Presentation Schedule
Status Beliefs Matter in Housework: Spouse Relative Income, Employment Form and Housework Gender Inequality in Japan (91472)
Session Chair: Yimin Zhang
This presentation will be live-streamed via Zoom (Online Access)
Friday, 16 May 2025 11:15
Session: Session 1
Room: Live-Stream Room 1
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation
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Despite increased female labor participation in Japan, the narrowing of the gender gap in domestic labor has stagnated, with women still performing most household chores. Two theories aim to explain this: the economic exchange perspective, where men trade their higher earnings for their spouse's domestic labor, and the gender play perspective, where women perform housework to fulfill traditional feminine roles, even if they are the primary breadwinners. Empirical findings remain uncertain. Based on expectation states theory, we propose that Japanese partners value each other's employment status alongside income and gender roles. In Japan, widely shared status beliefs rank regular employment above non-regular employment, assigning greater social esteem and perceived competence to regular employees. Analyzing data from 72,433 samples in the Japanese Panel Study of Employment Dynamics (2017–2022), we find a curved U-shaped relationship between wives' housework hours and their relative income in dual-income households. This supports both the economic exchange and gender play perspectives. Wives with regular-employment husbands perform more housework compared to those with non-regular-employment husbands when their relative income is below 20% or above 80%, but less when it ranges between 20–80%. This suggests that husbands' higher employment status increases wives' housework when they are economically dependent or when wives' high earnings threaten husbands' status, perpetuating gender inequality. Interestingly, husbands' housework time is unrelated to relative income or employment status. Our study demonstrates that husbands' employment status impacts wives' housework in Japan. To advance gender equality, it is essential to challenge the hierarchical employment status belief.
Authors:
Yimin Zhang, Fukuyama Heisei University, Japan
Bolin Mao, Hitotsubashi University, Japan
Tao Wang, Emlyon Business School, France
About the Presenter(s)
Dr YIMIN Zhang, Lecturer, Department of Business Administration, Fukuyama Heisei University.
General interests: Organization theory
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