Parenthood and the gender division of labour across the income distribution:: the relative importance of relative earnings.

Abstract

This study employs a gendered relative resource approach to examine whether the importance of relative resources in shaping changes in the gender division of labor after first birth varies by couples' household income. A substantial body of scholarship has argued that the gender division of labor within different-sex couples is influenced by partners' relative resources. However, couples face class-based constraints that may alter the relevance of relative resources in shaping changes in gender divisions of labor following the transition to parenthood. This study compares couples' divisions of paid work and housework before and up to four years after first birth, using 28 waves of the British Household Panel Survey and the UK Household Longitudinal Study (N = 1,606 couples). I find that the effect of relative resources on changes in couple's paid work and housework behavior after first birth varies substantially by household income. Among higher-income couples, women's paid work and housework time changes less among those with high relative earnings and more among those with low relative earnings, while men's time allocation varies little after first birth. By contrast, among low-income couples, after first birth women's paid work time and share decreases most among female breadwinners while their male partners' paid work time increases substantially. These findings reflect the greater constraints that low-income couples face in making decisions about the division of household labor after first birth and highlight the need for greater attention to class interactions in the process of gender specialization in both research and work-family policy.