Great Expectations? Working‐ and Middle‐Class Cohabitors' Expected and Actual Divisions of Housework
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12276 |
| Author | Daniel L. Carlson,Amanda J. Miller |
| Published date | 01 April 2016 |
| Date | 01 April 2016 |
A J. M University of Indianapolis
D L. C Georgia State University∗
Great Expectations? Working- and Middle-Class
Cohabitors’ Expected and Actual Divisions
of Housework
Young adults often express preferences for
egalitarianism but often nd themselves in
conventional household arrangements. Using
interview data from 122 working-class and
middle-class cohabitors, the authors applied
Komter’s (1989) concepts of manifest, latent,
and hidden power to examine the ways that
contemporary young adults reinforce and
modify gender norms surrounding the divi-
sion of housework. Cohabiting women more
often expect equal housework arrangements
than men, regardless of class, yet middle-class
women achieve equal divisions more often
because they are better able to exercisemanifest
power than their working-class counterparts
and because middle-class men appear more
willing to cede to their partners’ demands.
In contrast, working-class women’s desires to
achieve equality are frequently rebuffed as they
face greater resistance or defer to their part-
ners’ competing wishes. Although the exercise
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University
of Indianapolis, 1400 E. Hanna Ave., Indianapolis, IN
46227 (milleraj@uindy.edu).
∗Department of Sociology, Georgia State University, P.O.
Box 5020, Atlanta, GA 30302–5020.
This article was edited by Kevin M. Roy.
Key Words: cohabitation, gender, housework/division of
labor, qualitative research, relationship satisfaction, socio-
economic status.
of manifest power is central to arranging house-
work, the hidden power of gender conventions
pervades across class, leading many couples
toward traditional arrangements.
Expectations for intimate relationships have
changed over the past few decades. Not only
are individuals more likely to prefer equal part-
nerships in which they share responsibilities
for both paid and unpaid labor (Gerson, 2010;
Pedulla & Thébaud, 2015), but they are also
more likely to live together outside of marriage
(Kennedy & Bumpass, 2008; Schoen, Landale,
& Daniels, 2007). Today, nearly 60% of young
women have cohabited with a romantic partner
(Schoen et al., 2007).
Despite these changes, some norms remain
deeply entrenched. Although they desire egali-
tarian unions, young people note that achieving
such relationships is difcult, if not impossible,
especially as it relates to sharing domestic labor
(Gerson, 2010). Not only do young adults fail to
nd institutional supports for achieving equality
(Risman, 2004), but they must also contend with
a cultural milieu that reinforces the essential-
ism of gender differences tied to the division of
labor (Brines, 1994; Gager, 1998; Komter,1989;
Tichenor, 2005). A growing body of literature is
examining how gender inequality in housework
is maintained, focusing on how gender organizes
couples’ behaviors, interactions, identities, and
346 Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (April 2016): 346–363
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12276
Great Expectations? Cohabitation and Housework 347
expectations in ways that reinforce gender con-
ventions and male power and privilege (Ferree,
2010; Komter, 1989; Risman, 2004; Tichenor,
2005) as well as the ways this differs by social
class (e.g., Miller & Sassler, 2012; Shows &
Gerstel, 2009; Usdansky, 2011).
Most of these studies, nonetheless, focus only
on the outcomes of gendered power (e.g., what
percentage of the housework each partner does)
rather than the process of establishing the divi-
sion of labor or individuals’ feelings about their
arrangements. Furthermore, they often examine
married couples only. Cohabitation is often dis-
cussed as a relationship form that allows couples
more freedom to create domestic arrangements
with fewer gendered social constraints than
those experienced by their married peers (Cher-
lin, 2004). But it is uncertain how contemporary
cohabitors expect to divide domestic labor with
their partners, whether their actual arrangements
conform to those expectations, and how they
react to their divisions.
In this study we expand on the canon of
research on gender and domestic labor by
using qualitative interview data from 122
working-class and middle-class cohabitors to
examine gender and class differences in how
power shapes the division of housework. Specif-
ically, we used Komter’s (1989) concepts of
manifest, latent, and hidden power to examine
how individuals reinforce and modify gender
norms related to housework. Our ndings reveal
meaningful and differential experiences by both
gender and social class in the ways that power
is exercised within intimate unions.
B
Household divisions of labor have become more
egalitarian over time, with women decreasing
and men increasing their time spent on house-
work (Bianchi, Sayer, Milkie, & Robinson,
2012). Nonetheless, research has generally
found that married women continue to do more
hours of housework than married men, even
when they devote similar amounts of time to
paid labor and earn as much or more than their
partners (Lincoln, 2008). Indeed, even among
today’s young adults with preferences for egali-
tarian couplings, progress on the home front has
stalled (England, 2010).
A great deal of research on the division of
housework in couples has focused on gender
ideology, time availability, and relative earnings
to account for couples’ domestic arrangements
(e.g., Domínguez-Folgueras, 2013; Davis,
Greenstein, & Marks, 2007). Although all are
important factors that contribute to couples’
housework divisions, they cannot fully explain
women’s persistent responsibility for house-
work. To this end, scholars have drawn attention
to gender as an organizing feature of couples.
As Ferree (2010) noted, gender is “a social
relation characterized by power inequalities that
hierarchically produce, organize, and evaluate
masculinities and femininities through the con-
tested but controlling practices of individuals,
organizations, and societies” (p. 424) Most
studies that examine gender in intimate unions
have focused primarily on the outcomes of
gendered power (e.g., sharing of housework);
however, scholars have called for researchers
to also examine the specic ways in which
power is enacted and how it might be used
to challenge or reafrm conventional gender
norms and male privilege (e.g., Ferree, 2010;
Gager, 1998; Komter, 1989; Tichenor, 2005;
Zvonkovic, Greaves, Schmiege, & Hall, 1996).
Komter (1989) developed a model for assess-
ing gendered power within intimate unions by
examining individuals’ preferences for, discus-
sions about, and feelings regarding the house-
hold division of labor. This approach provided
a fuller picture of the ways couples construct
the division of housework and identied three
dimensions of power that operate within inti-
mate relationships. According to Komter, the
rst, manifest power, is the ability to get another
to bend to one’s will and is witnessed in vis-
ible outcomes such as change in and conict
over the division of household labor. Latent or
covert power, conversely, is evident when no
change or conict is observed despite differences
in desires. This is because latent power is exer-
cised when issues are not raised because of fear
of destabilizing the relationship, the anticipation
of the wishes of the more powerful member, or
because previous attempts at altering outcomes
failed. Third and last is invisible (or hidden)
power, which does not result in overt behav-
ior, per se, but rather in an ideological consen-
sus between dominant (men) and subordinate
(women) groups. Within heterosexual couples
the hidden power of gender conventionwas exer-
cised in several ways. For example, it emerged
when traditional household arrangements were
not challenged because they were seen as natu-
ral, inevitable, and unavoidable. Hidden power
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