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| Sunday, March 11, 2007 |
| Boston Globe: The Job Without Benefits |
 Today's Boston Globe magazine has a group of personal finance related articles. The main one is The Job Without Benefits about breadwinner wives who can't get their other halves to pick-up more of the housework burden.
It wasn't supposed to work this way. When women embraced the role of providing for the family, they were also expected to take on some of the family power that flows from economic might, and men were supposed to start acting like co-caregivers by performing more of the female roles, tending home and offspring. Sociologists predicted they'd see the effect of an "exchange theory" in families: The more money a wife contributed to the family till, the more unpaid household and childcare work she could "buy" out of. They long believed that exchange theory would eventually be the undoing of gender roles. They were wrong. Some husbands of breadwinner wives have embraced their role as keeper of the hearth and home, but they are few and far between.
Exchange theory works to a point. Men increased their housework by a maximum of 2.5 hours a week (to 20 hours) when their wives' contribution to family income rose from zero percent to 50 percent, according to a study done by a team of Australian and US sociologists, published in the July 2003 issue of the American Journal of Sociology. But even when they earned 50 percent of the household income, wives in this study group did 40 hours of housework a week, double what their husbands did at their peak housework performance.
So why aren't men taking on an equal share of the housework, even in homes in which women are now equal providers? You don't need a study to figure it out. Why do something you don't want to do if the person who was doing it before is still doing it, and bringing home more money? |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 5:36 AM *
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This sounds just like my life. I supported my husband through 4 job changes and deferred his expenses so he could support his ex-wife with her two Mercedes and big house. He got to chase his dream job, while I had to keep my job for the health insurance, mortgage payments and then had to still maintain everything at home. I got tired of it after he sought custody of his 3 kids from his first marriage. Now he lives next door, and has to do the shopping, laundry, cooking, driving, etc for his 3 kids and himself. Instead of 7 people, I only have my 2 kids and myself. I have a lot more time now that I'm not the slave. When we lived in the same house, I had to nag him to help out. He is the one constantly complaining to me now that the tables are turned.
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This sounds just like my life. I supported my husband through 4 job changes and deferred his expenses so he could support his ex-wife with her two Mercedes and big house. He got to chase his dream job, while I had to keep my job for the health insurance, mortgage payments and then had to still maintain everything at home. I got tired of it after he sought custody of his 3 kids from his first marriage. Now he lives next door, and has to do the shopping, laundry, cooking, driving, etc for his 3 kids and himself. Instead of 7 people, I only have my 2 kids and myself. I have a lot more time now that I'm not the slave. When we lived in the same house, I had to nag him to help out. He is the one constantly complaining to me now that the tables are turned.