Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 26, 2026

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
07:56

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

Published on: September 19, 2019

If moms do it, it can't be that important: Children's reasoning about gender disparities in domestic work

Rebecca Peretz-Lange1, Jane Singman2

  • 1Department of Psychological Science, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, United States.

Child Development
|June 25, 2026
PubMed

Gender disparities in domestic work (unpaid household labor, "DW") are severe yet understudied developmentally. This study investigated children's awareness of, and attributions for, DW disparities, and whether these processes predict children's attitudes toward DW. Child participants (n = 130, United States 4- to 12-year-olds, 53%F/46%M/1%NB, 56% White, data collected 2022-2025) were aware moms did more DW than dads (d = .79), attributed this to intrinsic gender differences (d = .19), and devalued DW (rating it less important, difficult, and impressive than paid market work, d = -1.59). Awareness and attributions jointly predicted devaluing: The more children attributed DW disparities to intrinsic (rather than extrinsic) causes, the more awareness of DW disparities predicted devaluing DW. Implications for early causal reasoning and disparity reduction are discussed.

Keywords:
domestic workessentialismexplanationgenderinequalitystructural thinking

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