Division of Labor, Multiplication of Gratitude? Gratitude and Resentment Within Households

Abstract

Objective

This paper investigates contemporary household economies of gratitude and resentment, assessing how discrepancies between partners' expectations relate to their emotions and household labor allocation.

Background

Women shoulder greater shares of cognitive and physical housework than men. Prior research suggests expressions of gratitude reveal the underlying expectations that reproduce and/or challenge gender-traditional labor allocations.

Methods

This article draws on qualitative analysis of 209 interviews with 37 men and 41 women in dual-income, mixed-gender couples with children, interviewed two or three times each.

Results

Expressions of gratitude and resentment revealed considerable divergence between men's and women's expectations. Some women were grateful for men's participation in physical labor; others expected significant physical and cognitive contributions and resented their absence. Most men expected to contribute physical household labor and were grateful when women's unpaid housework left more time than expected for men's paid work. Men's resentment emerged when they felt their physical contributions were underappreciated or their partner had unreasonable expectations for their cognitive labor participation. Resentment eased in cases where men increased their attunement and women their use of delegation.

Conclusion

Our longitudinal dataset enabled us to examine implicit gender ideologies as reflected in respondents' gratitude and resentment and to chart shifts in expectations and labor allocations in close to real time. These findings broaden our understanding of why household labor remains strongly gender-typed and reveal how quantitative measures of gender ideology may not capture nuanced perspectives—particularly vis-à-vis the division of cognitive labor.