Gender, High- and Low-Schedule-Control Housework Tasks, and Psychological Distress

Abstract

In this analysis, with data collected from a random sample of 265 employed dual-earner couples, we estimated the association between time spent on housework tasks on one hand and psychological distress on the other. Based on the literature relating job control to mental health outcomes, we hypothesized that hours spent in low-schedule-control tasks, but not total hours spent in housework tasks or hours spent in high-schedule-control tasks, would be associated with psychological distress. Further, we hypothesized that absolute but not proportional time in low-schedule-control tasks would be related to distress. After controlling for age, gender, education, occupational prestige, number of children, preschool children, gender role ideology, marital role quality, and total number of hours in paid employment, all hypotheses were supported. Finally, as hypothesized these relationships were not moderated by gender.