housework distribution, individual satisfaction, and ...afs, grenoble 2011, rt 20 « méthodes »...

Gianluca ManzoCNRS - GEMASS

Université de Paris-Sorbonne Paris [email protected]

“Housework Distribution, Individual Satisfaction,

and Interpersonal Comparisons : An Empirically-

calibrated Agent-based Model” (Division du travail domestique,

satisfaction individuelle et comparaisons interpersonnelles : un modèle formel à base

d’agents empiriquement calibrés)

4ème Congrès de l’Association Française de Sociologie – Grenoble, 5-8 Juillet 2011.RT 20 – Méthodes, Session 7 : « Comparaison et articulation de méthodes ou de champs

disciplinaires », 8 Juillet 2011.

Renzo CarrieroDipartimento di Scienze Sociali -

Università di [email protected]

« Housework Distribution, Individual Satisfaction & Interpersonal Comparisons » AFS, Grenoble 2011, RT 20 « Méthodes » – July 8 2011

1 - Descriptive data on women's and men's contribution to

housework and their feelings of fairness and satisfaction

Phone Survey (respondents randomly chosen from landline phone directories)

Data collection: Nov. 2008-Feb. 2009

404 dual-earner couples with at least one child up 12 years old (both partners

were interviewed separately)

Torino and surrounding metropolitan area

In the follow: 366 couples for which relevant information on judgement and

feelings of fairness/satisfaction were avalaible for both partners

Data can be download at: http://www.torinosociallab.org/

Table of contents

2 - Descriptive data on 1 + interpersonal comparisons

3 - Computational model of 1 + 2

4 - Comparisons between simulated data and the

empirical observations described in 1

Note on the empirical data

http://www.torinosociallab.org/

"Even though married men’s contributions to domestic labor more than doubled from 1965

to 1995 (Bianchi, Milkie, Sayer, & Robinson, 2000), married women in most industrialized

nations still perform about two thirds of all domestic work." (Greenstein 2009, National Context,

Family Statisfaction, and Fairness in the Division of Household Labour, JMF, p. 1039)

Housework contribution = percentage of "core housework tasks" (cooking and preparing meals, clearing and washing the dishes, vacuuming and tidying up, doing the laundry, ironing) performed by the respondent (percentage of activities personally performed weighted by the frequency of activities).

Women's and men's Housework Contribution in Our Data


"[…] despite these pervasive gender-based inequalities in the division of household labor,

most women appear relatively unlikely to perceive these inequalities as unfair or inequitable

(Greenstein 2009, p. 1039) "

Regarding the division of housework with your partner, do you personally think that what you do is much more than fair, a bit more than fair, fair, a little less than fair or much less than fair?

How much are you satisfied with the division of housework with your partner? (4-point scale)

Survey questions:

"Following a review of

litterature, Mikula

(1998) conclude d that

only 20% - 30% of

women regard existing

division of household

labor as unjust. Other

authors finds similar

distributions.” (Braun et

al. 2006)

Women's and Men's Feelings of Fairness and Satisfaction in Our Data


“An outcome may be judged to be equitable

or fair when it is similar to that of some

comparative referent (e.g., another person, a

group, past experience, one’s own

expectations).“ (Greenstein 2009, p. 1310)

Does interpersonal comparisons matter?

The cognitive role of social comparison:

“Looking at the situations of others may help

couples gauge how well they are managing

their division of housework and multiple role

arrangements.” (Himsel & Goldberg 2003)

Significant Comparison Terms

Gager (1998) Same sex friends

Himsel & Goldberg (2003) W:female friends and husband’s friends; M: wife

Kluwer et al. (2002) W. & M.=spouse; M: same sex friends

Among comparison term studied so far, same sex friends seem to affect sense of fairness

The tendency of looking at the conditions of “others in the same boat” (Stouffer et al., The

American Soldier, 1949, vol. 1, p 251) :

“In general, then, reference group theory aims to systematize the determinants and consequences of those processes of evaluation and self-appraisal in which the individual takes the values or standards of other individuals and groups as a comparative frame of

reference” (R.K. Merton, ch. VII, p. 233)


Outcome: More than fair but satisfied

vs. fair & satisfied

Outcome: More than fair &

dissatisfied vs. fair & satisfied

Coef. Std. Err. Sig. Coef. Std. Err. Sig.

