AbstractsWomens Studies

Despite women moving into the workforce, the gender gap in household labor has been surprisingly resilient. Although the gap has narrowed, women still do a greater share of housework. I examined the gendered division of housework using time diary data from the American Time Use Survey. I studied laundry, a previously established female-typed task, among married respondents. Because higher income and home ownership are correlated with owning your own washer and dryer, I theorized that having to leave your home to do laundry incurs more time and monetary costs. Since laundry is already heavily female-typed, I theorized that this burden would fall unequally onto women, exaggerating the gap in housework that already exists. I used logistic and OLS regression for my analysis. The results of the study show that laundry minutes done outside of the home, while still done more by women, are far less gendered than laundry minutes done inside. Results suggest that men do more laundry outside of the home than they do inside, showing that outdoor laundry may be closer to being a male-typed task like lawn care, automobile repair, or external home maintenance, all of which are outdoor tasks. Economic, racial, and gender implications are discussed. Advisors/Committee Members: Zipp, John (Committee Chair).