Engendered housework. A cross-european analysis

Division of the housework within the couple is the topic of this paper. We are specifically interested if the gender is still salient in the sharing of the domestic works, and which is its relative importance when controlling for various factors such as education, income, spouses’ occupational status, the type of social policies within the respective society, its level of development etc. We focus our research on the European societies, exploiting the data of the European Quality of Life Survey 2003. We inspect the differences between societies and search for individual level and country level explanations of the time spent for housework. Multilevel analysis is employed to test the hypotheses depicted from the existing literature.housework ; gender roles ; Europe ; EQLS ; multilevel analysis

Housework and gender inequality across Europe

The paper focuses on the factors influencing sharing of the domestic work in the European countries. Many of the previous studies have offered the individual level explanations, taking into account only the individual characteristic when predicting the spouses’ contribution to the chores. Using multilevel regression models, we try to combine the individual level factors with the country’s level ones in order to draw the explanatory model for the gendered sharing of housework within the couples, across the European societies. The analysis provides support for most theories that we have tested: the resource theory, the dependency/ bargaining hypothesis are confirmed: in a couple, when one of the partners has more resources or a better status, the other spouse uses relatively more hours for the housework. On the other hand, religious and gender values play an important role: the more secular and more oriented towards gender-equality a couple is in thinking, the more equally the partners share their housework. However, on average, all over the world, women use more hours for housework than men do. The country level indicators seems to be less important, but the more affluent societies, the post-communist ones, the ones where women are more present in the public life, the less materialist ones, and those where Catholicism is not the dominant religion determine a more equalitarian sharing of the housework.gender inequality ; housework ; gender regimes ; Europe ; ESS

Religion and Gender across Europe

European societies have experienced a decrease in the social importance of religious issues. Values and attitudes towards gender roles have also changed in the last decades. In European countries, people have become more egalitarian with respect to the position of women in society. The author tries to identify the relationship between secularization and changes in gender values. As a result of secularization, the individual value system has become fragmented and religious values have lost their coordinating role. The investigation employs cross-national and longitudinal analysis of European Values Survey data (1990, 1999), most of the European countries being included in the study. The results indicate the decreasing impact of traditional religious belief on values related to gender roles during the 1990s in Europe and a common pattern of relationships between gender values and religiosity in most European societies. (author's abstract

Effect of Nationalism on Religiosity in 30 European Countries

The relations between nationalism and religiosity are complex. Although many previous studies consider religion as a precursor of nationalism, Mitchell (2006) shows that in some contexts the relationship is a reciprocal one. The present approach focuses on the connection between nationalism and Christian religiosity in European countries. People who experience rapid social changes are more likely to reinforce their national identity by searching for stability and a new definition of self and of their own identity. Religion can provide content to the reinforced national identity, especially in the context of religious monopoly resulting in the formation of larger groups that have higher potential for political mobilization and are more likely to control more resources especially when they are supported by the state. The article uses survey data provided by European Values Survey (2000 wave) for the Christian population of 30 European societies. Multilevel regression analysis was used for the analysis. The results indicate a positive effect of nationalist ideology on religiosity in countries with higher level of religious concentration, but no special impact of nationalist ideology on religion was found in post-communist countries. Adapted from the source document

Trends in gender beliefs in Romania: 1993-2008

The impact of modernization and industrialization on gender arrangements has been different depending on the gender culture that predominated when the modernization process started. Romania was among the most rural societies in Europe after the Second World War. Women's involvement in agricultural activity was very high, but the gender division of work was a very traditional one. The communist regimes promoted a full employment policy for the entire population but did nothing to encourage gender equality in the private space. This article focuses on the Romanian case, aiming to identify the dynamics of gender beliefs during the post-communist period. Using data from two waves of the European Values Survey (1990, 1999), as well as data provided by the Public Opinion Barometer 2007 and by Family Life - 2008, the authors carried out standard cohort decomposition methods in order to detect the mechanism that produced the most variation in gender beliefs. (author's abstract

Immigrants' membership in civic associations: why are some immigrants more active than others

This study focuses on the level of membership in associations of the migrant population in Spain. Three types of civic engagement are considered: participation in all types of civic associations, in associations for immigrants and in non-immigrant associations. The article investigates whether immigrants coming from countries with higher levels of civic participation are more likely to participate in civic associations and if immigrants who have lived longer in and stayed in closer contact with a home country with a higher level of civic participation are more likely to join civic associations. Data used come from the Spanish National Immigrant Survey (2007) and the World Values Survey (2000, 2005). The results of multilevel logistic regressions show that immigrants who have spent more time in a more participatory context at origin and who are in closer contact with these societies are more likely to get involved in civic associations at destination. (author's abstract