IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i14p8409-d859318.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Type of Housework Happiness Do You Prefer? Does Gender and Health Matter? A Taiwanese Study

Author

Listed:
  • Ching-Fen Lee

    (Minghsin University of Science and Technology, Hsinchu 30401, Taiwan)

  • Shain-May Tang

    (National Open University, New Taipei City 247031, Taiwan)

Abstract

The purposes of this study was to discover the circumstances in which people gain happiness from performing housework and to understand gender differences in housework-related happiness. We used national data from the Taiwan Social Change Survey conducted in 2011. Only married and cohabiting respondents were included in this study ( N = 1250). Two types of housework happiness were developed: the goal satisfaction type (GST) and the activity enjoyment type (AET), based on interview results in pilot studies and the concept of positive psychology. We found that the significant variables on the two types of housework-related happiness for the total sample were gender, socioeconomic status, gender role attitude, decision-making power, relative feminine housework, and respondent’s health. In addition, the effects on the two types of housework-related happiness for males and females are different. Most people derive happiness from housework if their preferences for type of housework and their personal characteristics are matched. It is possible to transform an otherwise monotonous daily activity into a source of happiness through the process of understanding your housework preference type, learning to enjoy the beauty of housework, and creating fun with chores for families. However, the survey (TSCS) used in this study was carried out over 10 years ago (2011) and the results may be somewhat different in Taiwan today.

Suggested Citation

  • Ching-Fen Lee & Shain-May Tang, 2022. "What Type of Housework Happiness Do You Prefer? Does Gender and Health Matter? A Taiwanese Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-12, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:14:p:8409-:d:859318
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8409/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8409/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Takashi Oshio & Kayo Nozaki & Miki Kobayashi, 2013. "Division of Household Labor and Marital Satisfaction in China, Japan, and Korea," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 211-223, June.
    2. Makiko Hori & Yoshinori Kamo, 2018. "Gender Differences in Happiness: the Effects of Marriage, Social Roles, and Social Support in East Asia," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 13(4), pages 839-857, December.
    3. Allen M. Parkman, 2004. "Bargaining Over Housework," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(4), pages 765-794, October.
    4. Marta Dominguez-Folgueras, 2021. "Difficult Times: The Division of Domestic Work under Lockdown in France," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-13, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anu Molarius & Alexandra Metsini, 2023. "The Association between Time Spent in Domestic Work and Mental Health among Women and Men," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(6), pages 1-9, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yan Yu, 2015. "The Male Breadwinner/Female Homemaker Model and Perceived Marital Stability: A Comparison of Chinese Wives in the United States and Urban China," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 34-47, March.
    2. Thorsten Konietzko, 2015. "Self-Employed Individuals, Time Use, and Earnings," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 64-83, March.
    3. Qunyong Wang & Zhongwu Li & Xueliang Feng, 2019. "Does the Happiness of Contemporary Women in China Depend on Their Husbands’ Achievements?," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 710-728, December.
    4. Sanjiv Gupta & Michael Ash, 2008. "Whose money, whose time? A nonparametric approach to modeling time spent on housework in the United States," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 93-120.
    5. Inmyung Song & Hye-Jae Lee, 2022. "Predictors of subjective well-being in Korean men and women: Analysis of nationwide panel survey data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(2), pages 1-16, February.
    6. Michael A. Ash & Sanjiv Gupta, 2006. "Whose Money, Whose Time? A Nonparametric Approach to Modeling Time Spent on Housework," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2006-06, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    7. Eiji Yamamura & Yoshiro Tsutsui, 2017. "Gap of height and education within couple and its effect on conflict and evaluation about partners: psychological cost of division of labor within household," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 17-35, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    8. Renzo Carriero & Lorenzo Todesco, 2018. "Housework division and gender ideology: When do attitudes really matter?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 39(39), pages 1039-1064.
    9. Nik Ahmad Sufian Burhan & Mohamad Fazli Sabri & Heiner Rindermann, 2023. "Cognitive ability and economic growth: how much happiness is optimal?," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 70(1), pages 63-100, March.
    10. Verónica Miguel-Luken, 2019. "Cross-National Comparison on Family Satisfaction: Super-Specialization Versus Super-Equality," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 303-327, August.
    11. Wei Zhang & Zhun Xu, 2022. "Gender Norms and Household Labor: Time Use in the Context of Social Class Differentiation in Transitional China," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 106-121, March.
    12. Marta Pasqualini & Marta Dominguez Folgueras & Emanuele Ferragina & Olivier Godechot & Ettore Recchi & Mirna Safi, 2022. "Who took care of what? The gender division of unpaid work during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in France," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 46(34), pages 1007-1036.
    13. Xiaoting Zheng & Jiayue Chen & Yipeng Li, 2021. "The association between charitable giving and happiness: Evidence from the Chinese General Social Survey," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 55(6), pages 2103-2138, December.
    14. Jeffrey Dew, 2021. "Ten Years of Marriage and Cohabitation Research in the Journal of Family and Economic Issues," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 52-61, July.
    15. Noraani Mustapha & Aminah Ahmad & Jegak Uli & Khairuddin Idris, 2011. "Work-Family Factors and its Relationships Between Dispositional, Occupational Characteristics and Intention to Stay," International Journal of Business Research and Management (IJBRM), Computer Science Journals (CSC Journals), vol. 2(3), pages 74-92, October.
    16. Kirk Doran & Joseph Price, 2014. "Pornography and Marriage," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 35(4), pages 489-498, December.
    17. Zhijian Zhang & Xueyuan Wang, 2021. "Ambition or Jealousy? It Depends on Whom you are Compared with," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1189-1215, March.
    18. Woojin Chung & Roeul Kim, 2020. "Which Occupation is Highly Associated with Cognitive Impairment? A Gender-Specific Longitudinal Study of Paid and Unpaid Occupations in South Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-17, October.
    19. Santi SULANDARI & Afrilin DEWI PURNAMA & Mei WIJAYANTI & Fitriana DWI HASTUTI & Permata ASHFI RAIHANA, 2020. "Do Older Indonesian With Chronic Disease Still Be Able To Engage In An Activity And Feel Happy?," Prizren Social Science Journal, SHIKS, vol. 4(2), pages 1-13, August.
    20. Nabanita Datta Gupta & Leslie S Stratton, 2008. "Institutions, Social Norms, and Bargaining Power: An Analysis of Individual Leisure Time in Couple Households," Working Papers 0806, VCU School of Business, Department of Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:14:p:8409-:d:859318. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.