The social stratification of attitudinal-work couple arrangements around the transition to parenthood: A research note

This research note focuses on the relationship between gender ideological pairings and the division of paid and unpaid work for different-sex couples around the transition to parenthood. We examine the social stratification of couples’ attitudinal-work arrangements, paying particular attention to the combined social classes of the partners. We contribute to the literature by adopting a linked-lives approach and explicitly considering couples as a meaningful unit of analysis; by jointly examining the three domains of ideological pairing, the gender division of paid work, and the gender division of unpaid work; and by including an often-overlooked driver of life course patterns, namely social class. We analyze panel data from Understanding Society, the largest household panel study providing a representative sample of the UK population, using multi-domain sequence analysis and logistic regression techniques. Our findings suggest a striking stability in couples’ ideological pairings and division of domestic labor around the transition to parenthood, with a preponderance of partners agreeing on traditional gender roles and women doing most of the housework. However, labor arrangements vary widely between couples, and social class (especially the class of the female partner) emerges as a critical determinant of how partners share paid work.