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Every household has to perform housework, and researchers know a lot about what predicts who does which chores, drawing frequently from theoretical explanations that highlight the importance of power dynamics.
This book moves beyond the existing scholarship by using quantitative, nationally representative survey data to theorize about how power dynamics as reflected in housework performance help us understand broader family variations. The authors investigate how knowing who cleans the house explains how households of differing forms, demographics and compositions operate, both cross-sectionally and over the life course of the household.
Shannon N. Davis is Professor of Sociology at George Mason University. She studies the division of household labor and gender ideologies, as well as undergraduate researchers and their mentors.
Theodore N. Greenstein is Professor of Sociology at North Carolina State University. His research interests include work and the family, the division of household labor, and maternal employment.
What do we know about housework?
Theorizing housework as an example of power dynamics
Describing the data
The five classes
Housework class characteristics
Housework class consequences
Stability and change in class membership over time
Housework over the family life course
Housework and socialization
Insights for helping families