Future Chore Division Ideals and Expectations: Validating a Measure with Undergraduate Women

Abstract

College-aged women expect to disrupt their future careers, earn less, and be responsible for more household and childcare chores than their future spouses. This unequal division of labor has been linked to inequality in the workforce between women and men with women earning less and being concentrated in low pay, low prestige occupations. The current investigation sought to improve understanding of this phenomenon by exploring the factor structure and psychometric properties of a measure of chore division ideals and expectations in a sample of undergraduate women. Exploratory factor analyses suggested separate measures of ideal and expected chores, each comprised of two factors: traditionally feminine chores, and traditionally masculine chores. Confirmatory factor analyses did not reach satisfactory cutoff levels, but the scores on the preliminary scales showed evidence for convergent validity, internal reliability, and test-retest reliability. Results also supported hypotheses regarding relationships between the subscales. Tentative implications of these findings, future directions for research, and clinical implications are discussed.