TY - JOUR
T1 - Acts of Love (and Work)
T2 - Gender Imbalance in Emotional Work and Women's Psychological Distress
AU - Strazdins, Lyndall
AU - Broom, Dorothy H.
PY - 2004/4
Y1 - 2004/4
N2 - Family members do work to meet people's emotional needs, improve their well-being, and maintain harmony. When emotional work is shared equally, both men and women have access to emotional resources in the family. However, like housework and child care, the distribution of emotional work is gendered. This study examines the psychological health consequences of gender divisions in emotional work. Quantitative and qualitative data from a sample of 102 couples with young children show that the gender imbalance affected women's, but not men's, experience of love and conflict in their marriage. Through this erosion of the marriage, the gender imbalance posed a health risk to women and helped explain gender differences in psychological distress. Couples preserved a sense of mutuality by accounting for the gender imbalance as something beyond men's choice or control, or in terms of women's excess emotional needs, thus entrenching gender differences in the performance and consequences of emotional work.
AB - Family members do work to meet people's emotional needs, improve their well-being, and maintain harmony. When emotional work is shared equally, both men and women have access to emotional resources in the family. However, like housework and child care, the distribution of emotional work is gendered. This study examines the psychological health consequences of gender divisions in emotional work. Quantitative and qualitative data from a sample of 102 couples with young children show that the gender imbalance affected women's, but not men's, experience of love and conflict in their marriage. Through this erosion of the marriage, the gender imbalance posed a health risk to women and helped explain gender differences in psychological distress. Couples preserved a sense of mutuality by accounting for the gender imbalance as something beyond men's choice or control, or in terms of women's excess emotional needs, thus entrenching gender differences in the performance and consequences of emotional work.
KW - Division of labor
KW - Emotional work
KW - Gender differences
KW - Psychological distress
KW - Social relations
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=1842528976&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0192513X03257413
DO - 10.1177/0192513X03257413
M3 - Review article
SN - 0192-513X
VL - 25
SP - 356
EP - 378
JO - Journal of Family Issues
JF - Journal of Family Issues
IS - 3
ER -