Cross-National Comparison on Family Satisfaction Super-Specialization Versus Super-Equality

• Published in: Social indicators research Vol. 145; no. 1; pp. 303 - 327
• Main Author: de Miguel-Luken, Verónica
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Science + Business Media 01.08.2019; Springer Netherlands; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Child care; Decision making; Division of labor; Empowerment; Equality; Families & family life; Family satisfaction; Gender differences; Housework; Human Geography; International comparisons; Life satisfaction; Microeconomics; Public Health; Quality of Life Research; Relatives; Social research; Social Sciences; Sociology; Specialization; Working hours; Decision making; Family relations; Housework; Work–family balance; Satisfaction
• ISSN: 0303-8300; 1573-0921
• DOI: 10.1007/s11205-019-02089-w

Research has documented that women still assume the main burden of domestic tasks and childcare within the household, despite the recent changes towards a greater equality. This division of labor has clear implications in satisfaction with family life. However, little research has combined other domestic responsibilities, such as decision making and care of dependent relatives with housework to study satisfaction, from a comparative perspective. In this article, data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP)-2012 are used to explore the effects of a proposed index on balance in the couple, for women and men separately, through different multilevel models. The results suggest that the empowerment that could be assumed from a leading role in decision making does not improve satisfaction and that super-equality is the option yielding the highest levels of satisfaction, regardless their hours of paid-work. Differences by countries persist after controlling for individual and contextual variables, with the Latin American countries being those with the most satisfied populations.