Effects of Union Type on Division of Household Labor: Do Cohabiting Men Really Perform More Housework?

Using data from 17,636 respondents in 28 nations, this research uses multilevel modeling to compare the reported division of household labor and factors affecting it for currently married and currently cohabiting couples. Cohabiting men report performing more household labor than do married men, and cohabiting women report performing less household labor than do married women. The findings provide support for the time-availability, relative-resources, and gender-ideology perspectives. The effects of time availability and relative resources on the division of household labor are substantially the same for both union types, but gender ideology is more influential on the division of labor reported by cohabiting than by married respondents. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.