Recent Advances in Housework Research: The Factors Affecting the Domestic Arrangements of Contemporary Couples

This chapter reviews the recent studies on the different factors affecting housework division, a topic to which much of the large and steadily growing housework literature is devoted. The chapter focuses first on the effects of some individual-level characteristics, presenting the empirical studies that test two well-known theoretical frameworks, i.e., the relative resources and gender ideology theories. Given certain shortcomings of these theories, space is devoted to the empirical test of another argument used to explain the persistent gender inequality in housework division, i.e., the perceived fairness of domestic arrangements. Going beyond the micro-level dynamics, the research focusing on macro-level explanations is also considered. In this view, housework division is the result of the mutual interaction between institutional arrangements, societal gender norms and individual characteristics. Space is also given to longitudinal studies of the effects of marital duration and of the transition to parenthood on housework division. Throughout the chapter, particular attention is paid to studies devoted to male domestic involvement and to housework division in same-sex couples.