'The house belongs to both': undoing the gendered division of housework

• Published in: Community, work & family work & family, 2017-08, Vol.20 (4), p.424-443
• Main Authors: Dominguez Folgueras, Marta, Jurado Guerrero, Teresa, Botía Morillas, Carmen, Amigot Leache, Patricia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Childlessness; conciliación de vida familiar y laboral; Couples; division of labour; división del trabajo; domestic work; Dual career couples; Equality; familias y trabajo; families and work; Gender; Gender equality; Gender inequality; Housework; Humanities and Social Sciences; Igualdad de género; Income; Sex differences; Social interaction; Socioeconomic factors; Sociology; Spouses; tareas domésticas; Unpaid; work-life balance
• ISSN: 1366-8803; 1469-3615
• DOI: 10.1080/13668803.2016.1192525

This article studies 28 dual-income Spanish childless couples who were undoing gender in routine domestic work. We understand 'undoing gender' as defined by Deutsch [(2007). Undoing gender. Gender & Society, 21, 106-127, p. 122]: 'social interactions that reduce gender difference'. The dual-earner couples came from different socio-economic backgrounds and were interviewed in four different Spanish towns in 2011. The analysis shows that resources in a wide sense, time availability, external help, ideas about fairness, and complex gender attitudes are key interdependent factors that can weave together to form different configurations leading to a non-mainstream division of housework. All configurations were based on principles of gender equality: some couples found it fair to have a 50/50 division of domestic work, others a 50/50 division of all work (paid and unpaid); and a third group showed conflicts in practice. These couples' ways of undoing gender illustrate the external, individual, and couple circumstances under which spouses are able to achieve a non-traditional construction of unpaid work.