A recent study published in the American Sociological Review has found that both men and women tend to work more hours if their romantic partner is a woman. The research also revealed that women reduce their work hours when caring for a child, but this reduction is smaller if their partner is also a woman. These findings provide new insights into how gender dynamics within relationships influence labor market behavior.
Probably since the dawn of humanity, males and females tended to have different roles in their households and to engage in different types of work. Traditionally, men undertook tasks requiring greater physical strength and performed them outside the household, while women specialized in childcare and domestic tasks. In modern times, this division evolved, with men primarily engaging in paid labor outside the home and women focusing on domestic work.
Over the past century, women’s participation in the labor force has significantly increased. Despite this progress, studies continue to show that women, on average, still do a greater share of housework and spend less time in the labor market compared to men. Interestingly, single men and women tend to spend similar amounts of time in paid work, but this changes when they form partnerships. Maintaining a family and household necessitates both financial and domestic contributions, leading couples to often specialize in different roles.
Study author Eva Jaspers and her colleagues wanted to explore how much time women and men spend in paid labor depending on whether their partner is a male or a female. Their hypotheses were that both men and women will spend more time in paid labor if their partner is a woman and that they will work less if they have children, but that the reduction will be less if their partner is a woman. They also expected that individuals who spend more time in paid work will tend to have partners who also spend more time doing paid work, but that this association will be weaker if the partner is a woman.
The researchers analyzed data collected by Statistics Netherlands from 1995 to 2020. Each individual in the dataset was assigned a unique identification number, allowing the researchers to link information from various administrative registers. This included legal data indicating a committed relationship, demographic data, and labor market engagement data. Indicators of being in a committed relationship included being partners in a pension plan, having a joint legal child, being tax partners, and having a notarial cohabitation agreement.
The study focused on individuals who had both a male and a female partner during the study period (not simultaneously) and lived with each of them for at least a year. The researchers also noted whether a person first had a male partner and then switched to a female one, or vice versa.
The analysis was restricted to people who were between 25 and 29 years old in January 2006 (so that they were between 40 and 44 by the end of the study period) and who resided in the Netherlands throughout the entire period. The age range was chosen because most people have entered the labor market by age 25, while the upper limit was selected due to data availability. The researchers also excluded any years in which a person was at least partially self-employed, as they could not accurately determine work hours in such cases. This resulted in a final sample of 2,871 men and 2,101 women, totaling 4,972 individuals.
The results showed that these individuals spent most of the study period in different-sex relationships. Men were partnered with women 75% of the observed months, while women had male partners 63% of the observed months.
Both men and women worked more hours when their partner was a woman. On average, women worked 7 hours more per month when their partner was a woman, and men worked 21 hours more per month in the same scenario.
There was an association between the hours worked by partners in a relationship. However, this association was weaker for men with female partners. Individuals who worked more hours tended to have partners who also worked more hours per month. Women reduced their work hours more significantly when caring for a child compared to men, but this reduction was smaller if their partner was a woman. Men’s working hours were not significantly affected by having a child, regardless of their partner’s gender.
“Our study consistently showed that it is not only an individual’s own gender but also their partner’s gender that contributes to labor supply. We have shown that individuals who have committed relationships with both women and men display systematically different behavior with their female than with their male partners. We theorized that this pattern is due to an orientation toward producing not only one’s own gender identity by performing gender typed tasks, but also to the partner’s gender identity by protecting their production of gender-typed tasks,” the study authors concluded.
The study sheds light on the potential effects of partners on labor market participation. However, the design does not allow for definitive cause-and-effect conclusions. Additionally, since all participants are likely bisexual, results might differ for individuals of other sexual orientations. Future research could further explore these dynamics in different cultural and labor market contexts to enhance our understanding of how partner’s gender influences labor market behavior.
The research, “Doing Genders: Partner’s Gender and Labor Market Behavior,” was authored by Eva Jaspers, Deni Mazrekaj, and Weverthon Machado.