Labor market and housework: distribution of time in Russian households

1
Labor market and housework distribution of time
in Russian households

• Yana Roschina,
• (Higher Shcool of Economics, Moscow)

2
Research problem

• Development of the market in modern Russia has
  caused the change in the employment structure and
  in the everyday life of the Russians
• The difference of the economic activity level
  between men and women at the age 18-55 is not so
  great (economic activity level of men 81, of
  women 75, Russia, 2008)
• Economic activity level of women is lower then of
  the men in the age group below 35 (the age of
  giving birth and child caring) and over 55 (when
  they can retire)

3
Economic activity of men and women, 2008, Rosstat
4
Professional segregation and wage gap

• It is well known that female professions and
  functions are concentrated in the tertiary sector
  and that women are less paid than men Roshchin
  2003
• Professional segregation and wage gap are
  essential economic factors of women keeping a
  dominant role in the housework

5
The housekeeping practices changed from the
Soviet period

• The increased number and quality of household
  appliances made housework easier and reduced time
  spent on it
• The deficit has disappeared, more and more goods
  are sold by Internet, that is why the time spent
  on purchases has diminished
• As it is possible now to by all clothes, there is
  no necessity to sew it at home
• Families cultivating fruits and vegetables at
  their  dacha  (country house) for their own
  consumption become less prevailing
• The structure of personal services has changed

6
But

• The social roles of men and women in the
  households remained the same as during the Soviet
  period
• The most frequent model of female behavior is
  the combination of roles of housewife and a
  working woman

7
The question is 

• What greatly influences the labor division
  between family members and between home and
  office?
• Social roles and gender stereotypes
• OR
• Economic factors such as human capital and labor
  market characteristics

8
Theoretical framework

• Neoclassic economic theory allocation of time in
  the household is determined by effectiveness of
  household members on the labor market (wage rate)
  Becker 1965, Gronau 1986, Cigno 1993
• Sociological approaches explain gender patterns
  of housework time allocation with traditions,
  norms, functional roles and prestige of men and
  women work (Functionalism, Status and is
  sexual-role theories, Gender display theory,
  Legitimation theory etc.)

9
The main goals of the research are 

• To categorize Russian households according to the
  structure of time spent by family members on
  housework
• To find the determinants of the type of labor
  division between households members

10
Data base is

• Russian Longuitudinal Monitoring Survey
  (Monitoring of the economic position and health
  of Russians) 2006, representing Russian
  population
• About 12500 people at the age over 13,
• 11680 person at the age over 18
• 5545 households

11
The questionnaire

• Did you practice the following kinds of
  housework during the last 30 days?
• (Yes/no)
• How mach time did you spend on it at your usual
  day?
• Weekday / Week-end
• Following variables were calculated
• Time spent by individual on every type of
  housework during a usual week

12
Time spent per week on all type of housework

• MEN 23,1 hours per week
• WOMEN 40,2 hours per week

13
Female housework
Participation rate Participation rate Hours per week Hours per week
  men women men women
Shopping (groceries only) 57,7 88,0 3,8 5,2
Cooking 34,1 90,0 5,6 10,1
Dish washing 47,1 94,5 1,9 3,1
Laundry 16,5 87,3 4,6 8,0
Cleaning the house 35,0 89,4 3,7 6,6
Childcare 14,4 26,4 6,6 11,6
14
Male housework
Participation Participation Hours per week Hours per week
  men women men women
Small car, house, summer house repairs 41,7 6,8 9,2 11,2
House or summer house construction or general repairing 17,1 2,9 14,0 14,9
Car driving with family to the shopping, summer house etc. 23,1 1,8 7,8 8,0
15
Housework without gender role difference
Participation Participation Hours per week Hours per week
  men women men women
Agricultural labor 27,7 22,0 13,3 13,7
Other family member (children excluded) care 5,8 13,4 7,0 8,5
Help in the housework to the relatives living separately
- parents 8,8 6,9 9,1 9,3
- children 2,8 4,1 12,0 15,3
- grand-parents 2,8 1,9 8,3 7,1
- grand-children 1,1 2,3 9,1 19,5
16
Individual types of participation in housework

