Changing Resources and the Division of Housework: A Longitudinal Study of Swedish Couples

Abstract

Most research on the division of housework is based on cross-sectional studies. This study
instead focuses on the way in which changes in spouses’ relative resources are related to
changes in housework. The data come from the Swedish Level of Living Survey for the
years 1991 and 2000. An important issue is whether spouses can use their relative resources
in negotiations about housework. The analyses show that changes in spouses’ relative
resources only result in a moderate change in women’s share of the housework between
1991 and 2000. The change that nevertheless does take place indicates that women’s share
of the housework decreases if their relative resources in terms of level of education and
social status increased between 1991 and 2000. If a woman’s economic dependency on
her spouse decreased between the two years, her share of the housework also decreases.
The decrease in women’s share of the housework is mainly due to an increase in men’s
time spent in housework. However, regardless of access to resources, Swedish men do
less housework than Swedish women do.

Full text

European Sociological Review
doi:10.1093/esr/jcm018
23:455-470, 2007. First published 18 Apr 2007; Eur. Sociol. Rev.
Marie Evertsson and Magnus Nermo
Changing Resources and the Division of Housework: A Longitudinal Study of Swedish Couples
http://esr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/23/4/455available online at
The full text of this article, along with updated information and services is
References http://esr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/23/4/455#BIBL
This article cites 35 references, 9 of which can be accessed free at
Reprints http://www.oxfordjournals.org/corporate_services/reprints.html
Reprints of this article can be ordered at
Email and RSS alerting http://esr.oxfordjournals.org
Sign up for email alerts, and subscribe to this journal’s RSS feeds at
image downloads
PowerPoint® slide.
Images from this journal can be downloaded with one click as a PowerPoint
Journal information subscribe can be found at http://esr.oxfordjournals.org
Additional information about European Sociological Review, including how to
Published on behalf of Oxford University Press
at Stockholms Universitet on 11 August 2008 http://esr.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from

Changing Resources and
the Division of Housework:
A Longitudinal Study of Swedish
Couples
Marie Evertsson and Magnus Nermo
Most research on the division of housework is based on cross-sectional studies. This study
instead focuses on the way in which changes in spouses’ relative resources are related to
changes in housework. The data come from the Swedish Level of Living Survey for the
years 1991 and 2000. An important issue is whether spouses can use their relative resources
in negotiations about housework. The analyses show that changes in spouses’ relative
resources only result in a moderate change in women’s share of the housework between
1991 and 2000. The change that nevertheless does take place indicates that women’s share
of the housework decreases if their relative resources in terms of level of education and
social status increased between 1991 and 2000. If a woman’s economic dependency on
her spouse decreased between the two years, her share of the housework also decreases.
The decrease in women’s share of the housework is mainly due to an increase in men’s
time spent in housework. However, regardless of access to resources, Swedish men do
less housework than Swedish women do.
Introduction
Earlier studies, from both Sweden and other countries,
show that spouses’ relative levels of education as well
as relative incomes are significant for the division of
housework (for an overview see Shelton and John,
1996; Coltrane, 2000). The outcome of negotiations
about the division of housework is therefore depen-
dent, to a certain degree, on spouses’ relative access to
various resources (Blood and Wolfe, 1960; Ahrne and
Roman, 1997; Roman, 1999; Bittman et al., 2003;
Evertsson and Nermo, 2004). If, for example, there is
a large difference between spouses’ incomes, the
partner with the higher income—usually the man—is
more likely to have things his way, as his dependency
on his wife is less than his wife’s dependency on him.
In addition to financial resources, other resources that
can be viewed in a similar way are social status in the
labour market and level of education (cf. Evertsson
and Nermo, 2004). Most studies in this field are based
on cross-sectional data, which means that we lack
information about the association between changes in
spouses’ relative resources and changes in the division
of housework.
Hence, the purpose of this article is to increase our
understanding of the effect of relative resources on the
division of housework by studying to what extent
changes in spouses’ relative resources are related to
changes in the division of housework. A proper test
of this association requires access to panel data.
In focus here is Sweden, a country that is considered
as one of the most gender-equal in the world (Human
European Sociological Review VOLUME 23 NUMBER 4 2007 455–470 455
DOI:10.1093/esr/jcm018, available online at www.esr.oxfordjournals.org
Online publication 18 April 2007
ßThe Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Development Report, 2005). The data used combine
information from the Swedish Level of Living Survey
(LNU) conducted in 1991 with information on the
same household from the LNU conducted in 2000.
Thus, the analysis is based on information from
married or cohabiting people who moved in together
in 1991 or earlier. To facilitate further reading, we will
henceforth refer to these couples as spouses regardless
of whether or not they are married.
By way of introduction, we provide a short review of
theories and previous research on the way in which
spouses’ relative resources are related to the division
of housework. Then the empirical analyses described
earlier are presented. The article concludes with a
summary and discussion of the results.
What Governs the Division of
Unpaid Work?
Housework is often considered to be of major
significance in endorsing the relationship between
femininity and masculinity, and thereby functions as
an area in which gender is created in a symbolic sense
(Fenstermaker Berk, 1985; West and Zimmerman,
1987; Bjo
¨rnberg, 1992; Brines, 1993, 1994). Thus,
according to West and Zimmerman (1987), ‘creating
gender’ or doing gender means that women and men
are ascribed differences that are not biological, natural,
or essential. Gender creation means that, regardless
of whether we wish to live up to the norms of
masculinity and femininity, we risk being constantly
evaluated according to these norms. What this means,
for example, is that most people would consider the
woman, to a higher degree than the man, to be
responsible if the home were untidy or if the children
were dirty or poorly dressed. Correspondingly, a man
who works part-time while the children are small is
more often perceived as less manly by some people,
because he chooses to prioritize home and family over
his job. Both women and men are continuously
participating in this gender-creating process. The
effect is revealed by the fact that women do
considerably more housework than men do regardless
of income, working hours and level of education.
1
Still,
the variation in women’s time spent in housework
is large, and studies indicate that the time that women
and men spend on housework varies in accordance
with the resources they have at their disposal
(e.g. Bittman et al., 2003; Evertsson and Nermo,
2004). Also, during recent decades, men’s housework
hours and the resources at women’s disposal have
increased. Taken together, this implies that control
of resources is of interest in understanding the
negotiations that underlie the division of unpaid
work. An account is, therefore, given subsequently of
two overlapping theoretical perspectives, one socio-
logical and one economic, that claim to explain the
division of housework on the basis of spouses’ relative
access to resources.
A Sociological Relative
Resource Perspective
An implicit assumption in the sociological relative
resource perspective is that most people want to avoid
housework (cf. Blood and Wolfe, 1960). The more
resources, and thereby power, an individual has in
relation to his/her partner, the greater the possibilities
of negotiating away the housework. The individual’s
power within the household is of course not simply
determined by what and how much he/she contributes.
Other factors of importance are how easy it is for the
individual to leave the relationship, which—besides
the economic resources at the individual’s disposal—
depends on the extent to which the individual is
inclined to conduct negotiations in his/her own
interest, and the partner’s assessment of his/her
contribution in relation to what he/she can get outside
the relationship (England and Kilbourne, 1990). How
hard a bargaining position an individual can take in
terms of housework is consequently dependent on
what it would cost each spouse to leave the marriage.
A high income makes it easier for individuals to
support themselves outside the relationship and
thereby strengthens their negotiating position within
the relationship. A high level of education can lead to a
better job and thereby often a higher income, if it has
not already done so. Moreover, a high social position
or a high level of education is often associated with
greater opportunities for changing to better-paid jobs,
which can be of significance in case of, e.g. a divorce
(Evertsson, 2001).
A considerable amount of research has been under-
taken to test this relative resource or bargaining
perspective (Presser, 1994; Ho
¨rnqvist, 1997; Bianchi
et al., 2000; Bittman et al., 2003; Evertsson and Nermo,
2004; Hallero
¨d, 2005). The most common result is
that the smaller the resource gap between the spouses,
the more equal the division of housework (e.g. Presser,
1994; Bianchi et al., 2000). The obvious weakness
of this perspective is that women as a rule do more
housework than men, even in households where the
man has less access to resources than the woman does
456 EVERTSSON AND NERMO

