The Intergenerational Transmission of Gender Roles: Children's Contribution to Housework in Germany

Abstract

Research on children's participation in housework is scarce and mainly descriptive. Drawing on theories of gender role socialization, the authors identify how children's contributions are influenced by how their parents allocate domestic tasks. Using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel, which include annual information on time dedicated to housework for all family members, they analyze a sample of 2,293 sons and daughters born 1976 to 1995 who live with their parents at ages 18 and 19 and whose parents reported their own time spent on housework when the children were aged 8 to 11 years. The authors find that parents' housework division when children were ages 8 to 11 affects the likelihood of sons (and less so, daughters) participating in such tasks, even after controlling for parental education, the mother's work attachment, time constraints, and parents' division of housework in adolescence. Analysis of siblings provides additional support for our hypothesis.