More on fairness and motivations; class issues

I thought of one more reason why women would see an usual unequal division of labor as fair, and this was actually prompted by the reading I've been doing of Scott Coltrane's Family Man: Fatherhood, Housework, and Gender Equity. He notes in the chapter "Explaining Family Work" that in some households in which women have higher-paying or more prestigious jobs the women attempt to compesate for what might be an emasculating situation for their husbands by not demanding that the husbands do more work.

This got me to thinking about the post I made a couple of days ago about women having personal motivations for work, rather than working for the good of the entire family. If a woman has what she perceives to be personal motivations for work, that is something she might see as taking her away from her duty that is for the good of the household -- childcare and housework. Those things then are still her responsibility, and working outside of the home is more like an optional leisure activity. She might then be grateful for her husband making a contribution to the housework, even if that contribution is much smaller than hers (and even if she works hours that are just as long as her husbands).

Coltrane also talks about differences between motivations and sharing in working-class and middle-class families. In working-class families, women's work is more likely to be seen as a necessity (i.e. not personally motivated, but done in the interest of the entire family). And women in working-class families, while they still make less than their husbands, do make proportionally more than wives in middle-class families. Both of these things might tend to tip working-class families closer to equal sharing than middle class families, however the research results on this have been mixed.

Optimality and Fairness

I read in a paper [1] recently that despite the unequal division of labor between parents who both work, most women do not think that the division of labor is unfair. This is curious to me because I would expect women to see an unequal housework burden as unfair. I've been considering a few possible explanations:

1. Unequal division of the "second shift" labor may be seen as fair because the partner doing less labor at home is doing more labor at the workplace. So, for instance, both parents may be putting in 80 hours a week in paid and unpaid labor, with the father putting in 60 hours at work and 20 at home, and the mother putting in 40 at work and 40 at home. (And of course, to be seen as fair, both partners must see this as acceptible.)
2. Unequal division of labor at home may be seen as fair because the father makes more money than the mother, so that the value of the paid and unpaid labor equalizes. For instance, both parents maybe be putting in $100,000 worth of work, with the father's being split up $80,000/$20,000 (work/home) and the mother's split up $40,000/$40,000. (This brings up the complicated question of how to value unpaid labor.)
   
3. Unequal division of labor at home may be seen as fair because it is a stable negotiated outcome and people tend to prefer what they have. This requires a little explanation. If we do a little game theory (sorry, I'll have to save the explanation of that for later), we might get a 1:2 division of labor (that is the father doing 1 hour to the mother's 2 hours) which represents an equilibrium outcome -- no unilateral change by either partner leads to a better outcome. Now, there may in fact be other stable outcomes out there (e.g. equal sharing or a 2:1 division of labor), but it is unclear to the parents how they would get to these outcomes, and as I said above, we tend to prefer what we have to what we don't have. Dan Gilbert talks about this in a video on Ted, and I'd like to find some other sources as well and to find out if there is any research justifying this assertion for non-material "possessions" (e.g. do we prefer situations we are in over situations that we are not in).

[1] Wilkie, J.R. et all, "Gender and Fairness: Marital Satisfaction in Two-Earner Couples", Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1998 v60, p. 577-594.

Personal Motives for Paid Work

I ran across an interesting quote today in an article:

[W]ives may be perceived as having personal motives for working outside the home rather than doing it fo the family's welfare.

This is from A.M. Parkman, "Bargaining over housework: the frustrating situation of secondary wage earners" in The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Oct. 2004.

I found this to be an interesting quote and it corresponds with what I have observed among parents and commentators. Men who work tend to be seen as doing it for the good of the family, even though they accrue personal benefits, but women are often seen as choosing to work for personal benefit (rather than doing it primarily for the benefit of the family).

Specialization and Division of Labor in Marriage

Today I have been reading a fair bit about "specialization" and its contribution to gendered division of labor. Marriage, in addition to it's intangible benefits (love and all that), also confers some material benefits -- in other words it provides people access to commodities that the would not have access to if they were single. This theory, which seems to have started with Gary Becker [1] makes the assertion that spouses can specialize in certain tasks (e.g. childcare, work for pay) and then within the marriage both benefit from this specialization by engaging in a trade that has essentially zero transaction cost. By specializing and trading the marriage partners can use their human capital more effectively and intensively.

Such a theory can give a reason why specialization occurs, but it doesn't speak to why women do the lion's share of the housework and childcare. After all, there is no reason why men and women wouldn't choose to specialize in childcare in equal numbers. However, in the time since this theory was first proposed, the model has been refined to offer some explanations which I am still exploring.

But I think that such a theory could certainly be used to explain the perpetuation of a system of gendered division of labor. Let's assume (just for the moment!) that most men choose to specialize in work-for-pay (WFP) and that most women specialize in domestic labor (DL). Now we look at individual decision-making. Say I'm a man and I'm considering what to specialize in at around the same time that I'm tentatively looking for a mate (this specialization often takes the form of costly education). Should I specialize in WFP or DL? Well, if I specialize in DL then I have a problem -- not many women are specializing in WFP, so most of my potential mates are also specializing in DL and together my mate and I don't have a way to take advantance of this surplus created by specialization. So I specialize in WFP. Similarly a woman seeking to specialize would presumably choose for the same reasons to specialize in DL.

Now, all of this makes a lot of sense to me until we get down to looking at what it means to specialize. If I want to have a profitable career, I may need to make a large investment, both in education and in time spent on my career. These are costs that I have to pay "up front" at or near the beginning of my career. And it can be hard to break in to a new career. But what if I want to specialize in childcare and household labor? Well, I certainly don't need a costly education. On-the-job training will serve me much better. And it's not nearly as hard to break into as a high-powered career.

I honestly don't see a world filled with single people specializing in WFP and DL. I see a world of single people specializing in WFP. Specializing in DL tends to be something that gets forced on you after marriage by necessity. However, I could see potential mates sizing their partners up for their potential as parents (i.e. their potential to specialize in DL) just as mates size each other up for their earning potential (i.e. potential specialization in WFP).

[1] G. S. Becker, 1973, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage: Part I" and "A Theory of Marriage: Part II" in Journal of Political Economy 81 and 82.

[2] M. J. Baker and J. P. Jacobsen, 2005. "Marriage, Specialization, and the Gender Division of Labor"