(Brines, 1994; Tichenor, 1999; Greenstein, 2000;
Bittman et al., 2003).
An Economic Relative Resource
Perspective
In economics, decision-making within the family is
dealt with in two overriding ways. The first approach
is summarized as the common preference perspective.
The most well-known version of this perspective is
Gary Becker’s altruistic model or specialization theory
(1991).
2
This approach considers the entire family as
a unit with a single decision maker, a single joint
budget and a single utility function, which includes the
consumption and leisure time of all family members.
Earlier research has proven this basic assumption to be
problematic when analysing the division of resources
within the family (Lundberg and Pollak, 1996).
3
Sociologists, in particular, have contended that the
theory disregards dominance and power relations
within the family (e.g. England and Budig, 1998).
A second and more recent approach among econo-
mists is the so-called cooperative bargaining model in
which the family is perceived as consisting of two or
more ‘agents’ with different preferences for, for
example, family consumption (Lundberg and Pollak,
1996). According to this approach, the family’s
demand and consumption are determined not just by
prices and total family income, but also by the ‘threat
points’ that the individuals are able to use in
negotiations within the family. The so-called threat
point, i.e. the pressure the individual can bring to bear
on the opposite party, is determined by the value the
individual’s own resources would have outside the
marriage if he/she chose to leave it. Alongside these
resources, an individual’s threat point may also depend
on the conditions of the remarriage market and the
extent to which state subsidies aimed at those who are
divorced or separated exist (such as benefits for single
mothers). Naturally, individuals do not only make use
of explicit threats of divorce in negotiations. Another
approach might be to use the resources the individual
contributes to the household for personal consumption
or for personal interests within the family (internal
threat points) (Ibid). Although the logic derived from
different bargaining models is fairly straightforward
and clear-cut, it is worth noting that results from
earlier research on the relationship between the
division of housework and actual divorce not always
support this logic (e.g. Cooke, 2006b, who finds socio-
political context to be important; cf. also Sanchez and
Gager, 2000; Frisco and Williams, 2003). In estimating
the importance of a perceived fair division of house-
work for the divorce risk, Frisco and Williams (2003)
found that the part of housework done by women who
believed that they did more than their fair share was
considerably larger than the part of the housework
done by men who felt they did more than their fair
share. The discrepancy in what is perceived as fair may
partly be a result of the fact that most women have
fewer resources and, consequently, less bargaining
power than their spouse does. In the absence of any
fruitful negotiations regarding housework (due to
women’s lack of credible ‘threat points’), women
may redefine the distribution of housework as fair,
given that they choose not to end the marriage. In the
study at hand, we are able to observe changes in
spouses’ relative resources over time. If the relative
resource and bargaining perspective is at all valid, we
should be able to observe an association between
changes in the division of housework and changes in
the distribution of resources between the spouses.
Increased resources for the woman should lead to
increased power in the bargaining process and,
consequently, cause an uneven division of work to
become more even. Even so, we know that gender still
goes a long way in explaining the division of house-
work and therefore, the resulting change in the
division of housework may be modest.
Earlier Research and Changes
Over Time
Recent cross-national research indicates that the
division of housework is more equal in countries
with a strong divorce culture, in countries where
cohabitation is common, and in countries that have
high gender empowerment (GEM)
4
(Batalova and
Cohen, 2002; Fuwa, 2004; Yodanis, 2005). Women in
gender egalitarian countries also appear to benefit
more from their individual-level assets (in terms of
full-time employment and individual gender ideology)
than women in less egalitarian countries (Fuwa, 2004).
Equal sharing of housework by partners is more
common in liberal and social-democratic welfare
regimes than in conservative ones (Geist, 2005; cf.
Cooke, 2006a). This suggests that the division of
housework between couples in Sweden should be
rather equal. Although the division of housework
might be more gender equal in Sweden than in many
other countries, women still do the bulk of it
(e.g. Ho
¨rnqvist, 1997; Flood and Gra
˚sjo
¨, 1997;
Evertsson and Nermo, 2004). Researchers often high-
light the somewhat paradoxical lack of a significant
CHANGING RESOURCES AND THE DIVISION OF HOUSEWORK 457

increase in men’s housework hours over time, despite
the considerable increase in women’s paid work hours
(e.g. Coltrane and Ishii-Kuntz, 1992; Windebank, 2001;
Breen and Cooke, 2005; Geist, 2005). Gershuny et al.
(1994) refer to this as a process of ‘lagged adaptation’,
whereby the increase in women’s paid work hours is
followed by a much slower, and over time protracted,
increase in men’s housework hours. As an empirical
test of this, Gershuny et al. (2005) studied the extent to
which couples adapt to changing employment patterns
in the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United
States. Their results indicate that husbands increase
their domestic work when their wives move from
unemployment to full-time work. As partly predicted
by the theory, this increase does not correspond to
a reduction in domestic work on the part of wives
(cf. also Chen, 2005). The extent to which men’s
involvement in housework increases or decreases over
time in a marriage was studied by Grunow et al.
(under review). Their study shows that men are more
likely to reduce, rather than increase, their time spent
in housework over time (cf. Gupta, 1999). Also,
Grunow, Schulz, and Blossfeld find that the household
division of labour is established fairly, quickly, and is
unlikely to change after that. Apart from these studies,
little research has been devoted to studying changes in
housework over time within the same couple, and to
our knowledge no study has focused on the association
between changes in bargaining power in terms of
relative resources and changes in housework hours/
share over time. By studying changes in relative
resources and housework over time—rather than
taking a cross-sectional ‘snapshot’ of spouses’ relative
resources and division of housework—we are able to
put the relative resource perspective to a more
substantial test. We do not have to assume that
couples with a traditional division of housework would
act in an egalitarian fashion if their division of
resources were to change. Instead, by controlling for
couples’ division of housework in 1991, we can study
to what extent a change in their relative resources
results in a change in the division of housework
between 1991 and 2000.
To sum up, here we use three indicators of relative
resources: (i) relative level of education, (ii) relative
social status, and (iii) economic resources. In addition
to being an economic resource, we argue that work of
high social status can be perceived as ‘more important’
and therefore used as an excuse for a lower level of
participation in housework. Furthermore, an implicit
assumption in some of these jobs is that the employee
spends some out-of-office time on preparations for the
next day. Processes like these can have long term
consequences for the household division of labour and
may remain, even when out-of-office work time
decreases. The second indicator, higher education,
is indirectly an economic resource, as it increases
the individual’s possibilities to acquire a skilled job.
In the process of attaining higher education, the
individual need to spend time studying and to some
extent, this might be achieved by an agreement
between the spouses that he/she can spend less time
in housework.
5
Furthermore, a high level of education
per se can also lead to ideas about, and provide
arguments for, an equal division of housework and
function as a resource for the ‘resource poor’ partner.
6
Economic resources are measured here as degree of
economic dependence, which measures the degree to
which the woman’s and the man’s incomes, respec-
tively, contribute to the joint household economy
(Sørensen and McLanahan, 1987). Economic depen-
dency is viewed as one important explanation of
differences in power resources between husbands and
wives (e.g. Sørensen and MacLanahan, 1987).
A difference in economic resources is likely to affect
a dependent woman’s bargaining position within the
family. It is probably, therefore, the most straight
forward indicator of changes in relative resources.
Finally, because the respondents grow nine years
older between the surveys and considerable life course
changes may have taken place (i.e. childless couples
may have children, small children grow older, causing
women to spend more hours in paid work etc.),
we also include controls for age, the presence of small
children in the household, respondents’ paid work
hours and household income. In the following, we turn
to a description of our data and variables.
Data and Variables
The data come from the Swedish Level of Living
Survey (LNU) for the years 1991 and 2000. Both these
surveys are random samples of 1/1000 of the Swedish
population between 18–75 years of age. The non-
response rate was about 20 per cent in 1991 and about
23 per cent in 2000. The analyses are based on
636 couples (married or cohabiting) who took part in
the survey both in 1991 and in 2000. The couples were
between 20–56 years of age in 1991 (the average age
being 38 for women, and 40.6 for men). All analyses
are based on ordinary least square regressions.
Excluded are the self-employed and farmers, due to
lack of reliability in working time and annual earnings.
We also exclude early retired and disabled persons to
enable a casual interpretation of the results.
458 EVERTSSON AND NERMO

