Gendered Division of Labour and Perceived Fairness

Perceived fairness and the gendered division of labour

Research on perceived fairness about the gendered division of labour often showed that equity does not coincide with equality for most couples. Evaluations of justice depend indeed on various factors. According to social exchange theorists, perceived fairness arises when partners’ relative contributions to paid and unpaid labour balance each other, regardless who does what and how the balance is achieved. According to the social-psychological framework elaborated by Thompson and Major, the sense of fairness depends, among other factors, on comparison referents, i.e. the standards against which the division of labour is evaluated. Finally, gender ideology perspective emphasizes the role of gendered social norms in shaping ideas about what is to be considered as just in the division of labour.

In this communication we investigate three aspects of the relationship between perceived fairness and the gendered division of labour: 1) how paid work, unpaid work and money can be exchanged in order to have a just division of domestic labour; 2) who and at what conditions is entitled to ask for a re-negotiation of the division of domestic labour; 3) the effect of interpersonal comparisons in changing a division of domestic labour that is considered unjust by one of the partners.

Studying these topics with standard survey data is problematic because it is difficult to disentangle the effects of various factors that are usually strongly interconnected. Further, there is also a problem of reverse causality between judgments and behaviours. Therefore we adopted an experimental approach implementing a vignette treatment within an online survey of dual-earner couples with children. In depth interviews were conducted as well, in order to verify the adducted arguments.