Gender Display and Counter-Display: Women's Housework Adaptations to Marriage and Cohabitation

Sanjiv Gupta, University of Massachusetts
Yujia Liu, University of Massachusetts

Here we investigate the sources of variation in women's housework responses to union formation. We use data from the first two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to answer the question: Given that the average effect for women of entering unions is to increase their housework hours, what are the factors that counteract this tendency? What are the characteristics of women who reduce their housework after marriage or cohabitation? What characteristics of their partners facilitate women's gender-atypical housework adjustments to union formation? We use three models--one each for women's pre- and post-union housework hours, and a third for the post-union change in housework hours--to trace the housework trajectory of women as they transition from being single to being in marital or cohabiting unions with men. Our sample consists of 620 women who were single in the first wave of the NSFH and married or cohabiting in the second wave.