Dependent Variables
Housework hours is based on three questions concern-
ing the time spent on: (i) buying food, preparing food,
and washing up, (ii) washing clothes, ironing, and
other jobs to do with clothes, along with, (iii) cleaning
(cf. Evertsson and Nermo, 2004). The questions are:
(a) ‘About how many hours per week on average are
spent altogether in your household on [see earlier]?’,
and (b) ‘About how many of these hours do you do
this work yourself?’ The respondent’s number of
housework hours is based on (b) above. As very few
couples in Sweden buy household services for these
tasks (and none actually state that they do in the
sample we are using), the estimate for the spouse is
calculated as (a)(b). The share is calculated as the
woman’s housework hours divided by total housework
hours. The analyses report housework as the woman’s
share of all housework, and the time (in hours) spent
on housework by the woman and the man, respec-
tively. Although we also have information on the
amount of time spent on repair and maintenance work
(one question), we choose not to include it in our
housework measure, as it is normally not carried out
weekly and year-round. Thus, this indicator is less
routine in character, less time consuming, and less
pressing than are the three former indicators
(cf. Baxter, 1997; Coltrane, 2000; Batalova and
Cohen, 2002).
Independent Variables
Social status in the labour market is classified in
accordance with the Erikson and Goldthorpe (1992)
class schema (EGP). The variable used in the analyses
is dichotomized, and separates high social status, which
includes higher grade professionals, etc. (EGP class I),
and ‘low status’, which includes everyone else.
Consequently, the dividing line is between senior
white-collar workers and white-collar workers at the
intermediate level. In addition to the respondent’s social
status in 1991, the analyses in Tables 3 and 4 also use
the variable change in relative social status between 1991
and 2000. The latter is divided into three categories
and distinguishes between: (i) unchanged relative
resources (reference category) (N¼522), (ii) couples
in which the woman has improved her position
in relation to her husband (woman’s resources
have increased)(N¼57), and (iii) couples in which
the man’s position vis-a
`-vis his wife has improved
(man’s resources have increased)(N¼57). If the relative
resource perspective is supported, we would assume a
greater change in the division of housework in couples
where there has been a change in relative resources,
than in the larger reference category where no change
has occurred. The reference category might capture
trends of overall decreasing/increasing gender equality
in housework but we assume changes in this category
to be small.
Similarly, the level of education is dichotomized,
separating those who have no education above
secondary level and those who have a post-upper
secondary education. In addition to the respondent’s
level of education in 1991, the analysis in Tables 3 and 4
also uses the change in spouses’ relative level of
education 1991–2000. The latter is divided into three
categories and distinguishes between: (i) unchanged
resources 1991–2000 (N¼524), (ii) woman’s resources
have increased (N¼81), and (iii) man’s resources have
increased (N¼31).
Economic resources are recalculated as a measure-
ment of economic dependence. This measurement
derives from Sørensen and McLanahan’s (1987)
original measure of wives’ economic dependence. The
measure varies between 1 and 1, where 1 indicates
that the respondent is completely economically depen-
dent on his/her partner for his/her maintenance, while
1 indicates that the respondent entirely supports his/
her partner. Economic dependence is calculated
according to the formula:
Economic dependence ¼ðOEARN SEARNÞ
ðOEARN þSEARNÞ
Where, OEARN (own earnings) refers to the respon-
dent’s own income, while SEARN (spouse’s earnings)
refers to the partner’s income. The analysis of house-
work hours includes the relative change in economic
dependence between 1991 and 2000, where those with
(i) unchanged economic dependence (10 per cent
change) constitute the reference category (N¼278).
This group is compared to (ii) couples in which the
woman’s economic dependence has decreased (N¼220),
and (iii) couples in which the woman’s economic
dependence has increased (N¼138).
7
Overall, changes
in degree of economic dependency between the years
are small and therefore, we choose dummies (instead
of estimating the effect of a unit change in economic
dependency on housework). The correlation between
the above-described three measures of changes in
spouses’ relative resources never exceeds 0.11 Pearson’s
r(two-tailed).
Hours spent in paid employment refers to the usual
weekly working hours of the respondent. In the
analyses in Tables 3 and 4, the respondent’s change
CHANGING RESOURCES AND THE DIVISION OF HOUSEWORK 459

