Sibling Structure and Parental Sex-Typing of Children's Household Tasks

A theoretical argument concerning the relationship between the sibling structure and parental sex-typing of children's tasks is developed and tested using data from two nationally representative surveys of adults. We hypothesize that as the number of sons in the family increases (holding constant the number of daughters), the sex-typing of traditionally female tasks will decrease. However, as the number of daughters increases, sex-typing of traditional female chores should become more pronounced. The reverse pattern of effects is expected for traditionally male chores. The results support our hypotheses for the female-specific tasks. For male-specific tasks, the results suggest that only in sibling groups with no sons do increases in the number of daughters reduce the sex-typing of male tasks. Implications of these findings for further study of the impact of sex composition on the division of labor by sex are discussed.