Gender Inequalities in Outsourcing Domestic Work during Widowhood : Economic Constraint or Competence Deficit ?

Jeanne Belly Le Guilloux , Sciences Po Paris
Zachary Van Winkle, SCIENCES PO, OBSERVATOIRE SOCIOLOGIQUE DU CHANGEMENT

Although shaped by economic resources and gendered household labor, little is known about how widows and widowers outsource domestic work to cope with everyday life before and following spousal death. Three research questions are addressed: How does the probability of outsourcing domestic work change across the widowhood process? Are there gender differences? Do these gender differences vary across welfare regimes? Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and fixed-effects regressions, we estimate changes in outsourcing domestic chores, meal preparation, and personal care up to five years before and after spousal death, by gender. The probability of outsourcing rises in the year of spousal death and continues to increase thereafter. Widowers are considerably more likely to outsource than widows, reflecting men’s lower domestic experience and women’s economic hardships. The gender gap is substantial in Nordic and Continental Europe, but largely absent in Southern European countries.

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 Presented in Session P1. Families, Fertility, and the Life Course 1