in work hours in relation to the spouse between 1991
and 2000 is also included.
Families with children who are six years old or
younger have, according to our definition, small
children. In the analysis in Table 4, we include a
variable measuring whether or not there are children in
the household. This variable separates between (i) no
small children in either 1991 or 2000 (the reference
category) (N¼364), (ii) small children in both
years (N¼44), (iii) small children in 1991 but not in
2000 (N¼187), and (iv) only small children in 2000
(N¼41).
Household income is defined as the respondent’s
and the partner’s combined annual earnings and
included as a control variable in the models in
Tables 3 and 4.
Finally, the respondent’s age is included as a
control variable in the multivariate analyses (Tables 3
and 4).
Spouses’ Relative Resources
and Share of the Housework
in 1991 and 2000—Cross-
sectional Analysis
As was mentioned by way of introduction, we are
using information here from cohabiters who moved in
together in 1991 or earlier. In 2000, when the most
recent survey was carried out, these spouses were
between 29 and 65 years old. Thus, the present sample
consists of relatively stable couples and families, as they
have been cohabiting for at least nine years.
8
In this
sample, time spent in housework has decreased
somewhat for women during the period from 1991
to 2000 (Figure 1).
9
Women’s share of the housework
is also slightly lower in 2000 than in 1991, as their
reduction in housework is larger than men’s reduction
in housework (Figure 2) [cf. Rydenstam (2003) who
also finds a decrease in time spent in housework for
women during the same period]. However in 2000,
women still do about 70 per cent of the housework.
A short description of how the relative resources of the
spouses are related to the division of housework at the
two points in time is given below.
Table 1 shows that the women’s share of the
housework is greatest in families where both spouses
have a low level of education, approximately 77 per
cent in both 1991 and 2000. If the woman has a lower
level of education than her spouse does, her share of
the housework is about 72 per cent in both years. The
corresponding proportion in families where both
spouses have high levels of education, or families
where only the woman has a high level of education,
varies between 65 and 68 per cent. Furthermore, the
woman does 76 and 73 per cent of the housework in
1991 and 2000, respectively, if she has a lower social
status than the man does. If the reverse applies, that is,
if the woman holds a higher social status in the labour
market than the man does, then her share of the
housework is approximately 65 per cent in 1991 and
59 per cent in 2000. Relative education and relative
status thus appear to be related to the division of
housework in a similar way; women with compara-
tively low education levels and women with low social
status take on a greater share of the housework than
do women with higher education levels and women
with high social status.
With regard to the link between economic depen-
dence and the division of housework, American studies
indicate that it is curvilinear. This means that both
economically dependent and economically supporting
men do less housework than do men in families where
the woman and the man earn approximately the same
amount (Brines, 1994; Greenstein, 2000), or that
women in the latter families do less housework than
do economically dependent and economically provid-
ing women (Evertsson and Nermo, 2004). However,
this result is not applicable to Swedish relationships.
The results presented in Table 1 indicate that the
woman’s share of the housework decreases in line with
a decrease in her economic dependence. At the same
time, a woman whose contribution to the joint
household economy is the same as her husband’s still
does about 70 per cent of the housework in 2000.
If the degree of economic dependency were decisive
to the division of housework, women would do
about 50 per cent of the housework in families
where the woman and the man contribute equally
to the household economy. In all, this shows that
relative access to resources is of some—although
modest—significance in explaining the woman’s share
of the housework.
One objection to these results is that the division of
housework is also dependent on a number of other
factors that can alter the above link. In a supplemen-
tary analysis, we used methods to control for other
factors that have been shown, in previous studies, to be
of significance in understanding the division of unpaid
work, such as household income, spouses’ working
hours, and whether there are children in the house-
hold. However, this analysis did not significantly
change the above link between relative resources and
the division of housework (the analysis is not
presented).
460 EVERTSSON AND NERMO

Change in Spouses’ Relative
Resources and the Division of
Housework between 1991 and
2000
The above descriptive statistics indicated, in line with
earlier studies, that spouses’ relative access to resources
is of some significance in explaining the division
of housework within the family. In the following,
the same relationship will be tested using panel
data, which enables us to study change over time.
The following analyses therefore study whether a
change in spouses’ relative resources between 1991
and 2000 is related to the division of housework in
2000. Here, for example, an increase in the woman’s
resources in terms of level of education means that
she has either acquired an equally high or higher
level of education than her husband during the
period. The equivalent applies to our other resource
indicator, social status. The only difference is that
an increase in, for example, the woman’s relative
social status can also be due to the husband switching
to a job of relatively lower social status during the
period.
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Women Men
Hours / week
1991 2000
Figure 1 Housework hours for women and men in 1991 and 2000
Women
Men
The share taken over by
men in the period 1991–
2000
Figure 2 The division of housework between women and men
CHANGING RESOURCES AND THE DIVISION OF HOUSEWORK 461

Initially, it is worth remembering that, in our
sample, the women’s share of the housework, as well
as their housework hours, has decreased between 1991
and 2000. Even men’s housework hours have decreased
somewhat. The column ‘Net change’ in Table 2
accounts for this overall reduction.
10
According to the results shown in Table 2, changes
in spouses’ relative resources, in practice, only involve
a very small change in women’s share of the house-
work in the period from 1991 to 2000. Nevertheless,
almost all changes move in the expected direction
when we look at the woman’s share. Her share of the
housework is somewhat lower in 2000 than in 1991 if
her relative status in the labour market has increased
during the period. In families where the man’s relative
status has increased, the woman’s share of the house-
work is somewhat higher in 2000 than in 1991.
Similarly, if the man’s relative level of education has
increased, the woman’s share of the housework is
slightly higher in 2000, but overall, changes in relative
education do not result in any considerable change in
the division of housework.
Furthermore, a change in economic resources is
associated with the woman’s share of the housework.
The average share of housework that women do is
somewhat lower in 2000 when their relative economic
resources have increased (or, in other words,
if their economic dependency has decreased).
Correspondingly, the woman’s share is higher in
2000 than in 1991 if the man’s relative economic
resources have increased during the period (i.e. if his
economic dependency has decreased). Altogether,
however, changes in spouses’ relative resources and
bargaining power result in only moderate general
changes in the woman’s share of the housework—as
well as in her housework hours—between 1991 and
2000. Also, when we look at hours spent in housework
for women and men, the tendency, when we control
for the overall trend of decreasing time spent in
housework (see the two right-most ‘net change’
columns), is that when women’s hours increase,
men’s hours also often increase and vice versa.
Looking instead at the actual change in men’s and
women’s housework hours between 1991 and 2000,
Table 1 Descriptive statistics. Spouses’ relative access to resources and the division of housework in 1991
and 2000
1991 2000
% Hours/week % Hours/week
Women Women Men NWomen Women Men N
Housework 73.5 18.7 6.4 636 72.0 16.5 6.2 636
Relative level of education
Both low 76.6 20.2 5.8 389 76.7 17.7 5.2 306
Both high 68.2 16.5 7.6 135 67.2 14.9 7.0 172
Woman higher 64.7 15.7 8.2 47 65.3 15.5 7.8 63
Man higher 71.6 17.0 6.3 65 72.1 16.6 6.1 95
Relative status position
Both low 74.2 19.1 6.3 478 73.7 17.2 6.0 438
Both high 64.4 15.9 8.0 41 63.8 12.1 7.2 56
Woman higher 65.2 (13.3) (8.8) 21 59.4 13.5 9.2 32
Man higher 75.7 19.4 6.0 96 73.1 17.1 5.8 110
Degree of economic dependency
Woman dependent 75.1 19.6 6.2 422 74.8 17.3 5.5 360
No dependency 73.8 18.2 6.1 152 69.3 15.6 6.8 246
Man dependent 61.1 14.2 8.6 62 59.6 14.6 9.6 30
Young children in household
No children 73.4 17.6 5.9 408 71.8 16.0 6.1 551
Children 73.6 20.8 7.4 228 72.8 19.7 6.7 85
Notes: The table includes married/cohabiting couples between 20 and 56 years of age in 1991. Self-employed, farmers and early retired are
excluded (N ¼636).
462 EVERTSSON AND NERMO

