Men Want Equality, But Women Don't Expect It: Young Adults' Expectations for Participation in Household and Child Care Chores

Abstract

This study explored whether there was a discrepancy between young adults' ideal and expected participation in household and child care chores as well as what variables predicted expectations for future chore division. Three-hundred fifty-eight unmarried, heterosexual participants with no children completed an online questionnaire assessing the percentage of chores they ideally wished to, and actually expected to, complete in addition to measures of individual differences. Results showed that, although men desired and expected an egalitarian division of labor, women projected that they would actually engage in a disproportionate amount of the household labor and child care. Additionally, women, but not men, expected to do significantly more chores than they ideally wanted. Women with more liberal feminist attitudes ideally wanted to, and expected to, do fewer household and child care chores, whereas men with liberal feminist attitudes ideally wanted to, and expected to, do more. The importance of finding a partner with a career orientation was related to ideally wanting to do more household labor and child care whereas the importance of finding a partner with a family orientation was related to wanting to do less. On the other hand, men and women who felt it was unlikely that they would find family-oriented partners expected to actually do more household chores and child care. Results indicated that young women expected inequity in their relationships, consistent with findings from research on married couples, despite the fact that men expected equality. The importance of structural changes that will set the stage for egalitarianism are discussed.