Coppie conviventi e divisione dei compiti domestici

A few studies have examined housework patterns among cohabiting individuals. This paper uses an analysis of fifty in depth interviews of cohabiting people and people married after cohabitation to study gender differences in time spent on housework. The time women spend doing housework is lower among cohabitants than among the married, especially when they do not have children and they are young (less than 35-year old). In all conditions woman spend more time than men doing housework. Men are more collaborative when their partners refuse doing specific housework. Usually the majority of men interviewed are available to do substantially more housework under repeated requests of their partners. The research does not show a greater involvement of cohabiting men on housework, but it shows how much the housework is a symbolic enactment of gender relations.