it seems that the earlier noted changes in women’s
share of the housework are mainly a result of women
adjusting their time spent in housework, not as much
a result of men changing their time in any predictable
way. Still, changes in the division of unpaid work
between spouses can be influenced by other important
changes in the individuals’ lives between 1991 and
2000. In the following, we therefore take into account
factors that, in previous studies, have proved to be
significant for the division of housework. In the
analysis in Table 3, we add controls for age in 1991,
housework in 1991, the respondent’s working hours in
1991, changes in spouses paid working hours between
1991 and 2000, household income in 1991 as well as
the level of respective resources in 1991. The analysis is
performed in two steps. The first, presented in Table 3,
analyses the way in which each individual resource
indicator relates to women’s share of the housework,
and to the time women and men spend on housework
given differences in the above factors.
11
In the second
step, all three indicators are included in one model
(Table 4).
Model 1 in Table 3 shows that women’s share of the
housework decreases if their relative resources, in
terms of level of education, increased between 1991
and 2000. In addition, the table shows that the man
devotes more time to housework in 2000 if his
spouse’s level of education increased during the
period. His hours also appear to increase if he has
acquired more resources (the estimate is significant
at the 10 per cent level). This result indicates that
changes in spouses’ relative level of education appear
to primarily have an effect on the time the man
spends on housework. The change in the woman’s
share of the housework is in this case more a result
of the man performing more housework rather than
of her reducing her actual time spent on housework.
It is worth noting, however, that a smaller change
Table 2 Descriptive statistics. Changes in the distribution of resources and changes in spouses’ participation
in housework in 1991–2000
% Hours/week
Women Women Men
1991 2000 Net change
a
1991 2000 Net change
b
1991 2000 Net change
c
Educational attain. 1991–2000
Unchanged 74.6 73.1 0.0 19.1 16.7 0.2 6.2 5.9 0.1
Relative increase for the woman 68.6 66.9 0.2 17.6 16.1 þ0.7 6.8 7.4 þ0.8
Relative increase for the man 66.2 66.6 þ1.9 15.6 14.7 þ1.3 7.8 7.8 þ0.2
Status position 1991–2000
Unchanged 74.1 72.8 0.2 19.0 16.9 þ0.1 6.3 6.1 0.0
Relative increase for the woman 70.8 63.7 5.6 16.6 13.0 1.4 7.1 5.6 1.3
Relative increase for the man 70.6 73.1 þ4.0 18.2 16.4 þ0.4 6.9 7.6 þ0.9
Economic dep. 1991–2000
Unchanged 74.8 73.8 þ0.5 18.9 16.1 0.6 6.0 5.5 0.3
Relative decrease for the woman 75.0 70.2 3.3 19.4 16.4 0.8 7.5 6.6 0.7
Relative decrease for the man 68.3 71.1 þ4.3 17.4 17.4 þ2.2 6.3 6.8 þ0.7
Young children in the household
No children 1991 and 2000 75.2 72.1 1.6 18.4 15.2 1.0 5.7 5.7 þ0.2
No children 1991 but in 2000 58.8 71.9 þ14.6 10.8 18.6 þ10.0 7.5 6.8 0.5
Children 1991 but not in 2000 74.6 71.4 1.7 21.3 17.7 1.4 7.0 7.0 þ0.2
Children 1991 and 2000 69.0 73.7 þ6.2 18.7 20.8 þ4.3 9.2 6.6 2.4
Note: The table includes married/cohabiting couples between 20 and 56 years of age in 1991. Self-employed, farmers and early retired are
excluded (N ¼636).
a
This column takes the difference between the years minus the overall change in women’s share of the housework between 1991 and 2000
((Sharewom
2000
- Sharewom
1991
)þ1.5).
b
This column takes the difference between the years minus the overall change in women’s housework hours between 1991 and 2000
((Hrswom
2000
- Hrswom
1991
)þ2.2).
c
This column takes the difference between the years minus the overall change in men’s housework hours between 1991 and 2000 ((Hrsmen
2000
-
Hrsmen
1991
)þ0.2)
CHANGING RESOURCES AND THE DIVISION OF HOUSEWORK 463

in the number of housework hours is required for
men than for women for the change to be significant.
This is because men start from a considerably
lower level.
Model 2 in Table 3 focuses on whether a change in
spouses’ relative social status between 1991 and 2000
relates to housework in 2000. Also in this model, an
increase in the woman’s relative resources appears to
result in her share of the housework decreasing. Here
the decrease seems to be due partly to a reduction in
the woman’s own housework hours. Hence, when her
relative status increases, she reduces her housework
hours and the man instead increases his housework
hours somewhat.
Model 3, at the bottom of Table 3, present
an analysis of the change in economic dependence
between 1991 and 2000. As in the above analyses, this
analysis reveals that an increase in the woman’s
economic resources (i.e. a decrease in her economic
dependency) reduces her share of the housework in
2000. This is mainly due to the man tending to
increase his time spent on housework when the
woman’s economic resources increase. Even though
we have not studied economically dependent men
separately here, the results indicate that Swedish
men perform more housework when they are econom-
ically dependent on their spouses, compared to when
their earnings are approximately the same as
their spouse’s (cf. Evertsson and Nermo, 2004, see
also Table 1).
The second stage of the analysis presented in
Model 1 in Table 4 includes all three indicators of
relative resources simultaneously in one model. This
enables us to study the relative significance of each
resource indicator. In Model 2, we also include
whether there are small children in the household in
Table 3 OLS regression of the association between housework and changes in relative resources
1991–2000, presented as share of housework 2000, and number of hours of housework per week
% Hours/week
Women Women Men
Model 1
a
Educational attainment 1991–2000
Constant 66.73

28.04

3.33

Unchanged 0.00 0.00 0.00
Relative increase for the woman 6.92

1.58 1.57

Relative increase for the man 3.30 1.54 1.33
Adjusted R
2
0.22 0.16 0.16
Model 2
b
Status position 1991–2000
Constant 59.32

26.25

4.96

Unchanged 0.00 0.00 0.00
Relative increase for the woman 7.57

2.82

1.35

Relative increase for the man 2.86 0.13 0.72
Adjusted R
2
0.22 0.17 0.15
Model 3
c
Economic dependency 1991–2000
Constant 53.62

23.25

4.20

Unchanged 0.00 0.00 0.00
Relative decrease for the woman 4.98

0.83 1.39

Relative decrease for the man 0.45 0.78 0.18
Adjusted R
2
0.21 0.16 0.16
Note: The table includes married/cohabiting couples between 20 and 56 years of age in 1991. Self-employed, farmers, and early retired are
excluded (N ¼636).
a
The above models also include controls for age 1991, main respondent’s sex, household income 1991, housework 1991, level of education 1991,
working time 1991 and changes in working time in relation to the spouse between 1991 and 2000.
b
The above models also include controls for age 1991, main respondent’s sex, household income 1991, housework 1991, social status 1991,
working time 1991 and changes in working time in relation to the spouse between 1991 and 2000.
c
The above models also include controls for age 1991, main respondent’s sex, household income 1991, housework 1991, degree of economic
dependency 1991, working time 1991 and changes in working time in relation to the spouse between 1991 and 2000.

