Child Socialization and Gender Roles: Early Household Labor as Gendered Work?

Marie M. Evertsson, Swedish Institute for Social Research

Gender socialization of young girls and boys are studied through reports of the type of household work they do. The data used is the Child Survey of the Swedish Level of Living Survey 2000, which consists of a nationally representative sample of youth between 10 and 18 years of age and their parents. Results show that girls and boys in two-parent families are more prone to engage in gender atypical work the more their parent of the same sex engages in this kind of work. Although girls work more in households where the household work burden is great, this does not seem to foster them into a traditional family role as anticipated by White and Brinkerhoff (1981). Instead, both boys and girls tend to think that it is more important that women and men share equal responsibility for housework and children, the more they help out at home.