15th Economics & Finance Virtual Conference, Prague

DOES THE LIFE COURSE OF THE FAMILY AFFECT THE GENDER DIVISION OF HOUSEWORK? EVIDENCE FROM SLOVAKIA

MARIANA POVAŽANOVÁ, GABRIELA NEDELOVÁ

Abstract:

The paper deals with the division of unpaid housework within couples in Slovakia. The main goal of the study is to examine whether gender division of routine and non-routine housework is influenced by the life course. A further goal of the study is to examine what variables stemming from the time-availability, relative resources and doing gender hypothesis contribute to the explanation of the division of unpaid housework. The results of the paper are based on the data from original field research conducted in 2018. The research sample consists of 1819 individuals within 732 households. We found out that in all life phases, husband spends on average more time in paid work than wife does, however in all life phases, husband devotes far fewer hours to unpaid routine housework than the wife. The difference between the genders is largest when the children are small. The results suggest that life phase is significant predictor for division of both routine and non-routine unpaid housework in Slovak couples. We have also found support for relative resources explanation of performance the routine housework.

Keywords: division of unpaid housework; life course; routine housework, non-routine housework, time-availability theory, relative resource theory

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