Family formation and the divisions of labour in Belgian couple households - How a qualitative research proposal was grounded in the analysis of paneldata

In this chapter the authors describe how a quantitative analysis resulted i n a proposal for a qualitative research. The aim of the quantitative resear ch was to analyse the impact of family formation on the division of labour in couple households, based on data from the Panel Study on Belgian Househo lds. In a first step a typology was made based upon data of 1224 Belgian couple households (1995). The second step consisted of a longitudinal analysis for the period between 1992 and 1995. The analysis of the impact of birth on t he division of labour gave evidence of the revocability of equal patterns o f division of labour. Based on these findings the authors concluded that the classic concept of e mancipation does not allow us to understand the empirical phenomena. Hence, the authors proposed a new (qualitative) investigation aimed at clarificat ion and empirical validation of different contents of the concept of emanci pation.