men and housework in marriage vs. co-habitation

Sharon Jayson (of USA Today) in last Sunday's C-J...

Women who complain their spouses don't do enough around the house now have some real proof.

Not so fast! This study (or at least the summary of it presented here) doesn't hold constant work hours outside the home.

Married men worldwide report doing less housework than unmarried cohabiting men, according to an international study of 17,636 men and women in 28 countries. Findings are published in the September issue of the Journal of Family Issues.

Again, not particularly helpful. Unmarried cohabiting men are less likely to have children and are more likely to have a co-habiter who is working as well. In such contexts, one would expect a more even division of household chores.

In the study by researchers at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and North Carolina State University in Raleigh, cohabiting men report doing more housework than married men, and cohabiting women report doing less housework than married women, although cohabiting men still do less than cohabiting women.

This is consistent with the demographics of marriage vs. cohabitation.

Shannon Davis, an assistant professor of sociology at George Mason and the study's lead author, said the institution of marriage seems to have an effect on couples that traditionalizes their behavior, even if they view men and women as equals.

All that said, let's assume that the academics have done a better job than has been summarized by the reporter. If there is something different about married men and cohabiting men-- aside from work outside the home and number of children-- this would be an interesting explanation.

"What we see is that beliefs about gender matter," she said. "Beliefs about this egalitarian notion of women and men sharing equal responsibility for paid work and household tasks matter differently for cohabiting men than it does for married men."

Another interesting explanation...

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project, a research initiative at Rutgers University, said cohabiting couples see themselves in more of a "you do your part and I'll do mine" roommate relationship. "They see themselves more as separate individuals rather than merging their lives."

Some of the results:

...The survey found about 14 percent of the men and the women were cohabiting with an unmarried partner, and the rest were married. About 40 percent of the women were employed full time, as were about 66 percent of the men. Davis said no information was collected about the length of marriages or cohabiting relationships.

The last data point is an odd and interesting omission. Again, there seems to be nothing about number of children, hours worked outside the home, etc.

At the end of the day, this is sloppy research, sloppy reporting, or both.