Husbands’ housework ‘reduces chances of divorce’

COUPLES are less likely to get divorced if husbands help more with housework, shopping and childcare, research revealed.

The study of 3,500 British couples after the birth of their first child found the more husbands helped, the lower the incidence of divorce.

Economists have previously argued that rising divorce rates, which began in the early 1960s, are linked with steady increases in the numbers of married women working.

It was claimed that marriages where men take responsibility for paid work and women stay at home leave both spouses better off.

But the new study, from the London School of Economics and Political Science, explodes the theory that marriages are most stable when men focus on paid work and women are responsible for housework.

It showed instead that fathers’ contribution to housework and childcare stabilises marriage, regardless of mothers’ employment status.

The research, Men’s Unpaid Work and Divorce: Reassessing Specialisation and Trade, was carried out by Wendy Sigle-Rushton, one of several British academics in the Gender Equality Network (GeNet), part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) priority network programme.

The findings are published in the latest edition of Feminist Economics.

Dr Sigle-Rushton, senior lecturer in social policy at LSE, said: “Economists have spent a good deal of time examining and trying to explain the positive association between female employment and divorce.

“However in doing so they have paid very little attention to the behaviour of men.

“This research addresses that oversight and suggests fathers’ contribution to unpaid work at home stabilises marriage regardless of mothers’ employment status.”

Dr Sigle-Rushton’s research analysed data on married couples who had their first child in 1970, a time when most women with young children stayed at home.

The data came from the British Cohort Study, which followed the lives of 16,000 children born in one week in 1970.

Dr Sigle-Rushton focused on 3,500 couples who had stayed together for five years after the birth of their first child.

Around 20% had divorced by the time the child was 16.

The fathers’ participation in housework, shopping and childcare was measured in the number of tasks he was reported by the mother to have done in the previous week.

Just over half of fathers in 1975 were reported to have helped with none or one task (51%), while 24% carried out two tasks. About a quarter carried out three or four, the highest contribution.

Nearly a third of mothers were employed, only 5% of whom were working full-time.

The research found, relative to families where women are homemakers and men do little housework and childcare, the risk of divorce is 97% higher when the mother works outside the home and her husband makes a minimal contribution to housework and childcare.

However there is no increased risk of divorce when the mother works and her husband’s contribution to housework and childcare is at the highest level.

The lowest-risk situation is one where the mother does not work and the father gets involved in the highest level of housework and childcare, the study showed.

“The results suggest the risk of divorce among working mothers, while greater, is substantially reduced when fathers contribute more to housework and childcare,” Dr Sigle-Rushton said.

“This study underscores the importance of taking into account relationships between men’s behaviour and marital stability.

“In economic and sociological research, there has been too great an emphasis on women’s paid work and not enough attention given to the division of unpaid work,” Dr Sigle-Rushton said.