Power Attitudes and Time: The Domestic Division of Labour

Abstract

This paper examines the factors associated with men’s and women’s participation in childcare and housework using data from a recent Australian national survey. It focuses on three key themes-marital power, sex role attitudes and time constraints. The results suggest that the domestic division of labour is primarily a gender division of labour and that women devote much more time to domestic work than men. Paid work time and sex role attitudes have a stronger effect on men’s involvement in housework than for women, although there is evidence to suggest that women’s time in paid work leads to a reduction in the amount of time they devote to housework. Strong support is also found for the impact of men’s and women’s relative contribution to the household income on the domestic division of labour. The paper concludes that women’s movement into paid work will affect the division of labour only insofar as it increases women’s economic power and encourages men to take a more liberal view of sex roles.