Significant at 5 per cent level;

Significant at 1 per cent level.
464 EVERTSSON AND NERMO

1991 and 2000, respectively. The estimates in Model 1
and Model 2 show that a change in both the relative
level of education and economic dependence to the
woman’s advantage between 1991 and 2000 is
related to a reduction in the woman’s share of the
housework. This is, once again, explained by the
fact that the time the man spends on housework
increases when the woman’s relative resources increase.
The woman’s share of the housework also decreases
if her relative social status increases. In this case,
however, the reduction is due to both a reduction
in the time the woman spends on housework and to
an increase in the time spent by the man (Model 2,
Table 4).
To sum up, the results here indicate that an increase
in the woman’s relative resources reduces her share of
the housework between 1991 and 2000. This result is
still valid when we take into account, among other
things, age, working hours, and whether there are
children in the household. Another important conclu-
sion is that, even though the spouses’ relative access to
various resources is significant for the division of
housework, the latter is only explained to a small
extent by the variation in spouses’ resources.
If resources were of major significance in under-
standing the division of housework, there would be
virtually no difference in housework hours among
women and men when we control for the division of
resources between them. As is obvious from Figure 3,
this is not the case. Women’s share of the housework
varies between 64 and 75 per cent, regardless of
changes in relative resources between 1991 and 2000.
Consequently, a relative resource perspective is not
adequate in explaining the skewed division of house-
work in Swedish families (cf. Hallero
¨d, 2005). The fact
that women do most of the housework, even when
they have greater resources than their husbands,
shows that unpaid work in the home is still gender-
labelled in the sense that women are expected to do
the bulk of it. Also, the fact that the presence of
children increases women’s share of the housework
the most, controlling for, among other things, work
Table 4 OLS regression of the association between housework and changes in all relative resources
1991–2000, presented as share of housework in 2000, and number of hours of housework per week
Model 1 Model 2
% Hours/week % Hours/week
Women Women Men Women Women Men
Constant 68.26

27.64

2.84 60.16

20.85

1.98
Young children in the household
No children 1991 and 2000 0.00 0.00 0.00
No children 1991 but in 2000 9.95

6.38

0.16
Children 1991 but not in 2000 1.23 2.04

0.93
Children 1991 and 2000 5.31 5.49

0.15
Relative level of education 1991–2000
Unchanged 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Relative increase for the woman 6.28

1.35 1.53

6.17

1.35 1.48

Relative increase for the man 3.31 1.64 1.14 2.54 1.22 1.11
Relative status position 1991–2000
Unchanged 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Relative increase for the woman 6.50

2.49

1.17 6.64

2.52

1.28

Relative increase for the man 2.20 0.27 0.70 1.67 0.18 0.61
Economic dependency 1991–2000
Unchanged 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Relative decrease for the woman 4.26

0.69 1.27

4.32

0.69 1.27

Relative decrease for the man 0.46 0.78 0.03 0.72 0.02 0.13
Adjusted R
2
0.24 0.17 0.18 0.26 0.19 0.18
Note: The above models also include controls for age 1991, main respondent’s sex, household income 1991, housework 1991, social status 1991,
degree of economic dependency 1991, level of education 1991, working time 1991 and changes in working time in relation to the spouse between
1991 and 2000.
The table includes married/cohabiting couples between 20 and 56 age in 1991. Self-employed, farmers and early retired are excluded (N ¼636).

Significant at 5 per cent level;

Significant at 1 per cent level.
CHANGING RESOURCES AND THE DIVISION OF HOUSEWORK 465

hours, gives additional support to this conclusion
(Table 4, Model 2).
Summary and Discussion
The aim of this article is to study the way in which
relative resources are related to changes in housework.
The presumed link between the two is brought about
by family negotiations, in that relative resources may
be used implicitly in negotiations about housework.
One prerequisite for this study is access to longitudinal
data. Here, we use panel data from the Swedish Level
of Living Survey (LNU) for 1991 and 2000. Hence, we
only study stable couples that have been cohabiting for
at least nine years. Our ability to generalize the results
is therefore somewhat restricted, and the conclusions
below apply to cohabiting and married women and
men in long-term relationships. Another potential
weakness of the study is that we do not know exactly
when, during the studied period, the change in relative
resources and the division of housework (if any) took
place. We may therefore underestimate any short-term
effect of changes in relative resources for the division
of housework, and overestimate any long-term effect of
such changes. All in all, however, any over- and under-
estimation of the effects should balance each other,
and if anything, the risk of under-estimating the effects
should be higher as the studied period is long.
Consequently, we should be able to rely on rather
conservative estimates of the relation between relative
resources and the division of housework. With these
words, we turn to a discussion of our results.
The basic assumption underlying the relative
resource perspective is that individual, human, and
financial capital function as implicit resources in
conjugal negotiations about housework. According to
this perspective, the person with the greater amount of
resources is more likely to win negotiations about
housework and thereby, also more likely to be able to
minimize his/her housework. In this study, we focus
on changes in relative resources and any accompanying
changes in the division of housework. Will, for
instance, an increase in the woman’s resources
vis-a
`-vis her spouse result in a change in the couple’s
division of housework to her advantage? If so, to what
extent does a change that results in equalization of
spouses’ resources also result in equal sharing of the
housework?
According to the analyses presented here, changes in
spouses’ relative resources only result in a moderate
change in women’s share of the housework between
1991 and 2000. This is in line with Grunow et al.
(under review), who suggest that the household
division of labour is established early in a relationship
and that it is not easily changed thereafter. The change
that nevertheless does take place means, however,
that women’s share of the housework decreases if
their relative resources in terms of level of education,
social status and economic resources increased between
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Education
Social
Status
Economic
Education
Social
Status
Economic
Education
Social
Status
Economic
Relative increase in
resources
Unchanged Relative decrease
in resources
Percent
1991 2000
Figure 3 The woman’s share of housework 1991 and 2000 by changes in the spouses’ relative resources between 1991
and 2000
466 EVERTSSON AND NERMO

