The Division of Household Labor

In her 1994 article “Employment Schedules Among Dual-Earner Spouses and the Division of Household Labor by Gender” Harriet B. Presser’s objective is to examine the relationship between employment schedules and household labor. In her opinion, employment schedules are an important determinant of the amount of time available for household labor and thus a possible explanation for why men typically do less housework than women. However, Presser fails to examine the effects of childcare responsibilities, cultural backgrounds, and coinciding circumstances on the division of household labor. 

Presser hypothesizes that the presence of husbands at home while the wives are employed increases the participation of husbands and decreases the participation of wives in household tasks. Her hypothesis is based primarily on the fact that when employment schedules of spouses do not overlap, wives are less able to do tasks such as preparing dinner and cleaning up after meals for both themselves and their husbands. 

Presser also believes that husbands who are at home while their wives are employed feel more of a psychological obligation to increase their participation in household tasks—especially during daytime hours, which are traditionally associated with both paid and unpaid work instead of leisure activities. Presser aims to disprove the current assumption in sociological research that virtually all spouses have daytime jobs and that employment schedules are irrelevant in determining the amount of time available for housework. 

Presser’s empirical analysis attempts to broaden the understanding of how employment schedules affect family life and to define “available time” in relation to housework by using more rigorous definitions of paid employment than are used in current literature.