employment contributes to more egalitarian household arrangements. Our results find that living in a country with a legacy of high maternal employment is positively associated with housework task-sharing, even controlling for the personal socialization experience of growing up with a mother who worked for pay. In formerly socialist countries, however, there is less gender parity in housework than predicted by the high historical level of maternal employment.

• 出版日期2012-7