TY - THES ID - 136414462 TI - Who Will Do the Housework? A Cross-National Examination of the Role of Macro-Level Biological Essentialism in the Expected Distribution of Paid and Domestic Labor Between Partners AU - Van Rossum, Aster AU - van Laar, Colette AU - Meeussen, Loes AU - Van Grootel, Sanne AU - KU Leuven. Faculteit Psychologie en Pedagogische Wetenschappen. Opleiding Master in de psychologie (Leuven) PY - 2020 PB - Leuven KU Leuven. Faculteit Psychologie en Pedagogische Wetenschappen DB - UniCat UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:136414462 AB - While women have increased their participation in paid work over the years, they are still responsible for the majority of the unpaid domestic work as men have not made a corresponding shift in their contribution to housework. These observations suggest that the division of domestic labor between partners cannot be explained entirely by how much economic resources the partners each bring into the household, which is claimed by the economic bargaining account. Previous research has indeed indicated that gender plays an important role in the negotiation of who does how much housework, which is the main premise of the gender construction account. Besides individual factors, like the partners’ share of paid work and gender, previous cross-national research has also reported relations between the division of household chores and the characteristics of the couples’ country of residence, i.e., the macro-level. This thesis investigated the self-reported expectations of students between 17 and 30 years old across 47 countries toward their share of future paid work and future household chores, compared to their (future) partner. Multilevel regression analyses were used to answer two research questions: Are there gender differences in young adults’ expectations regarding their share of future paid work and future household chores relative to their (future) partner, across countries? And, how does young women and men’s expected share of paid work relate to their expected share of household chores, in countries with more versus less macro-level biological essentialist beliefs? The results showed that cross-nationally, young men and women still report gendered expectations toward their future contributions to paid and domestic work. In addition, the analyses provided evidence for both the economic bargaining account and the gender construction account. Moreover, the results suggested that country-level biological essentialism can diminish the relation between the expected division of housework and an individual factor otherwise estimated to be an important source of bargaining power, i.e., expected distribution of paid work between partners. Finally, the results indicated that there are gender differences in the extent to which men and women align their share of housework with their share of paid work, but were mixed with respect to which gender does this more than the other. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed, together with implications for interested parties. ER -