1991 and 2000, controlling for other important factors.
The change in the woman’s share of housework if
her relative level of education or economic resources
has increased is largely a result of the man doing
more housework. However, if her relative social status
has increased, she spends less time in housework
in 2000 than in 1991. In couples where relative
resources have remained unchanged and in couples
where the man has increased his relative resources,
the woman’s share of the housework remains more
or less unchanged between 1991 and 2000. However
one should, due to the small number of cases, be
somewhat cautious when interpreting the result
indicating no significant effects from a relative increase
of the man’s resources. Controlling for access to
resources and a number of other relevant factors (such
as working hours, age, and household income),
Swedish women in long-term relationships, in the
year 2000, on average still perform about 70 per cent
of the housework.
One important conclusion based on the presented
results is that even though spouses’ relative division of
different resources is of significance for the division of
housework, it only explains a small part of the
variation in their housework. If it were the case that
resources are of major significance in understanding,
for example, the division of housework, there would be
no major difference in time spent on housework for
the woman and the man when we use statistical
means to control for the division of resources between
them. The fact that women whose resources are
equal to those of their husbands still do the majority
of the housework implies that unpaid work in the
home is gender-labelled in the sense that women
are expected to do the bulk of it. In addition,
according to earlier research, higher gender
equality in terms of a more equal division of house-
work often occurs at the cost of a higher level of
conflict (Nermo and Evertsson, 2004). This supports
the plausible assumption that housework is something
both women and men endeavour to minimize. It
also indicates that housework is intimately associated
with gender, and that men consciously or uncon-
sciously accrue advantages from norms suggesting that
women should have the ultimate responsibility for
housework.
Notes
1. Empirical tests of the doing gender approach often
focus on families in which the woman has the
highest income or the highest social position
(Brines, 1993, 1994; Tichenor, 1999; Greenstein,
2000; Bittman et al., 2003). In these families,
theories of time spent in housework and relative
resources appear to have low explanatory value.
The division of housework tends to be most equal
when the man and the woman contribute about
the same amount to the joint household economy.
When, on the other hand, the man either supports
or is supported by his wife, he tends to do less
housework (cf. Brines, 1994; Greenstein, 2000).
The explanation as to why an economically
dependent man should do less housework than a
man who has approximately equal resources as his
wife is, according to the theory, that the former
tries to compensate his ‘failure’ as a family
provider by participating less in a traditional
female activity such as unpaid housework.
Manliness is thereby upheld by compensating for
a lack of masculinity in one area through more
manly behaviour in another (Arrighi and Maume,
2000). The woman might participate in this
process by not demanding more housework of
the man as well as by increasing her own
housework (Evertsson and Nermo, 2004, who
find this sort of tendency in American data).
Of course the man might also do less housework
despite demands from the woman that he
do more.
2. According to this perspective, the division of paid
and unpaid work in the household reflects rational
decision-making within the family, where the goal
is to maximize family utility and output. Families
benefit most when spouses specialize in the work
they do best. As women often are, or plan to be,
mothers, they are expected to invest less in paid
work. Men often invest more in paid work, from
which they enjoy comparative benefits, while
women have greater comparative benefits in
housework. The theory presupposes an altruistic
main provider who justly distributes the financial
resources to the others in the family, thus its
designation as the altruistic model.
3. It appears that children receive a larger share of
the cake in families where the woman controls
the family’s economic resources. Studies have also
found a link between female control of the house-
hold finances and increased health in the children
(Lundberg and Pollak, 1996, for an overview).
4. GEM is an indicator of a country’s level of
gender equality, used by the United Nations
Development Program (Human Development
Report, 2005).
CHANGING RESOURCES AND THE DIVISION OF HOUSEWORK 467

5. For some student’s it might actually work the
other way around. Thus, if the necessary effort
needed is less than full-time they might instead
have more time to spend on housework than a
person working full-time.
6. This assumption receives indirect support from
studies showing that women and men with a high
level of education more often have a positive
attitude towards equality between the sexes (e.g.
Thornton et al., 1983; Kane, 1995; Knudsen and
Wærness, 2001).
7. Notably, not all women are economically depen-
dent on their spouse. However, as the economic
dependency variable varies between 1 and 1, the
degree of economic dependency also varies
between 1 and 1. In order to simplify reading,
we therefore talk about reduced dependency even
in cases when the woman was the main provider
already in 1991 and her contribution to the
household economy has increased even more.
8. It is worth noting, however, that the average
change in economic dependence among the
couples in our sample does not differ from
what was reported for all cohabiters in 1991 and
2000, respectively (Bygren et al., 2004).
9. The decrease presented for men is not significant
at the 5 per cent level.
10. Compare, for example, women’s share in 1991
and 2000 for the category in which the spouses’
relative educational level has remained unchanged
(at the top of Table 2). This reduction is exactly
as large as the overall reduction for women as a
group, i.e. 1.5 per cent. Consequently, the net
change here is 0.
11. In Tables 3 and 4, women’s share of the housework
constitutes one of the dependent variables. This
means that we are assuming that a change between
90 and 100 per cent has the same significance as
a change between 50 and 60 per cent. We have,
however, also tested using a logit-transformed
share as the dependent variable in the analysis
(cf. Reskin and Branch McBrier, 2000). This does
not change the fundamental result.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Magnus Bygren, Michael Ga
¨hler,
Christine Roman, A
˚sa Lo
¨fstro
¨m and two anonymous
reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier drafts
of this paper. Financial support from The Swedish
Council for Working Life and Social Research
(grant no. 2002-0620 and 2001-2921) is gratefully
acknowledged. We are also grateful to Karl-Ulrich
Mayer and CIQLE, Yale University, for granting a
post-doctoral position to Marie Evertsson that facili-
tated completion of this project.
References
Ahrne, G. and Roman, C. (1997). Hemmet Barnen och
Makten. Fo
¨rhandlingar om arbete och pengar i
familjen. SOU 1997: 139. Stockholm: Fritzes.
Arrighi, B. A. and Maume, D. J. (2000). Workplace
Subordination and Men’s Avoidance of
Housework. Journal of Family Issues,21, 464–487.
Batalova, J. A. and Cohen, P. N. (2002). Premarital
Cohabitation and Housework: Couples in Cross-
national Perspective. Journal of Marriage and
Family,64, 743–755.
Baxter, J. (1997). Gender Equality and Participation
in Housework: A Cross-National Perspective.
Journal of Comparative Family Studies,28, 220–247.
Becker, G. S. (1991). A Treatise on the Family.
(Rev. edn.) Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bianchi, S. M., Milkie, M. A., Sayer, L. S. and
Robinson, J. P. (2000). Is Anyone Doing the
Housework? Trends in the Gender Division of
Household Labor. Social Forces,79, 191–228.
Bittman, M., England, P., Sayer, L. S., Folbre, N. and
Matheson, G. (2003). When Does Gender
Trump Money? Bargaining and Time in
Household Work. American Journal of Sociology,
109, 186–214.
Bjo
¨rnberg, U. (1992). Tva
˚fo
¨rso
¨rjarfamiljen i teori och
verklighet. In Acker, J. (Ed.) Kvinnors och ma
¨ns liv
och arbete. Stockholm: SNS Fo
¨rlag.
Blood, R. O. and Wolfe, D. M. (1960). Husbands and
Wives. Glencoe IL: Free Press.
Breen, R. and Cooke, L. P. (2005). The Persistence of
the Gendered Division of Domestic Labour.
European Sociological Review,21, 43–57.
Brines, J. (1993). The Exchange Value of Housework.
Rationality and Society,5, 302–340.
Brines, J. (1994). Economic Dependency, Gender, and
the Division of Labor at Home. American Journal
of Sociology,100, 652–688.
Bygren, M., Ga
¨hler, M. and Nermo, M. (2004). Familj
och arbete – vardagsliv i fo
¨ra
¨ndring. In Bygren, M.,
Ga
¨hler, M. and Nermo, M. (Eds) Familj och
468 EVERTSSON AND NERMO

