Gendered Housework among Adolescents: The Influence of Parents’ Gender Ideologies

Ashley Larsen Gibby , Pennsylvania State University

Although an in-depth literature explores the gendered lives of young children in India, little is known about adolescents. I utilize 24-hour time diary data from 717 adolescents to examine how boys’ and girls’ housework varies by parental gender ideologies. I find that girls do much more housework than boys, which is expected in the highly gender-stratified Indian context. More importantly, I find that adolescent girls with egalitarian parents do significantly less housework than girls with less egalitarian parents. At first glance, these findings support socialization theory – that what parents think translates into what adolescents do. However, I find that boys do very little housework, regardless of parental gender attitudes. I conclude that socialization theory is not gender neutral; egalitarian parents appear to promote gender equity by reducing their daughters’ time in housework while not increasing their sons’. This finding suggests a “stalled gender revolution” among youth in India.

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 Presented in Session 230. Gender and Time Use