Socioeconomic Status and Housework: Cultural Differences in Participation in Routine Housework in Japan, Canada, and the US

Kolpashnikova, Kamila and Chiba, Ryota and Shirakawa, Kiyomi (2019): Socioeconomic Status and Housework: Cultural Differences in Participation in Routine Housework in Japan, Canada, and the US. Published in: IER Discussion Papers No. 697 (4 July 2019): pp. 1-14.

Abstract

The assumption about socioeconomic status (SES) and participation in housework are based on the empirical results in Western countries. As such, SES is assumed to work in a similar way in other regions as it does in the countries of the global north. This assumption can often lead to misguided interpretations of the effects of SES on housework participation in other cultural contexts. One such exception is Japan. We analyze time-use diaries from the American Time Use Survey for the period from 2003 to 2016, 1986-2010 Canadian General Social Survey, and the 2006 Japan Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities (社会生活基本調査). Using the negative binomial regression, we test whether SES is associated with less time spent on housework as the outsourcing hypothesis predicts. The findings show that this hypothesis stands only for Canadian and American women, whereas married Japanese women are unlikely to reduce their participation in housework with the increase of their SES.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: gender and housework, Japanese housework participation, Japanese time use, marital status gap, routine housework
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J10 - General; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J12 - Marriage ; Marital Dissolution ; Family Structure ; Domestic Abuse

References

Alwin, D. F., & McCammon, R. J. (2004). Generations, cohorts, and social change. New York, NY: Springer.

Bianchi, S. M., Robinson, J. P., & Milkie, M. A. (2006). Changing Rhythms of American Family Life. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2018). American Time Use Survey.

Coltrane, S. (2000). Research on Household Labor: Modeling and Measuring the Social Embeddedness of Routine Family Work. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(4), 1208-1233.

Gimenez-Nadal, J. I., & Sevilla, A. (2012). Trends in time allocation: A cross-country analysis. European Economic Review, 56(6), 1338-1359.

Guppy, N., Sakumoto, L., & Wilkes, R. (2019). Social Change and the Gendered Division of Household Labor in Canada. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie, 56(2), 178-203.

Hochschild, A. R., & Machung, A. (1989). The Second Shift. The Second Shift, 95-158. doi:10.2307/3340976

Hofferth, S. L., Flood, S. M., & Sobek, M. (2016). American Time Use Survey Data Extract Builder.

Hook, J. L. (2017). Women's Housework: New Tests of Time and Money. Journal of Marriage and Family, 79(1), 179-198.

Kan, M. Y., Sullivan, O., & Gershuny, J. (2011). Gender convergence in domestic work: Discerning the effects of interactional and institutional barriers from large-scale data. Sociology, 45(2), 234-251. doi:10.1177/0038038510394014

Kolpashnikova, K. (2016). Housework in Canada: uneven convergence of the gender gap in domestic tasks, 1986-2010. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.

Kolpashnikova, K. (2018). American Househusbands: New Time Use Evidence of Gender Display, 2003–2016. Social Indicators Research, 140(3), 1259-1277. doi:10.1007/s11205-017-1813-z

Kolpashnikova, K., Kan, M. Y., & Shirakawa, K. (2019a). Marriage and Housework: Analyzing the Effects of Education Using the 2011 and 2016 Japanese Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities. IER Discussion Paper Series, 696.

Kolpashnikova, K., Kan, M. Y., & Shirakawa, K. (2019b). Marriage Penalty: Unconditional Quantile Regression of Housework Participation in Japan. IER Discussion Paper Series, 695.

Marshall, K. (1986). Converging gender roles. Women, 1-13.

Marshall, K. (2011). Generational change in paid and unpaid work. Canadian Social Trends, 11, 11-24.

Stewart, J. (2013). Tobit or not tobit? Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, 38.