Sociological Studies of Children and Youth

Over the last several decades, as women have increasingly entered the labor force, they are spending less time at home (Bianchi, 1995; Hayghe, 1997). Having a more constrained schedule has resulted in married women and single mothers substantially decreasing the amount of time that they spend on household labor (Bianchi et al., 2000; Robinson & Godbey, 1997). Traditionally, in two-parent households, husbands rarely participated in household tasks. Now that more married women with children are employed outside the home, one might assume that they would turn to their husbands to help them manage their households. However, current research shows that fathers are making only a slightly greater contribution to housework than they did in the past (Gershuny & Robinson, 1988; Robinson & Godbey, 1997). If mothers are now spending fewer hours on housework, and fathers are only contributing slightly more, then there remains a significant proportion of household chores that either must be done by others or must remain undone. Research suggests that children in particular may find themselves responsible for an increasing proportion of household tasks. For example, the more hours mothers work outside the home, the more hours children spend on family work (Benin & Edwards, 1990; Blair, 1992b; Elder & Conger, 2000; Shelton, 1992).