R's % of domestic tasks 0,02 0,01 0,006 0,06 0,01 0,000

Age 0,04 0,03 0,129 0,10 0,04 0,011

Wife's % of paid work hours 0,03 0,02 0,068 0,06 0,02 0,010

Difference in standards (W-H) -0,10 0,09 0,262 0,29 0,14 0,035

She feels appreciated -0,22 0,26 0,400 -1,05 0,40 0,009

Hours of unpaid domestic help received 0,07 0,02 0,005 -0,02 0,05 0,647

Compared to other husbands…

(ref.: Her husband does same housework)

Her husband does more housework -0,29 0,29 0,312 -1,35 0,51 0,008

Her husband does less housework 0,19 0,43 0,658 1,48 0,49 0,002

She doesn't know -1,06 0,83 0,202 0,69 0,71 0,336

Constant -4,96 1,45 0,001 -12,39 2,30 0,000

N=366 Pseudo R2=0,112

Outcome: Less than fair but satisfied


Outcome: Less than fair & dissatisfied


Coef. Std. Err. Sig. Coef. Std. Err. Sig.

R's % of domestic tasks -0,03 0,01 0,003 -0,03 0,02 0,125

Age 0,03 0,02 0,154 0,11 0,04 0,005

Years of education 0,12 0,04 0,002 0,06 0,07 0,438

Income (hundreds €) -0,05 0,02 0,010 -0,06 0,04 0,142

Difference in standards (W-H) 0,25 0,09 0,004 0,33 0,17 0,057

Compared to his friends he does…

(ref. Same housework)

More housework -0,21 0,26 0,418 -0,08 0,58 0,890

Less housework 1,43 0,42 0,001 1,99 0,69 0,004

Doesn't know -0,43 0,60 0,471 0,82 0,90 0,361

Constant -1,67 1,04 0,107 -6,54 2,12 0,002

N=366 Pseudo R2=0,176

Four comparison terms were explored in the survey, namely

Respondets’ mother, father, same sex friends and friends’ partner

The Impact of interpersonal comparisons in Our Data

Women

Men

Relevant comparisons:

other husbands compared to their own

Women who believe that their husbands contribute less than other (known) husbands are more likely to report unfairness and dissatisfaction

Male friends

Men who believe that they contribute less than their friends are more likely to report unfairness and dissatisfaction


Note: the expected difference in each judgment’s predicted probability for a change in individuals’ comparison outcome from “less” to “more”, holding constant all other variables.

Men:

On average, thinking that one does more than his friends increases by 36% the probability to consider themselves "fair and satisfied"

Women:

On average, thinking that her own husband does more than her friends' husband decreases by 28% the probability to consider themselves "unfair and dissatisfied"

Average predictive differences (Gelman and Hill 2007, pp. 101-102)

A Clearer Quantification of the Impact of Interpersonal Comparisons


Example of survey questions

Compared with your friends in the similar situation as you, that is those who have a

partner, a job and child, do you think that you devote more, less, as much time to

housework task or you do not know?

Limitations of the information collected

we only have the result of the comparison but we do not have the specific mechanism that

drives the comparison

- we do not have the characteristics of the comparison term (are ego and alter educationally

similar, for instance)

- we do not know how many comparison terms of a given type respondents consider when

they are looking at others' houwework contribution

- we do not know how respondents concretely summarize the heterogenous information

coming from their comparison terms

- we do not know the overall relational configuration which ego is embedded in

In a nutshell

Survey data provide us with the average correlation between a given comparison term and

individuals’ perception of their housework contribution but the data do not tell us how this

correlation arises

Why and how do Interpersonal Comparisons precisely matter?


3 ,2for

)exp(1

)exp()|Pr(

3

2

jjY

j

jj

jj

Xβ

XβX

Population of 722 artificial agents, each of which determines his/her judgement

on the basis of the following multinomial logistic fonction :

Vector of

predictors X

=

Vector of X of

the empirical

equation

Vector of

predictors'

coefficients B

=

empirically

estimated B

vector

The distributions of X's values across

artificial agents exactly correspond to the

empirical distributions

Each Artificial Agent is a Virtual Replicate of One Real Actor (in the sample)

The Artificial Society – Agents’ Behaviour

12

3


3 ,2for

)exp(1

)exp()|Pr(

3

2

jjY

j

jj

jj

Xβ

XβX

We artificially create the network that we do not observe in the survey data...

HP: the dyadic interpersonal comparison

process take place within this network

Couple ties

Friend ties

Empirically determined (by real couple ID)

Random network (p~U[0,1] equal across agents)

A/ we posit a given interpersonal comparison

mechanism;

B/ we substitute the respondents' reply to

the comparison item with the value

generated by the mechanism that we suppose

being at work under respondents' comparison

reply

C/ we look at the simulated distribution of

judgements and compare this distribution to

the empirical distribution

The Artificial Society – Agents’ Network


1- What Artificial Agents are supposed to know:

- ego knows the median housework contribution of their reference group (m=30.41; w=71.81)

- ego knows the semi-interquartile difference of this distribution (m=4.97; w=5.92)

- ego knows the housework contribution of each of his relevant comparison terms

2- What Artificial Agents concretely do:

