Childbirth, marital resources, and the division of domestic labor

Using newly released longitudinal data from the 1988-1994 National Survey of Families and Households, this dissertation investigates the impact of the birth of a child upon the household division of labor defined as wives' time spent in housework and gender segregation of domestic labor among married couples at the start of their family years. I view births of children as important determinants of the time spent by wives in household tasks. However, the birth of a child does not completely explain why wives do more housework than do husbands. Thus, along with the birth of a child, wives' marital resources such as share of the family income, employment hours, and gender role attitudes, are examined as well.;Overall, wives who have given birth to children since 1988 devote an average of ten more hours per week to housework than those who have remained childless over the years. The findings showed that the birth of a child is not the only significant predictor of time spent by wives in housework. Controlling for childbirth and other explanatory variables related to marital resources, wives' current egalitarian gender ideologies have the expected negative effect on their time in housework. The findings also showed that the birth of a child does not significantly affect the degree of segregation of domestic labor between wives and husbands. However, controlling for other explanatory variables, the association between change in wives' paid work time and current gender segregation of domestic labor significantly differs, depending on whether or not wives have given birth to any children since 1988.