If You Pick up the Children, I'll Do the Groceries: Spatial Differences in between-Partner Interactions in out-of-Home Household Activities

Abstract

While many studies have been conducted about the allocation of household duties within households, little is known about the impact of land use and accessibility on the distribution of out-of-home household tasks between spouses and about men's participation in such activities. This paper addresses this impact, while controlling for the impact of household structure, life cycle, employment status and hours, access to transport systems, and interactions among activities in persons' activity schedules. Path models for male–female couples in the Amsterdam–Utrecht corridor, the Netherlands, show that land use and accessibility influence between-partner interactions in maintenance activity participation, although their role appears to be smaller than that of sociodemographics and access to transport systems. While women perform the bulk of out-of-home household tasks, men are responsible for a larger share of out-of-home household duties in neighbourhoods characterised by a higher population density and/or more diversity of land uses than they are in lower density and/or less diverse neighbourhoods. However, women's responsibilities are not reduced to the same extent, because spouses' joint participation is also somewhat larger in higher density, more diverse neighbourhoods and because part of men's participation in these neighbourhoods reflects household activities not undertaken elsewhere.