Undergraduate Research Journal

Perceived Division of Labor and Work-Family Conflict Among U.S. Married and Cohabiting Women in Heterosexual Couples
Genevie Co
once,” 2= “married twice,” and 3= “married 3 or more
times.” Current employment status was measured by a
dichotomous variable: 1=currently employed (full or part
time), 0= other (unemployed, retired, disabled, etc).
Analysis
Descriptive statistics were used to find the central
tendencies of the full sample. Bivariate statistics were used
to compare married and cohabiting women. Multivariate
statistics (specifically logistic regression) was used to find
the effect of being married or cohabiting on each of the two
dependent variables, while controlling for other variables.
RESULTS
Table 1 shows descriptive statistics for married women,
cohabiting women, and the sample as a whole. A larger
percentage of married women than cohabiting women
indicated that the division of labor was fair to both them
and their partner. More married women indicated that they
did not experience any conflict.
The average household income was higher among married
women (about $75,000) than cohabiting women (about
$50,000). The highest level of education completed for
married women was also slightly higher than the level
for cohabiting women, with married women having a
Bachelor’s degree and cohabiting women having an
Associate’s degree on average. Married women were
10 years older than cohabiting women on average and
had been with their current spouse 15 years longer than
cohabiting women had been with their partners.
Holding other factors constant, age had a positive
relationship with perceived unfairness, although this effect
was only marginally statistically significant (see Table 2).
The older a woman was, the more likely she was to report an
unfair division of labor. The number of times married had a
negative effect, also only marginally statistically significant.
Married Cohabiting All
Fairness of division of labor
Fair to both me and my spouse/partner 73.4% + 65.9% 69.9%
Unfair to me 21.5% + 28.7% 24.9%
Unfair to my spouse/partner 5.1% + 5.4% 5.2%
Conflict in balancing work and family life
No conflict at all 37.1% *** 24.24% 31.1%
Not too much conflict 33.2% 38.2% 35.6%
Some, a lot, or a great deal of conflict 29.7% *** 37.6% 33.4%
Age 46.23 (10.757) *** 36.87 (12.628) 41.8 (12.573)
Highest level of education completed 10.82 (1.715) *** 10.44 (1.461) 10.64 (1.61)
Non-Hispanic White † 85.3%*** 73.1% 79.6%
Number of times married 1.12 (.39) *** .53 (.82) .8413 (.694)
Number of years together in focal relationship 24.34 (11.68) *** 10.05 (8.6) 17.58 (12.56)
Household income 13.67 (2.987)*** 10.87 (4.175) 12.38
Minor children present in household †† 32.9% *** 47% 40.5%
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