Division of Labor in Families

Brief report from CCF Early Career Scholar Dr. Meredith Zhang summarizes new research on how providing unpaid care for family and friends differs by gender, sexual orientation, and partnership status.

A briefing paper prepared by Daniel L. Carson, University of Utah, and Melissa A. Milkie, University of Toronto, for the Council on Contemporary Families symposium The COVID-19 Pandemic and the… Read more: Work-Family Stressors, Gender, and Mental Health during COVID-19 and Beyond

A briefing paper prepared by Arielle Kuperberg, University of North Carolina – Greensboro,  Sarah Thébaud, University of California, Santa Barbara, Kathleen Gerson, New York University,  and Brad Harrington, Boston College,… Read more: Dads Home with Kids Peaked During The COVID-19 Pandemic – But Not for The Reason You Think

A briefing paper prepared by Wen Fan, Boston University, and Richard J. Petts, Ball State University, for the Council on Contemporary Families symposium The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of… Read more: Can Remote Work Fuel Gender Equality? Evidence Shows Cause for Optimism but Challenges Remain

A briefing paper prepared by Liana C. Sayer, University of Maryland and Joanna R. Pepin, University of Toronto for the Council on Contemporary Families online symposium The COVID-19 Pandemic and… Read more: Pandemic Influences on Gender Inequality in Unpaid Work

Prepared by Daniel L. Carlson, University of Utah, and Richard J. Petts, Ball State University, for the Council on Contemporary Families symposium The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender… Read more: Executive Summary: The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender Equality

A new CCF symposium highlights what emerging research tells us about changes to family & work life during the COVID-19 pandemic and what they mean for the future of gender equality in the U.S.

A new brief report from CCF takes a look at how cognitive labor related to household management influences well-being in different ways for mothers and fathers.

It turns out there is a big difference between dividing up the tasks so that each partner does different ones versus sharing or alternating the same tasks, so that partners contribute equally to each.

A new study estimates that about 70% of U.S. moms can expect to be primary financial providers before their children turn 18.

Before and During COVID-19: Telecommuting, Work-Family Conflict, and Gender Equality A briefing paper prepared by Thomas Lyttelton (Yale Sociology), Emma Zang (Yale Sociology), and Kelly Musick (Cornell Policy Analysis and… Read more: Before and during COVID-19: Telecommuting, Work-Family Conflict, and Gender Equality

“Legacy Washington recently recorded an interview with author/historian Stephanie Coontz. Watch Legacy Washington historian Bob Young interview Coontz, an expert on family and marriage whose writing influenced the U.S. Supreme… Read more: CCF’S Stephanie Coontz Interviewed by Legacy Washington

CCF experts Dan Carlson, Richard Petts, and Joanna Pepin discuss the findings of their latest brief report on gendered division of labor during the covid-19 pandemic with Deseret News’ Lois M.… Read more: CCF Experts Featured in The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Deseret News

Read her thoughts on the challenges mothers are facing in “Coronavirus Is Killing the Working Mother” Tweet

A briefing paper prepared by Daniel L. Carlson (University of Utah), Richard J. Petts (Ball State University), and Joanna R. Pepin (University of Buffalo – SUNY) for the Council on… Read more: Men and Women Agree: During the COVID-19 Pandemic Men Are Doing More at Home

A briefing paper prepared by Amanda Miller, University of Indianapolis, and Sharon Sassler, Cornell University, for the Council on Contemporary Families. Much has been written about the challenges couples face… Read more: Challenges Facing Cohabiting Couples Differ from those of Married Couples in this Crisis

Five years after marriage equality, CCF Director of Research and Public Education Stephanie Coontz asks: What can different-sex couples learn from same-sex couples? Featuring research by CCF experts Joanna Pepin, Dan… Read more: CCF’s Stephanie Coontz for The New York Times: What Can Different-Sex Couples Learn From Same-Sex Couples?

Parents Can’t Go It Alone introduces you to important new work about what parents need to meet their goals and successfully raise the next generation.

A briefing paper prepared by Kathleen Gerson, New York University, for the Council on Contemporary Families’ Symposium Parents Can’t Go It Alone—They Never Have.  If debates about women’s rights, relationships… Read more: Why No One Can “Have It All” and What to Do About It

New research by CCF members Daniel Carlson and David Cotter is featured in the Deseret News. Carlson and Cotter presented two new reports to CCF about gender differences in household… Read more: Men are helping more around the house and favor more gender equality, new research shows

Not All Housework is Created Equal: Particular Housework Tasks and Couples’ Relationship Quality A brief report prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Dan Carlson, Assistant Professor, Family and… Read more: CCF BRIEF: Not All Housework is Created Equal: Particular Housework Tasks and Couples’ Relationship Quality

Patterns of Progress? Changes in Gender Ideology 1977-2016 A briefing paper prepared for The Council on Contemporary Families by David A. Cotter, Department of Sociology, Union College, cotterd@union.edu. April 3,… Read more: CCF BRIEF: Patterns of Progress? Changes in Gender Ideology 1977-2016

