The Gender Gap in Household Tasks and Division of Labor Satisfaction During COVID-19

For many years, scholars have directed our attention to the gender gap in domestic labor. Even when women engage in paid employment, they nevertheless perform the majority of the household labor in most wealthy countries. At the same time, disasters and crises both expose and exacerbate existing social inequalities. In this paper, we ask: in what ways has the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the gender gap in household labor, including childcare? And how do men and women feel about this gap? Using data from the Canadian Perspectives survey series (Wave 3), conducted by Statistics Canada three months into the pandemic, our analyses consider the task distribution that made household labor intensely unequal during COVID-19, with women ten times more likely than men to say childcare fell mostly on them, for example. Yet, in nearly all of our models, women did not unambiguously report being more dissatisfied with the division of domestic tasks within the house, nor were they more likely than men to say that the household division of labor “got worse” during COVID, however, parents (mothers and fathers) did feel that it got worse. We discuss what these findings mean for women’s mental health, long-term paid labor, and interpersonal power, and raise questions about why it is we are not seeing a decrease in women’s reported satisfaction with this division of labor. These findings spotlight gender inequality as pillars of capitalism, and how the structural and the interpersonal weathering of the pandemic comes at women’s expense.

A Gender Analysis of Intra-Household Division of Labor in Cameroon Using Moser’s Triple Roles Framework

The relevance of intra-household division of labor for overall household wellbeing is common knowledge, especially among development practitioners from the developing world. While division of labor acquired a newer impetus as a consequence of a strong and emerging gender narrative a few decades ago, its momentum seems to have been torpedoed by the comfort of gender mainstreaming; reducing the role of gender analyses in agricultural extension and sustainable development initiatives. We briefly revisit the gender evolution, and empirically apply Caroline Moser’s triple roles framework in order to rekindle the role of gender analyses in understanding and promoting targeted extension services and sustainable development. A cross sectional, empirical survey was carried out in the North West region of Cameroon from 7-30 October 2014. Two rural and urban divisions were purposively selected. One division had difficult road access, while the other was fairly accessible. Eight villages (four rural and four urban ones) were randomly selected from both divisions. Gender analyses using Moser’s triple roles framework were carried out separately in all villages, with groups of 30-35 self-selected men and women, facilitated by trained enumerators; and complemented with focused group discussions and key informant interviews. Wide differences between the productive, reproductive and socio-cultural roles in rural and urban communities were unveiled; with even stronger differences between men and women based on gendered results. As expected, more women were engaged in reproductive activities than men, irrespective of setting. Strong bias against women evident in the gender literature was not reported. The results emphasize the implications of regular gender analyses for development effectiveness. There is need for consistent gender analysis as prelude to improving agricultural extension initiatives, achieving gender balanced sustainable development of rural and urban areas in developing countries and upgrading development effectiveness. Context-specific aspects should be considered in informing gender based development actions and policy.

Perceptions of Fairness and Housework Disagreement: A Comparative Analysis

This article uses data from couples in 29 nations to investigate the associations between household divisions of labor, perceptions of housework fairness, and frequency of housework disagreement. We extend previous studies by hypothesizing that perceptions of fairness mediate the relationship between household division of labor and housework disagreement. We also hypothesize that the association between perceptions of fairness and housework disagreement will be stronger for women than men and will be influenced by both individual characteristics and macro-level context. The results support our hypotheses, showing that individuals’ relative resources and macro-level factors such as the female–male earned income ratio strengthen the relationship between perceptions of fairness and housework disagreement. We conclude that relative economic resources between genders at the micro- and macro-level shape the extent to which subjective perceptions of fairness are associated with housework disagreement.