• They were investigated by cluster analysis
  (K-means)
• Variables time cost per week on different types
  of housework

17
5 groups were found

• Housewives (not women only) (27,7)
• Masters (not men only) (7,3)
• Tutors (5,6 )
• Farmers (6,1 )
• Minimalists (53,2)
• Minimalists-housewives (specialized on everyday
  practices)
• Minimalists-masters (specialized on periodical
  work)

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1. The Housewives (27,7)

• They specialize on everyday charges and spend
  more time at home, than any other type
• Their time costs on shopping, cooking, dish
  washing, laundry, house cleaning are 39 hours per
  week
• The time spent on housework in total 46 hours
  per week
• 93,5 of cluster are women

19
2. The Masters (7,3)

• They are mainly involved into periodical types of
  housework (such as repair work, driving etc.)
• The time spent on housework in total is about 50
  hours per week
• 75 of this time is spent on house or summer
  cottage repair, driving and agricultural labor
• 84,5 are men, at the age 36-55, married (78)

20
3. The tutors (5,6 )

• They spend more time on childcare in addition to
  everyday duties
• Their time in total spent on housework is 33
  hours per week including 21 hours spent on
  childcare
• 91,4 of the cluster are women, 75 are married,
  more than 50 are under 35 years, 61 are employed

21
4. The farmers (6,1 )

• They prefer to allocate their time to agriculture
  even if they live in town.
• Their time spent on housework is 28 hours per
  week, including 20 hours per week spent on
  agricultural labor.
• The house repairing and driving take 6 hours per
  week.
• 50 of cluster are over 55, 37 live in villages.

22
The minimalists (53,2)

• They spend minimum of heir time on housework (14
  hours per week)
• 49 are not married, 60 are men
• They were divided into two subgroups
• One group oriented on everyday housework
  (shopping, house cleaning etc.) their time
  costs equal 22 hours per week
• the other oriented on periodic types of work
  (house repairing, car driving etc.), their time
  costs equal 10 hours per week

23
MEN Clusters by age ()
24
WOMEN Clusters by age ()
25
1265 households have one one adult including 195
households with one adult and 1-2 children

• What determine the type of their housework?
• To find these factors we tested the multinomial
  regression for the whole sample and for men and
  women separately
• Dependent variable types of housework, found in
  the model of cluster analysis

26
The essential factors of housework specialization
in the households with only one adult are

• Gender
• Labor market employment
• Wage and the other incomes (this fact confirms
  the theory)
• Age is significant in the model for lonely women
• Children age is significant in the model for
  women with 1-2 children

27
Categorization of households with more than two
adults

• The goal of this part of research was to go from
  individual level to the level of the households
• Thus we needed to come up with the procedure of
  typology of households with any structure (not
  only the labor division between spouses which was
  investigated by some researches)
• Two-step cluster analysis was used, 6 variables
  were constructed as the percent of adults in
  every individual type of housework, obtained as
  said above (every variable changing from 0 to 1)

28
6 clusters of households were found

• Patriarchal (30) housewife mini-master
• Minimum-egalitarian (18 ) mini-wousewife
  mini-master OR mini-housewife
• Agricultural (11,5) farmer housewife
• Caring (childcare) (12,4)
• la bonne la bonne OR le maître OR le
  maître-mini
• Traditional-egalitarian(13,1 ) master
  housewife
• Daily-minimal (11,9 ) housewife (or
  mini-housewife) mini-housewife

29
What determines the type of the division of
housework in the household?

• We tested the multinomial regression with
  dependent variable the type of housework
  division, basic type - patriarchal (which one
  is the most frequent)

30
Significant predictors of housework allocation
type are

• family type (number of member, number of
  children) urbanization level, land ownership and
  car possession, employment and education of
  family members
• characteristics of the head of the family age,
  gender, marriage status, frequency of alcohol use
  and nationality

