Families' Division of Labor and Social Networks in the 21st Century: Revisiting Elizabeth Bott's Classic Hypotheses

Journal of Family Issues
Jesper RözerBeate Volker

Abstract

In 1957, Elizabeth Bott argued that the organization of family and social networks are intertwined and that the structure and composition of social networks are associated with the ways in which spouses divide household and paid labor. While this idea became a classic in the literature addressing the division of labor, societies have changed tremendously in the past 50 years, and it has become far more common for spouses to divide their labor more equally. In addition, the causal direction is not clear: Do networks affect the division of labor or vice versa? We inquired as to the causal relationship using a large-scale longitudinal data set, collected in 2009/2010 and 2011/2012 (n = 2477; PAIRFAM [Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics]). We found moderate support for the hypothesis that personal networks influence the division of labor in households, but there were stronger effects for the reverse-that is, that the division of labor affects network patterns, particularly for women.

References

Sep 1, 1989·The American Journal of Hospice Care·S H Critz
Oct 18, 2011·AJS; American Journal of Sociology·David CotterReeve Vanneman
Sep 1, 2012·Social Forces; a Scientific Medium of Social Study and Interpretation·Suzanne M BianchiJohn P Robinson
Oct 3, 2015·Journal of Marriage and the Family·Jill E YavorskySarah J Schoppe-Sullivan

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