‘Doing’ Gender In Context: Household Bargaining & Risk of Divorce in Germany and the US

1. ‘Doing’ Gender In Context: Household Bargaining & Risk of Divorce in Germany and the US Dr. Lynn Prince Cooke University of Kent - Canterbury Special PSID 40th Anniversary Session ASA Annual Meeting, Boston, 3 August 2008

2. PROS Increases gender equality, reducing women’s vulnerability Reduces child poverty risk Increases current tax base Spurs job growth– “commodification” of domestic production CONS ? Relationship effects (Becker 1981, 1985; Parsons 1942) v Oppenheimer (1988, 1997) Declining fertility, threat to future tax base ? Need to find alternate carers Female Employment:A Balancing Act

3. Equality in Context Welfare states vary in their reinforcement of gender role specialization: • Strong male breadwinner states (Lewis 1992) reinforce specialization through “family wages,” dependent tax credits, minimal childcare provision, extended maternity leave, high marginal tax rates, etc. • Alternatively, policies can promote equal access to employment allowing women to establish autonomous households (Orloff 1993)

4. “Doing” Gender • Women’s increasing employment was expected to lead to a ‘revolution’ in gender roles within the home, reducing women’s specialization in these tasks. • Contrary to this ‘logic of the pocketbook’, however, women retain primary responsibility for domestic tasks • In fact, as wives’ earnings exceed their husbands’, women’s share of domestic tasks increases (Brines 1994; Bittman et al 2003)

5. Context & How Gender is Done • In U.S., both wives and husbands decrease their domestic hours as wives’ earnings increase (Brines 1994) • In Australia, wives increase their domestic hours as their earnings increase, but husbands’ hours don’t change (Bittman et al. 2003)

6. Competing hypotheses: H1: If specialization is optimal, husbands’ greater share of domestic tasks should increase risk of divorce. H2: If gender equity is optimal, husbands’ greater share of domestic tasks should decrease the risk of divorce associated with women’s employment.

7. What about “doing” gender? H3: If the compensatory domestic behavior represented by ‘doing’ gender neutralizes gender deviance when women are employed, it should decrease the risk of divorce H4: If ‘doing’ gender represents a display of men’s unfair relative gender power, it should increase the risk of divorce

8. Analysis Compare: • effects of women’s relative earnings and men’s share of housework on the risk of divorce • among couples marrying for the first time between 1985 -1995 • in a weak and strong male breadwinner state

9. Data & Method • The GSOEP used for West Germany, where the male breadwinner model has been reinforced in policy (N= 522 couples) • The PSID used for the U.S., where policy is silent on the private sphere (N= 368 Black; 1,112 Caucasian couples) • Discrete time EHA of risk of divorce with robust standard errors

10. Benefits of PSID • Ability to distinguish cause from effect as can lag independent variables to predict outcome • Through CNEF, Comparability with GSOEP (and now also BHPS and HILDA) for doing cross-national comparisons

11. Descriptives-Mirroring Context West Germany • 58% of wives are out of the labor force • Wives spend 29 hours/week in housework • Husbands perform 29% of housework • 13% of wives earn more than husbands • 7% of couples “do” gender United States • 9% of wives are out of the labor force • Wives spend 17 hours/week housework • Husbands perform 33% of housework • 24% of wives earn more than husbands • 8% of couples “do” gender

12. Model 1: Main Effects on Log-odds Divorce Germany U.S. Male breadwinner 0.62 0.83** Wife’s % earnings 0.01* 0.02** Wife’s housework 0.01 - 0.03* Husband’s % hw 0.01* - 0.04*** Husbands’ hw-sq ns 0.0003* Home ownership - 0.25 - 1.23*** # of children - 0.57*** 0.11 Log-likelihood -499 -378

13. Predicted Earnings-Housework Equity Effects on Log-Odds of Divorce

14. Model 2:‘Doing’ Gender Effects Germany U.S. 1 2 1 2 Male breadwinner 0.62 0.60 0.83* 0.99* Wife’s % earnings 0.01* 0.01* 0.02** 0.02*** Wife’s housework 0.01 0.01 - 0.03* - 0.03* Husband’s % hw 0.01* 0.01* - 0.04*** - 0.04*** Husbands’ hw-sq ns ns 0.0003* nm Home ownership - 0.25 -0.23 - 1.23*** - 1.23*** # of children - 0.57*** -0.57*** 0.11 0.09 Log-likelihood -499 -499 -378 -369 Doing Gender -0.01 -2.25**

15. Conclusions Individual effects on couples vary in context • Policy reinforcement of traditional gender roles undermines couple market and domestic flexibility • Rules of exchange and equity apply in the liberal regime, with U.S. couples sharing breadwinning and housework the most stable Even in liberal market, however, a benefit when neutralizing gender deviance

16. Next Steps • Expand comparisons (GERT): • Countries: Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, E/W Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, US • Transitions: women’s into and out of both de facto and de jure relationships from age of 16