31
Conclusions

• In general, traditions and myths are stronger
  determinants than economic factors (wage etc.)
  women are always more occupied by housework than
  men despite the difference in their labor market
  effectiveness
• But the economic factors influence the housework
  allocation as well

32
The type patriarchal (the third of households)

• There are two adults in most of these types of
  household - housewife and minimalist-master
• The housewives are mostly women, and their time
  costs on housework are 43 hours per week
• The minimalists-master are mostly men, they spend
  about 15 hours per week on house cleaning, house
  and summer cottage repair, car driving and
  agricultural labor

33
The type patriarchal

• 39 of households are large families, 36 are
  spouses with 1-2 children under 18
• 55 live in towns (excluding Moscow and
  St-Petersburg
• Income per capita is 5.6 thousand rubles (about
  200), it is lower than in the whole sample
• Only in 30 of households there is a person with
  University diploma
• 84 of adults are employed
• 23 of household heads are workers

34
The type minimum-egalitarian(18 of
households)

• There are two adults in these households whose
  types of housework are
• Minimalist-housewife minimalist-master (more
  than half of the cluster)
• Two minimalist-housewives (more than 40 of the
  cluster)
• Time costs on housework of one of them are about
  32 hours per week, of the other about 15 hours
• This type of households present the division of
  housework not only between man and woman, but
  between two women too

35
The type minimum-egalitarian is more probable
(in comparison with patriarchal) if

• Number of household members is larger
• Percent of employed adults is higher
• Children number is lower
• Household head is woman
• Household head is chef of an enterprise

36
The type agricultural (11,5 of households)

• 82 of members of this households who are most
  employed in the housework (71 hours per week) and
  35,7 of others households members (37 hours per
  week) belong to the cluster of farmers
  (individual type of housework)
• In the majority of households there are two
  adults, man and woman as well as two women (two
  men are very rare)

37
The type agricultural is more probable if

• Households live in the country or in the towns
  other than Moscow and St-Petersburg
• Percentage of adults employed is higher
• Household head is Russian
• Household head consumes alcohol very often

38
The type caring (childcare) (12,4 of
households)

• The individual type of 92 households members
  whose time spending on housework is the largest
  (64 hours per week) is tutor
• Most of them are women
• 22 of other adults (who spend about 37 hours on
  housework) are tutors too (most of them are
  women) 21 of them are minimalist-masters and
  16 are masters (most of them are men)

39
The type carying is more probable if

• There are children under 3 years old in the
  household
• Size of household is larger
• There is a grand-mother in this family
• Family members are more educated
• Household head is a man
• Household head age is lower
• There is a car in the household

40
The type traditional-egalitarian (13,1 of
households)

• People mostly occupied by housework (60 hours per
  week) are divided into two parts 55 of them are
  masters (who are mostly men 75) and 42 -
  housewives (women only)
• The second family member whose time spending is
  lower (38 hours) can be master (50) or
  housewife (about 35)
• There is precise division of roles in this
  household (male or female), but both spend a lot
  of time on housework

41
The type traditional-egalitarian is more
probable if

• Household lives in a village
• Their income is very low
• They have a car, a large house and some land
• Household head is young
• Household head drinks alcohol often

42
The type daily-minimum (11,9 of households)

• 58 of persons mostly occupied by housework (39
  hours per week) are housewives (women), 39 of
  them are minimalist-housewives (three quarters
  women)
• 89 of the second adults (time costs are 22 hours
  of housework) are minimalist-housewives (more
  than half of them are men)
• The structure of housework of these two people is
  the same (shopping, room cleaning etc., there is
  no male occupations) but there is difference in
  time costs (the first person spend twice more
  than the second)

43
The type daily-minimum is more probable if

• Family lives in a city (especially Moscow and
  St-Petersburg)
• There is no children in the household
• Household head is woman
• There are many home appliances
• Human capital of household members is high
• Household income is high