Traditional values and democratic impulses: The gender division of labor in contemporary Spain

We examine the gender division of labor among married Spaniards (Family and the Use of Time Survey, 1993), testing hypotheses about secular, rational efficiency effects of employment, education, and political attitudes confli cting with wives' and husbands' gender traditional reactions to parenthood and Catholicism. The dependent variables include a summed inventory of six routine household maintenance tasks, daily hours spent in employment, house work, child care, and leisure, and three measures of timing, pacing, and mu lti-tasking pressures. Wives perform the vast majority of routine daily hou sehold maintenance chores and spend longer days in combined paid employment , housework, and child care than do husbands. Wives also experience greater pacing, timing, and multi-tasking pressures than do husbands. We find supp ort for our argument that Spaniards combine both traditional and equalitari an orientations in their daily routines. Wives especially seem to balance a rationally efficient orientation to their market capital and time availabi lity demands, but still retain a very traditional homemaking role based on affiliation with Catholic principles.