Division of Household Labor

The allocation of domestic chores within the home, specifically unpaid labor as performed by spouses. The division of household labor in rural homes traditionally has been highly segregated; such that wives perform the majority of chores, and the more tedious tasks. Although recent studies support this allocation of labor, there is also evidence of a greater sharing of chores on the part of husbands. The conservative nature of rural attitudes, particularly those concerning family roles, is often cited as the reason for the segregation of household labor in rural homes.

The division of household labor attracted much attention among family researchers over the past several decades. One notable characteristic of this literature is the relative paucity of studies that sought to examine the division of household labor in the rural context. Whereas several researchers called for analyses of rural households in this regard (Dorfman and Heckert 1988; Hardesty and Bokemeier 1989), to date, few studies focused on the division of household labor in rural households.

Among existing studies, most do note the uniqueness of marriages, marital interaction, and family structure in rural areas. For example, researchers suggested that rural wives are more likely to espouse traditional marital roles and adhere to more conservative norms as compared to their urban counterparts (Rosenblatt and Anderson 1981). Rural and urban areas overall maintain different ideals concerning marital interaction and marital roles. Hansen (1987) concluded that rural residents hold more conservative attitudes concerning social, familial, religious, and sexual issues.

Despite the stereotype of rural couples being very traditional (i.e., almost exclusively patriarchal), several studies suggested that the nature of marital relations in rural communities is changing such that wives are becoming more influential in the decision making processes within marriage (Dorfman and Hill 1986). Given that much of marital partners’ influence in the decision making processes is derived from their employment status, the increase in rural wives’ participation in the paid labor force in recent years is likely to bring about marital roles and family structures that are more similar to those typically found in an urban setting (Bokemeier and Maurer 1987).

Mean Hours per Week Spent in Household Chores by Husbands and Wives, by Rural/Urban Residence

Household Labor Among Rural Couples

Table 1 presents an adaptation of a study performed by Lawrence, et al. (1987). This study compared samples of couples from both rural and urban environments with regard to their respective divisions of household labor. There are several notable differences between the two types of couples. Among rural couples, wives are shown to perform 29.63 hours per week of household labor. Similar to recent nationally representative samples, rural wives perform almost three times as many hours of housework as their husbands (who report an average of 11.55 hours per week). Urban couples also display a rather skewed imbalance in the distribution of chores, yet the inequity is not as substantial. Among urban couples, wives report a weekly average of 24.62 hours per week, whereas husbands contribute the same amounts of household labor as their rural counterparts (11.55 hours per week).

These findings can be interpreted in several ways. First, comparing rural and urban couples overall; rural couples clearly display a greater imbalance in the total household labor contributions of each spouse. Specifically, rural wives perform considerably more housework than their urban counterparts. Among husbands, rural/urban residence does not appear to significantly affect their respective levels of labor contributions in the home.

Second, there are also notable differences in the segregation or sharing of individual tasks among couples in this study. Whereas rural wives perform considerably more labor in the home than their husbands, the distribution of their total labor time is different from that of their husbands. For example, four of the more onerous and repetitive chores-food preparation, dishwashing, housecleaning, and care of clothing and household linens-account for 65.8 percent of rural wives’ total household labor contributions. Rural husbands, on the other hand, spend only 19.1 percent of their total housework time on the same four tasks. Among urban couples, wives spend about 60.2 percent of their total time in these four tasks, while husbands devote about 22.5 percent of their household labor contributions to these four chores. Relative to urban couples, rural couples display more traditional patterns of task allocation, both in terms of total time and task segregation.

Household Labor Among Children

Within the gender role ideology explanation of the division of household labor, it is assumed that individuals’ attitudes concerning gender roles, and particularly those within the context of marriage, substantially influence their own preferences of chore performance. Aside from evidence offered by studies of housework among adults, several researchers posited that such ideologies are established early in childhood (Blair 1992; Goodnow 1988). Several studies noted that children’s participation in household labor is similar to the gender-based patterns of chore allocation displayed by adults.

