1. Pia Schober London School of Economics
The parenthood effect: what explains the increase in gender inequality when British couples become parents?
Pia Schober
London School of Economics

2. Motivation
Gender inequality in time allocations and wages widen from parenthood
Few studies exploring this transition include changes in paid and domestic work
Most only describe change (Gershuny 2003) or based on small non-representative samples (e.g. Singley and Hynes 2005)
Mostly US evidence
What pre-parental factors can explain change in British couples‘ division of labour after becoming parents?

3. Theories Theories to explain domestic labour division:
Neo-classical economic theory (Becker 1981 etc)
Resource-bargaining approach (Blau 1964; Manser and Brown 1980; Lundberg and Pollak 1996 etc)
Doing gender (West and Fenstermaker 1995)
Changing families and heterogeneity in identities:
Identity of growing importance (Giddens 1992; Beck 1992)
Considerable diversity in women‘s work-family preferences or attitudes (Hakim 2000; Wall 2007)

4. Theoretical framework and hypotheses
Extension of rational choice model with sociological identity theory:
Gender role identity affects paid and domestic labour
Maximisation of household‘s private and public goods
Trade-offs between economic and psychological costs and benefits
Couple‘s division of childcare, housework and paid work after becoming parents expected to be less traditional:
H1: The higher women’s pre-parental wage rate relative to their partners’
H2: The more egalitarian women’s gender role identities
H3: The more egalitarian men’s gender role identity

5. Method and Data British Household Panel Survey (1992-2005)
Sample of 549 cohabiting couples becoming parents
Women older than 20 years at birth
Focus on 2nd year after birth
Ordered and binary logistic regressions of couples‘ childcare, housework and paid work division
1/3 missing data imputed through chained equations
Not considered: maternity leave and interdependencies

6. Dependent variables
Whether mother has main childcare responsibility or father equally or more responsible
Women‘s weekly housework hours as % of couple‘s total in quartile categories
Women‘s weekly paid work hours as % of couple‘s total in quartile categories
Men‘s and women‘s absolute weekly hours in housework and paid work

7. Change in couples‘ division of labour

8. Change in paid work and housework hours

9. Explanatory variables
Couples‘ pre-parental division of housework and paid work
Women‘s and men‘s gender role attitudes
Women‘s hourly earnings as % of couple‘s total
Log of men‘s monthly earnings and women‘s hourly wage rate
Controls:
Both partners‘ education, women‘s age, age difference
Relationship duration, marital status at birth
Age and sex of 1st child
Whether will have 2nd child within 3 years
Job dissatisfaction and employment sector
Survey year and region
6 gender role attitudes questions used such as:
A pre school child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works…
...All in all, family life suffers when the woman has a full time job
...A husband’s jobs is to earn money; a wife’s job is to look after the home and family

10. Results

11. Results

12. Results

13. Summary and conclusion
Gender role identities account for most of the shift towards more traditional division of labour
Relative earnings not significant after accounting for pre-parental division of labour
Women‘s absolute earnings significant for housework division (increasing men‘s housework time)
Partner‘s gender role identity more significant than own identity for total housework time

14. UK – US comparison: context matters
Greater significance of gender role identities may point to more choice in UK than US
May be due to longer leave and availability of part-time employment
Gendered assumption of maternity/paternity leave policies in UK may discourage non-traditional division of labour even when women earn more
More evidence on associations with individual entitlements and take-up needed

15. Theoretical framework and hypotheses
Extension of rational choice model with sociological identity theory:
Gender role identity affects paid and domestic labour
Maximisation of household‘s private and public goods
Trade-offs between economic and psychological costs and benefits
Uw(k, hw, cw, xw) = U(k) − f(Gw)Vw(hw, cw) + xw
Um(k, hm, cm, xm) = U(k) − f(Gm)Vm(hm, cm) + xm
Couple‘s division of childcare, housework and paid work after becoming parents expected to be less traditional:
H1: The higher women’s pre-parental wage rate relative to their partners’
H2: The more egalitarian women’s gender role identities
H3: The more egalitarian men’s gender role identity