Division of Household Labor of Dual-Earner Families in the Context of Micro Theories

Although women's entry into working life has become a social reality, the level of participation of men to the responsibilities in household chores has fallen far below the employment rates of women. Many previous studies tried to find answers to the question of household chores still being considered as a women’s job from micro-sociological perspectives such as the time-availability, resources and gender theories. In this study conducted in accordance with the phenomenology design, the sharing of responsibilities of the spouses in the household was discussed within the framework of micro theories. Participants were selected with purposeful sampling technique and in this direction, the study group was composed of married, religious couples with higher education, working, with 0-6 years-old children. In-depth interview, observation and research diary were used as data collection tools. In the study, it was aimed to reveal the emotional and mental labor dimensions of household responsibilities as well as home management, decision-making mechanism, household chores, and childcare. As a result of the study, it was found that female participants are in a much more effective position in home management and decision-making compared with their mothers; and men have lost power compared with their fathers. It was seen that feminine jobs that made up the core of household chores’ responsibilities continued to be undertaken by women, and women’s responsibilities have been expanded to cover outside household chores. Women undertook the detailed, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and works that required pedagogical knowledge in childcare and education; and the men who participated in childcare in line with the instructions of their spouses showed a participating parenting attitude when compared to their fathers. It was also found that women undertook responsibilities that required mental and emotional labor, research, planning and control-based details in all household chores. While the time- availability factor was effective in mandatory cases, especially for the participating couples, resources increased the power of women, especially in decision-making; and the most influential factor on responsibility sharing was the gender factor.