arbete – vardagsliv i fo
¨ra
¨ndring. Stockholm: SNS
Fo
¨rlag.
Chen, F. (2005). Employment Transitions and the
Household Division of Labor in China. Social
Forces,84, 831–851.
Coltrane, S. (2000). Research on Household Labor:
Modeling and Measuring the Social Embeddedness
of Routine Family Work. Journal of Marriage and
the Family,62, 1208–1233.
Coltrane, S. and Ishii-Kuntz, M. (1992). Men’s
Housework. A Life Course Perspective. Journal of
Marriage and Family,54, 43–57.
Cooke, L. P. (2006a). Policy, Preferences, and
Patriarchy: The Division of Domestic Labor in
East Germany, West Germany, and the United
States. Social Politics,13, 117–143.
Cooke, L. P. (2006b). ‘Doing Gender’ in Context:
Household Bargaining and the Risk of Divorce in
Germany and the United States. American Journal
of Sociology,112, 442–472.
England, P. and Budig, M. (1998). Gary Becker on the
Family: His Genius, Impact and Blind Spots.
In Clawson, D. (Ed.) Required Reading: Sociology’s
Most Influential Books. Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press.
England, P. and Kilbourne, B. S. (1990). Markets,
Marriages, and Other Mates: The Problem of
Power. In Friedland, R. and Robertson, A. F.
(Eds) Beyond the Marketplace. Rethinking Economy
and Society. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Erikson, R. and Goldthorpe, J. H. (1992). The Constant
Flux. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Evertsson, M. (2001). Divorce and Labour-market
Outcomes: Do Women Suffer or Gain?
In Jonsson, J. O. and Mills, C. (Eds) Cradle to
Grave. Life-course change in modern Sweden.
Durham, UK: Sociology press.
Evertsson, M. and Nermo, M. (2004). Dependence
within Families and the Division of
Labour: Comparing Sweden and the United
States. Journal of Marriage and Family,66,
1272–1286.
Fenstermaker Berk, S. (1985). The Gender Factory. The
Apportionment of Work in American Households.
New York: Plenum Press.
Flood, L. and Gra
˚sjo
¨, U. (1997). Tid fo
¨r Barn, Tid fo
¨r
Arbete. En underso
¨kning av svenska husha
˚lls
tidsanva
¨ndning. In Ahrne, G. and Persson, I.
(Eds) Familj, makt och ja
¨msta
¨lldhet. SOU
1997: 138, 159–188.
Frisco, M. L. and Williams, K. (2003). Perceived
Housework Equity, Marital Happiness and Divorce
in Dual-Earner Households. Journal of Family
Issues,24, 51–73.
Fuwa, M. (2004). Macro-level Gender Inequality
and the Division of Household Labor in
22 Countries. American Sociological Review,69,
751–767.
Geist, C. (2005). The Welfare State and the Home:
Regime Difference in the Domestic Division of
Labour. European Sociological Review,21, 23–41.
Gershuny, J., Bittman, M. and Brice, J. (2005). Exit,
Voice and Suffering: Do Couples Adapt to
Changing Employment Patterns? Journal of
Marriage and Family,67, 656–665.
Gershuny, J., Godwin, M. and Jones, S. (1994). The
Domestic Labour Revolution: A Process of Lagged
Adaptation?. In Andersson, M., Bechhofer, F. and
Gershuny, J. (Eds) The Social and Political Economy
of the Household New York: Oxford University
Press.
Greenstein, T. N. (2000). Economic Dependence,
Gender, and the Division of Labor in the Home:
A Replication and Extension. Journal of Marriage
and the Family,62, 322–335.
Grunow, D., Schulz, F. and Blossfeld, H.-P. (under
review). Gender Norms or Economic Resources in
Process. How do Spouses Adjust their Share in
Household Labor During the Reproductive Family
Phase?
Gupta, S. (1999). The Effects of Transitions in Marital
Status on Men’s Performance of Housework.
Journal of Marriage and Family,61, 700–711.
Hallero
¨d, B. (2005). Sharing of Housework and Money
Among Swedish Couples: Do they Behave
Rationally? European Sociological Review,31,
273–288.
Human Development Report. (2005). International
Cooperation at a Crossroads. New York: United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Ho
¨rnqvist, M. (1997). Familjeliv och arbetsmarknad
fo
¨rma
¨n och kvinnor. In Person, I. and
Wadensjo
¨, E. (Eds) Familj makt och ja
¨msta
¨lldhet.
SOU 1997:138. Stockholm: Fritzes.
Kane, E. W. (1995). Education and Beliefs About
Gender Inequality. Social Problems,42, 74–90.
Knudsen, K. and Wærness, K. (2001). National
Context, Individual Characteristics and Attitudes
on Mothers’ Employment: A Comparative Analysis
of Great Britain, Sweden and Norway. Acta
Sociologica,44, 67–79.
CHANGING RESOURCES AND THE DIVISION OF HOUSEWORK 469

Lundberg, S. and Pollak, R. A. (1996). Bargaining and
Distribution in Marriage. The Journal of Economic
Perspectives,10, 139–158.
Nermo, M. and Evertsson, M. (2004). Makt att
fo
¨rhandla – makarnas relative resurser, husha
˚llsar-
bete och konflikter. In Bygren, M., Ga
¨hler, M. and
Nermo, M. (Eds) Familj och Arbete – vardagsliv i
fo
¨ra
¨ndring. Stockholm: SNS Fo
¨rlag.
Presser, H. B. (1994). Employment Schedules Among
Dual-Earner Spouses and the Division of
Household Labor by Gender. American
Sociological Review,59, 348–364.
Reskin, B. F. and McBrier, D. B. (2000). Why not
ascription? Organizations’ Employment of Male
and Female Managers. American Sociological
Review,65, 210–233.
Roman, C. (1999). Inte av ka
¨rlek allena: makt i
hemarbetets fo
¨rdelning. Sociologisk forskning, 36, 33–51.
Rydenstam, K. (2003). Tid fo
¨r vardagsliv. Kvinnor och
ma
¨ns tidsanva
¨ndning 1990/91 och 2000/01.
Levnadsfo
¨rha
˚llanden rapport nr: 99, Stockholm:
Statistiska centralbyra
˚n.
Shelton, B. A. and John, D. (1996). The Division of
Household Labor. Annual Review of Sociology,22,
299–322.
Sanchez, L. and Gager, C. T. (2000). Hard Living,
Perceived Entitlement to a Great Marriage, and
Marital Dissolution. Journal of Marriage and
Family,62, 708–722.
Søensen, A. and MacLanahan, S. (1987).
Married Women’s Economic Dependency, 1940–
1980. American Journal of Sociology,93, 659–687.
Thornton, A., Alwin, D. F. and Camburn, D. (1983).
Causes and Consequences of Sex-role Attitudes and
Attitude Change. American Sociological Review,48,
211–227.
Tichenor, V. J. (1999). Status and Income as Gendered
Resources: The Case of Marital Power. Journal of
Marriage and the Family,61, 638–650.
West, C. and Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing
Gender. Gender & Society,1, 125–151.
Windebank, J. (2001). Dual-Earner Couples in
Britain and France: Gender Divisions of Domestic
Labour and Parenting Work in Different
Welfare States. Work, Employment & Society,15,
269–290.
Yodanis, C. (2005). Divorce Culture and Marital
Gender Equality. A Cross-National Study. Gender
& Society,19, 644–659.
Authors’ Addresses
Marie Evertsson, Center for Research in Inequalities
and the Life Course (CIQLE), Yale University and
Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI),
Stockholm University, SE 106 91 Sweden.
Tel.: þ46 8 16 26 38, Fax: þ46 15 46 70
Email: marie.evertsson@sofi.su.se
Magnus Nermo (to whom correspondence should be
addressed), Swedish Institute for Social Research
(SOFI), Stockholm University, SE 106 91 Sweden.
Tel.: þ46 8 16 25 86, Fax: þ46 8 15 46 70.
Email: magnus.nermo@sofi.su.se
Manuscript received: May 2006
470 EVERTSSON AND NERMO