On August 26, 2017, Women’s Equality Day Turns 44.   A fact sheet compiled for the Council on Contemporary Families by Nika Fate-Dixon and Stephanie Coontz, The Evergreen State College.… Read more: CCF BRIEF: On August 26, 2017, Women’s Equality Day Turns 44

ADVISORY: Women’s Equality Day Turns 44. Gains, stalls, and setbacks   August 25, 2017, Austin, TX: Since 1973, August 26th has been designated as Women’s Equality Day, offering a chance… Read more: CCF ADVISORY: On August 26, 2017, Women’s Equality Day Turns 44

CCF President Barbara Risman weighs in on recent findings that millennials want more traditional gender roles at home in a recent article in the GoodCall. Despite these findings, Risman says… Read more: Millennials Aren’t Traditionalists, Says CCF President Barbara Risman

A Reversal in Predictors of Sexual Frequency and Satisfaction in Marriage A briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Sharon Sassler, Professor, Department of Policy Analysis &… Read more: CCF BRIEF – A Reversal in Predictors of Sexual Frequency and Satisfaction in Marriage

  Gender Revolution and the Restabilization of Family Life  A briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Frances Goldscheider, College Park Professor of Family Science, University of… Read more: Gender Revolution and the Restabilization of Family Life

CCF Symposium on Housework, Gender and Parenthood: Overview An introduction to the Council on Contemporary Families Online Symposium on Housework, Gender, and Parenthood by Stephanie Coontz, Council on Contemporary Families… Read more: CCF Symposium on Housework, Gender and Parenthood: Overview

First comes love, then comes…housework? A briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families Online Symposium on Housework, Gender, and Parenthood by Arielle Kuperberg, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University… Read more: First comes love, then comes…housework?

Same-Sex Couples May Have More Egalitarian Relationships http://www.wbur.org/npr/373835114/same-sex-couples-may-have-more-egalitarian-relationships National Public Radio (NPR) December 29, 2014   Tweet

Six charts demonstrate a renewed progress towards gender equality starting around 2006.

This look at sexual frequency among younger couples in equal marriages refutes recent claims that when a man share the housework equally, it is bad for the couple’s sex life.

Today the Council on Contemporary Families releases the third set of papers in a three part symposium marking the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. The first two sets of papers described changes in America’s religious and racial-ethnic landscape in the half century since it became illegal to discriminate on the basis of religion, skin color, national origin, race, ethnicity or gender.

By Philip N. Cohen University of Maryland Gender inequality within families is reciprocally related to gender inequality in the paid workplace. That is why one of the legacies of the Equal Pay… Read more: Gender Equality: Family Egalitarianism Follows Workplace Opportunity

On the 50th Anniversary of The Feminine Mystique, Council on Contemporary Families Scholars identify what’s changed—and what hasn’t.

By Ellen Galinsky President Families and Work Institute Phone: 212.465.2044 Email: egalinsky@familiesandwork.org I prefer to think of changes in gender relations and values as an evolution, with ups and downs and… Read more: CCF Gender Revolution Symposium: Gender Evolution among Employed Men

Let’s face it: The road to happily-ever-after is pitted with potholes. Children, finances, and in-laws can all put stress on a marriage. But what about who cleans the floor? This matters, too. A survey released this week by the Pew Research Center shows that most Americans now regard sharing household chores as more vital to a good marriage than such traditional measures of marital success as having children.

We believe that the transformation of marriage that has occurred in the comparatively short period of 40 years is too great a break from the past to be dismissed as a slow and grudging evolution that has not fundamentally changed family dynamics. Our ongoing studies of couple relationships reveal instead that change has been continuous and significant, not merely in younger couples who begin their relationship with more flexible ideas about gender, but also in older couples where the wife has worked long enough to change her husband’s values and behaviors.

Experts Respond to “Men’s Changing Contributions to Housework and Childcare”

Download Full Report as a PDF Download Full Report as a Word Document What reduces women’s housework burden? A new study shows that on average it doesn’t have much to… Read more: Women’s Money Matters: Earnings and Housework in Dual-Earners Families

Download Full Report as a PDF Download Full Report as a Word Document The employment of wives and mothers rose dramatically from 1960 to about 1990, and thereafter has leveled… Read more: Moms and Jobs: Trends in Mothers’ Employment and Which Mothers Stay Home

In 1960, only 40 percent of women aged 25-54 years old were in the labor force. By 2000, 70 percent of women that age were employed. For married women with children aged six through seventeen, employment rates grew from 40 percent in 1960 to a peak of almost 80 percent by the new millennium. Sixty percent of married women with children under school age now work for pay, compared to less than 20 percent in 1960. Mothers are still more likely than fathers to work part-time, but they are less likely to do so than they were in the past. Wives work for pay eighty percent of the hours their husbands work for pay, a huge increase since the 1960s.

By Heather Boushey, Ph.D. Senior Economist Center for American Progress Download Full Report as a PDF Download Full Report as a Word Document Recent media reports claim that mothers are… Read more: Are Mothers Really Leaving the Workplace?