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The Precarity of Progress: Implications of a Shifting Gendered Division of Labor for Relationships and Well-Being as a Function of Country-Level Gender Equality
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

The Precarity of Progress: Implications of a Shifting Gendered Division of Labor for Relationships and Well-Being as a Function of Country-Level Gender Equality

Alexandra N. Fisher, Michelle K. Ryan, Yuan-Hsi Liao, Gosia Mikołajczak, Larisa Riedijk, N. Pontus Leander, Georgios Abakoumkin, Jamilah Hanum Abdul Khaiyom, Vjollca Ahmedi, Maximilian Agostini, …
Sex roles, Vol.90(5), pp.642-658
05-01-2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-024-01453-6
Appears in  United Nations Sustainable Development Goals @ FGCU (featuring SDGs 3, 4, 14, and 15)

Abstract

Behavioral Science and Psychology Gender Studies General Medicine/Public Health Original Article Psychology Sociology
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a shift toward a more traditional division of labor–one where women took greater responsibility for household tasks and childcare than men. We tested whether this regressive shift was more acutely perceived and experienced by women in countries with greater gender equality. Cross-cultural longitudinal survey data for women and men ( N  = 10,238) was collected weekly during the first few months of the pandemic. Multilevel modelling analyses, based on seven waves of data collection, indicated that a regressive shift was broadly perceived but not uniformly felt. Women and men alike perceived a shift toward a more traditional division of household labor during the first few weeks of the pandemic. However, this perception only undermined women’s satisfaction with their personal relationships and subjective mental health if they lived in countries with higher levels of economic gender equality. Among women in countries with lower levels of economic gender equality, the perceived shift predicted higher relationship satisfaction and mental health. There were no such effects among men. Taken together, our results suggest that subjective perceptions of disempowerment, and the gender role norms that underpin them, should be considered when examining the gendered impact of global crisis.
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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being
#5 Gender Equality

Source: SDGs in the Output

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