A Cross-National Comparison of the Perceived Fairness of the Division of Household Labor

Abstract

There is considerable imbalance in the household division of labor in industrialized societies, where wives do an undue amount of housework. Nevertheless, many wives perceive the division of household labor as fair. Gender perspective explains this by the fact that wives with a traditional gender ideology are less likely to express a sense of unfairness. In addition to this explanation, we expect that social environments influence perceptions of fairness. That is, the average level of the division of housework in a given society influences perceptions of fairness, as individuals may use it for assessing their own situation. Using cross-national data on the household division of labor and the associated perceptions of fairness, we found that wives in countries where wives do most of the housework and where traditional gender ideologies are strong tend to report lower levels of perceived unfairness, even when they do most of the housework, work long hours, and have a high educational attainment.