A Comparison of the Division of Household Labor in the United States and Sweden

Julianne K. Ohlander, Pennsylvania State University

Sweden is viewed as an egalitarian country. The United States is viewed as having great inequalities. The normal assumption is that these differences are based on ideology, but there may be other factors that influence equality. This paper uses data from the 1994 "family and gender roles" module of the International Social Survey Program to explore the division of household labor in the U.S. and Sweden. Four models are utilized to explain the division of household labor in each country: gender role socialization, gender role ideology, economic dependency, and time availability. The gender role ideology explains equal division of labor in the U.S. In Sweden, gender role socialization, gender role ideology, and time availability explain equal division of labor, while the economic dependency model does not hold.