Why Who Cleans Counts: What Housework Tells Us about American Family Life - Paperback

by Shannon N. Davis (Author), Theodore N. Greenstein (Author)

Every household has to perform housework, and researchers know a lot about what predicts who does which chores, drawing frequently from theoretical explanations that highlight the importance of power dynamics.

This book moves beyond the existing scholarship by using quantitative, nationally representative survey data to theorize about how power dynamics as reflected in housework performance help us understand broader family variations. The authors investigate how knowing who cleans the house explains how households of differing forms, demographics and compositions operate, both cross-sectionally and over the life course of the household.

Author Biography

Shannon N. Davis is Professor of Sociology at George Mason University. She studies the division of household labor and gender ideologies, as well as undergraduate researchers and their mentors.

Theodore N. Greenstein is Professor of Sociology at North Carolina State University. His research interests include work and the family, the division of household labor, and maternal employment.