- ego compares his own housework contribution with that of each of his relevant neighbors

- ego counts how many relevant neighbors does more/less/the same as him (ego's contribution ± SID)

- ego weights his contacts doing more/less/the same

3- How artificial agents combine the result of this set of dyadic comparisons

same) thedoing (Neigh.W

less) doing (Neigh. W- more) doing (Neigh.W

s

lmR

4- How artificial agents reach their final impression to do more, less or the same

The Artificial Society – Agents’ Comparisons

- ego divided the surplus of neighbors doing more/less by the number of neighbors doing the same

- monotonic function f of R (of sigmoid

kind) parameterized so that f=0 when

R=0 and f=0.5 when R=1

ego is maximally uncertain when the surplus of neighbors doing less(more) is equal to the number of neighbors doing the same

ego is certain to do the same when he has no surplus of neighbors doing less(more) but some neighbors doing the same


2same thedoing 1

less doing 1 - more doing 3R

Pr (ego does less | R=2) = 0.79Pr (ego does the same | R=2) = 0.21

)2(f

infsame thedoing 0

less doing 2R

Pr (ego does more | R=inf) = 1Pr (ego does the same | R=inf) = 0

(inf)f

1same thedoing 1

less doing 1R

Pr (ego does more | R=1) = 0.5Pr (ego does the same | R=1) = 0.5

)1(f

Ego does not have relevant comparison terms egodoes not know

The Cancellation Heuristic at work

The Absent Same-Neighbors case

The Maximally Uncertain Comparisons

Agent’s Possible Comparisons as a Function of the Composition of his Neighborhood


The Distribution of Jugements in the Artificial Society – « Exogenous Comparisons » (Wm = Wl = Wm = 1)

1 – When agents compare each other, their feeling of fairness/satisfaction worsen

3 – Simulated judgments fit better the empirical ones when agents can compare each other

2 – Beyond a few relevant comparison terms, simulated judgments stabilize


The Distribution of Jugements in the Artificial Society – « Exogenous Comparisons » (Wm = Wl = Wm = 1)

1 – (men) the best fit is reached at average degree ~ 1

2 – (women) a somewhat worse fit is reached at average degree ~ 3…but also far beyond


“[…] contemporary parents do make social comparisons about the division of housework, and they pick and choose social referents that help affirm the normalcy and accuracy of their own situation. “ (Himsel & Goldberg 2003)

The Endogenous Comparison Case (Wm ≠ Wl ≠ 1 & Ws = 1)

- ego compare his own housework contribution with the

median contribution of his reference group (M=30.41; W=71.81);

- ego weights his neighbors doing more/less as a function of

this difference

(30.41)

Ego (45) 45

30.41* Neighbors doing more

*45

30.41 Neighbors doing less

Ego contributes more

Ego contributes lessEgo (25)

25

30.41

Neighbors doing more

25

Neighbors doing less

**

Hp : Dissonance-reduction-based Social Comparisons :

“Norm”

3a- How artificial agents weight their relevant comparison terms

Wm =

Wl =

30.41=Wm

=Wl

same) thedoing (Neigh.W

less) doing (Neigh. W- more) doing (Neigh.W

s

lmR


The Distribution of Jugements in the Artificial Society – « Endogenous Comparisons » (Wm ≠ Wl ≠ 1 & Ws = 1)

1 – When agents compare each other, their feeling of fairness/satisfaction worsen

1a – (men) this reverses however beyond average degree ~ 4

2 – Beyond a few of relevant comparison terms, simulated judgments stabilizes (earlier for women than for men)

3 – Simulated judgments fit better the empirical ones when agents can compare each other

The Distribution of Jugements in the Artificial Society – « Endogenous Comparisons » (Wm ≠ Wl ≠ 1 & Ws = 1)

1 – (men) a good fit is reached at average degree ~ 1…but an even better one very far beyond

2 – (women) a somewhat worse fit is reached at average degree ~ 3


Adjustment of Simulated Judgments to Empirical Ones under Realistic and Unrealistic Numbers of Relevant Comparison Terms (in

parenthesis)

Exogenous Comparisons Endogenous Comparisons

Men Women Men Women

degree < 10 4.22 (1.10) 7.61 (2.93) 3.87 (1.10) 6.14 (3.29)

0 < degree < 366 7.11 (125) 1.56 (255)

To Sum Up…

Problems:

There is no clear-cut values of the average degree for which the simulation produces the

same result for men and women (which may reflect something real…)

When the best fit is reached under reasonable values of the average degree, this value

implies that the postulated mechanism does not operate in its complete form

1 -Endogenous comparisons generate a slight better fit than exogenous comparisons

The best fit is reached under a reasonable number of comparison terms only for women

For men, this condition is only met when exogenous comparisons are operating


Thank you very much for your attention !!!

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