Domestic Labor, Attitudes and Women's Marital Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Study in Korea

Abstract

Little scholarly attention has been given to how gender attitudes and family attitudes moderate the effects of domestic labor on marital satisfaction in East Asia, where the heavy and unequal burden of domestic labor on women meets traditional gender ideology and familism. We examined the marital satisfaction of younger Korean women (in their 20s and 30s) and their older counterparts (in their 40s or older) (Person-N = 5,744), using panel data from the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families. The results reveal that younger wives’ time spent on domestic labor is negatively associated with their satisfaction only when they do not hold traditional family attitudes. Younger women’s gender-role attitudes were not found to moderate the relationship between their husbands’ contribution to domestic labor and their satisfaction. For older women, no evidence was found for either interaction effect. We interpret the findings within the Korean context and draw theoretical implications.