Beyond Equality: A Cross-Cultural Investigation of Young Straight Adults' Expectations for Future Family Labor

Initial research has found that young heterosexual adults, many who are college attending and with the potential for high earnings, predict their future household will still involve a woman doing more chores than a male partner. However, prior scholarship has been primarily focused on Western countries and assumed implicitly that the division of labor is just between a partnered couple. In the present study, we recruited undergraduates from the United States (n = 533, Mage = 18.69, 60.41% women), China (n = 179, Mage = 19.39, 67.04% women) and Nigeria (n = 265, Mage = 21.81, 64.53% women) to investigate future family labor expectations cross-culturally and between and beyond partners within a couple. As predicted, overall women expected to do more of their family's labor and men expected to do significantly less than half, although significant country differences were found. In terms of external support for family labor, participants from the three countries were found to have significantly different expectations, with Chinese participants having the highest and U.S. participants having the lowest expectations for support outside the couple. Finally, women's expectations of future involvement were influenced by various factors, including past family division, ambivalent sexist attitudes, expectation of partner's role in the future, and expectation of involvement by others outside of the couple, whereas young men's future involvement of family labor was influenced by fewer factors. This research has implications for educational interventions and future research by underscoring the role of external support in potentially equalizing young adult's future involvement in family labor.