Do Stay-at-Home Fathers "Keep House"? Housework Participation among Men Who Care Full-Time

Beth A. Latshaw, Appalachian State University

While the predictors and implications of men’s participation in housework in heterosexual households have been studied in great detail, less is known about the nuanced divisions of housework for a subset of couples: stay-at-home father/female breadwinner families. Using a combination of housework time diary data and in-depth interviews with 40 fathers, I overcome this limitation by empirically evaluating stay-at-home fathers' participation in unpaid labor, the predictors of their participation, and the ways male caregivers socially construct and attach meaning to specific kinds of household chores. Findings divide full-time caregiving men into three groups: low, moderate and high participating fathers. I conclude by discussing how traditional gendered divisions of housework tend to endure in stay-at-home father households, sustaining mothers' “second shift” even when they become a family's breadwinner.