Reinforcing Separate Spheres: The Effect of Spousal Overwork on Men’s and Women’s Employment in Dual-Earner Households

The study examines whether a spouse's long work hours exacerbate gender inequality within a dual-income household. It finds that women with husbands who work 60 hours or more per week are 42 percent more likely to quit their jobs, whereas men with wives who work the same hours are no more likely to quit.

The study analyzed 8,484 professional workers and 17,648 nonprofessional workers from dual-income families, using data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. It finds that working mothers whose husbands have long work weeks are two times more likely to quit than those without children. The findings suggest that women with husbands who overwork have less available time to enter the workforce because they are still held chiefly responsible for the couple’s domestic duties, including housework and child care. In this way, long work hours by men can reintroduce gender roles -- including male breadwinning men and female homemaking women -- into households that were formerly dual-income-earning.

Findings are published in the April 2010 edition of American Sociological Review, a peer-reviewed journal by the American Sociological Association.

Read the report.