Gendering distance, gendered housework: examining the gendered power dynamics through housework allocation in Taiwanese homes

Abstract

Numerous studies examine the power relations between the heterosexual couple through their time spent on domestic chores and which chore they do. They find that women tend to spend more time on housework than men, and some domestic chores, such as cooking, are regarded as women’s duty. While the investigation into household chores has broadened its cultural and ethnic scope, it still focuses on nuclear families without considering the influence of the couple’s extended family members and overlooks other household types, such as multigenerational households. By examining Taiwanese married heterosexual couples’ living and housework arrangements through semi-structured interviews, I find that the distance between the households of the couple and their parents-in-law influences the way the couple share housework. While women still tend to take greater responsibilities in household chores, forming a nuclear family far away from the husband’s parents gives the couple opportunities to negotiate housework and share it more equally. On the other hand, female family members share and trade domestic chores, and husbands are excused from most of the chores when the couple live with the parents of either side. My study suggests that couples’ living arrangements and their relationships with extended family members should be considered in the examination of spousal power dynamics, especially in cultures where the older generation is highly respected. Further studies on the power relations between family members, particularly between the couple and their parents, in various living arrangements are recommended for better understanding of family gender relations.

Supplemental data for this article is available online at at http://doi:10.1080/0966369X.2021.1974355.

Keywords:

• Gendered division of household labour
• intra-family gender relations
• multigenerational household
• intergenerational power relations
• doing gender

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the insightful comments of the three reviewers and constructive suggestions on earlier versions of this paper from Professor Katherine Brickell, Dr Mia Gray, Professor Al James, Dr Suzanne Reimer, Dr Liz Pratt, Dr Niamh Mulcahy, Dr Xiaorong Gu, and Ms Hung-Wen Lai. I am also thankful to the interviewees, who generously shared their lived experience and thoughts with me, and to Cindy Ho, who prioritised my need to use the only study room in our shared flat when we had to work from home during Singapore’s circuit breaker.

Disclosure statement

There are no financial interests or benefits related to this paper, and there is no conflict of interest associated with this paper, either.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is a part of the author’s PhD thesis. The author is grateful for the financial support during her PhD project from the Taiwanese Governmental Scholarship for Overseas Study, Philip Lake Fund (Department of Geography, University of Cambridge) and Postgraduate Research Grant (Magdalene College, Cambridge) and Magdalene College, University of Cambridge;Ministry of Education, Taiwan.

Notes on contributors

Wei-Yun Chung

Dr Wei-Yun Chung is a research associate of Global Asia Research Center, National Taiwan University. Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She received a PhD degree in Geography from the University of Cambridge. Her research interest lies in marriage, family, and gendered family practices in China, Taiwan, and Singapore.