The Negotiation of Household Labor and Childcare and the Reproduction of Gender Power - A Study of Dual-Earner Couples with Early School-Aged Children

This study qualitatively examines how dual-earner couples with early school-age children negotiate the division of housework and childcare, moving beyond outcome-focused, static accounts to the dynamics and mechanisms of negotiation. We find that bargaining typically begins as care work concentrates on wives after childbirth and then unfolds asymmetrically within gendered role structures. The normative pairing of “mother-caregiver/father-breadwinner,” though seemingly unsettled under dual earning, is reconstituted as a “priority of roles” that narrows what is negotiable. When husbands hold advantages in income or time, negotiations center on instrumental efficiency; when wives hold such advantages, practical criteria recede and traditional norms silently set the baseline, keeping egalitarian value questions off the table. As a result, bargaining proceeds only insofar as it does not threaten men’s breadwinner status, and many wives shift from early assertive bargaining to accommodation. These dynamics spill over into leisure and family lifestyles. The findings suggest strengthening egalitarian couple partnerships, parenting-skills education, and media initiatives promoting co-parenting.