of labor was unbalanced in their favor, perceived unfairness was linked with marital

dissatisfaction and conflict for both husbands and wives.

 Even though couples seem disinclined to associate inequities with a sense of

unfairness, in a study of 190 new parents, most of the men and women chose an equal

division of labor as the most just of several different household arrangements; this

finding held true despite the fact few of these participants actually had equal divisions of

labor in their own homes (Reichle & Gefke, 1998). In this same study, 75% of the

participants responded they perceived division of labor issues as matters of justice.

Additionally, despite women's lack of feeling entitled to shared divisions of labor,

Goodnow (1998) found "perceptions of fairness are correlated with the extent to which

men take a share of traditionally 'female' tasks" (p. 360), and suggested this sense of

fairness may be tied to women's perceptions of their partners as flexible and appreciative

of the household work they as women routinely do. What all of this points to is the

underlying preference for shared divisions of labor by many couples, and the difficulty

(due to justifications and other processes) of changing patterns of household work once

they are established.

The Development of Gendered Parenting Roles

 Although we have seen couples often form an unequal division of household labor

upon transitioning to parenthood and have examined some of the processes maintaining

this distribution, it may be helpful to examine how and why couples develop gendered

divisions of labor. Couples receive gendered notions of parenthood from numerous

sources. Risman (1998) discusses three interdependent structural levels influencing

gendered beliefs and behavior: the individual level, the societal or cultural level, and the

interactional level. A brief overview of these levels and their application to gendered