Wilcox Abstract

“Before, During, and After the Baby Carriage: The Division of Labor and Wives’ Contemporary Marital Satisfaction”

Over the last half-century, demographic, economic, and normative shifts have pushed the trajectory of marriage and family life in the United States in a generally egalitarian direction, with men taking up a larger share of the housework and childcare associated with family life. Nevertheless, the gender revolution of the last half-century is incomplete: women still perform the majority of childcare and housework in American families; indeed, in recent years, the percentage of stay-at-home mothers has actually increased. In other words, there is much about the division of labor in contemporary family life that remains gendered.
 
What is not clear from the scholarly literature is how the relatively egalitarian or gendered character of family life affects the quality of marriages among contemporary women. Some studies indicate that more egalitarian divisions of labor make married women happier, whereas other studies suggest that more gendered divisions of labor make for higher-quality marriages among women. Surprisingly, despite the continued “stalled revolution”, research has not considered the possibility that the relationship between divisions of labor and marital happiness may differ as a function of motherhood. Accordingly, using data from the nationally-representative 2000 Survey of Marriage and Family Life, this study seeks to extend our understanding of marital quality by exploring the possibility that the relationship between the division of labor and women’s marital happiness varies by the presence of children.