Jacob Colmenares, & Dr. Lindsey Trimble O’Connor
Women are pressured by society to meet the standards of traditional gender stereotypes, and carry out the majority of household duties such as cleaning, cooking, laundry and being nurturing to their family. Research has studied the gender gap in the division of labor in couples who both remotely worked from home and it has been found that women were more likely to spend more time on household chores than men did. Building on this research, I asked if women who work remotely from home and whose spouse/partner who works inside the home compared to men who work remotely from home, whose spouse/partner works outside the home spend more time on household chores? I hypothesize that women will spend more time completing household chores compared to men when working remotely from home. I used the 2016 National Study of the Changing Workforce and my sample consisted of 9 males and 17 females who all worked remotely from home while their spouse worked outside the house. They were all in a heterosexual relationship and were currently living with their partner. The sample was asked to self rate, whether their partner or themselves spent more time on household chores. I find support for my hypothesis due to the results found in the means comparison and test; there is a significant difference between the amount of time women and men spend on household chores while working from home. My findings conclude that women spend more time on household chores while working from home when compared to men who work remotely from home, whose spouse/partner works outside the home. My study narrows the gap of knowledge between both variables and highlights how deeply rooted the issue of gender inequality is in household duties. With the new found knowledge, researchers can come up with strategies to fight this inequality in households.