Lawrence and Wozniak (1987) find that rural boys spend approximately 6.4 hours per week in household tasks, whereas rural girls spend about 8.9 hours per week performing household chores. The tasks performed by rural children are also highly segregated (similar to patterns found among adults). Of the total time expended in household chores by rural girls, approximately 52.9 percent is spent in house cleaning, in food preparation, dishwashing, or doing laundry. Rural boys, meanwhile, spend only 30.1 percent of their total housework time in the same four tasks. The presence of these patterns of chore allocation among children lends support to the contention of gender role ideology explanations.

Conclusion

Rural couples are often envisioned as being very conservative and traditional, particularly in terms of their marital roles. Results from the few studies that examined the division of household labor in rural households appear to support, at least partially, some of these stereotypes. Rural wives do report substantially greater amounts of time being spent in the performance of household chores, as compared to their husbands’ total contributions. Further, the allocation of individual chores appears to be highly segregated among rural couples, such that wives spend the majority of their time in least desirable and most repetitive chores (e.g., cooking, cleaning, doing laundry). Evidence from studies of rural children’s participation in household chores reveals similar patterns of chore allocation, thereby suggesting that the traditional division of household labor seen among married rural couples may have its origins in early childhood experiences.

At the same time, however, rural couples should not be viewed as being entirely conservative and traditional in their marital roles. Dorfman and Heckert (1988) suggest that the patterns of decision making among rural couples are becoming more similar to those displayed by their urban counterparts with respect to egalitarianism. Changes that occurred among the urban population in the U.S. over the past several decades that may potentially influence the allocation of chores (e.g., higher rates of paid labor force participation by married women) are also evident among rural residents. Thus, decision making processes among rural couples are more likely to be of a joint nature (i.e., involving input from both spouses) than to be solitary decisions (i.e., made by only one spouse). In all likelihood, the patterns of task allocation in rural households will become more and more similar to those displayed by the rest of the U.S. population as we approach the turn of this century.

— Sampson Lee Blair

See also

• Employment; Family; Home-based Work; Labor Force; Marriage; Rural Women; Underemployment; Voluntarism; Work

References

• Blair, S.L. “Children’s Participation in Household Labor: Child Socialization Versus the Need for Household Labor.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 21, no. 2 (1992): 241-258.
• Bokemeier, J. and Maurer, R. “Marital Quality and Conjugal Labor Involvement of Rural Couples.” Family Relations 36 (1987): 417-424.
• Dorfman, L.T. and Heckert, D.A. “Egalitarianism in Retired Rural Couples: Household Tasks, Decision Making, and Leisure Activities.” Family Relations 37 (1988): 73-78.
• Dorfman, L.T. and Hill, E.A. “Rural Housewives and Retirement: Joint Decision-Making Matters.” Family Relations 35 (1986): 507-514.
• Goodnow, J.J. “Children’s Household Work: Its Nature and Functions.” Psychological Bulletin 103, no.1 (1988): 5-26.
• Hansen, G. “The Effect of Community Size on Exchange Orientations in Marriage.” Rural Sociology 52 (1987): 501-509.
• Hardesty, C. and Bokemeier, J. “Finding Time and Making Do: Distribution of Household Labor in Nonmetropolitan Households.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 51 (1989): 253-267.
• Lawrence, F.C., Draughn, P.S., Tasker, G.E., and Wozniak, P.H. “Sex Differences in Household Labor Time: A Comparison of Rural and Urban Couples.” Sex Roles 17 (1987): 489-502.
• Lawrence, F.C. and Wozniak, P.H. “Rural Children’s Time in Household Activities.” Psychological Reports 61 (1987): 927-937.
• Rosenblatt, P.C. and Anderson, R.M. “Interaction in Farm Families: Tension and Stress.” Pp. 147-166 in The Family in Rural Society. Edited by R.T. Coward and W. M. Smith, Jr. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1981.