Beyond Traditional Gender Roles: Exploring the Division of Paid and Unpaid Labour in Italian Same-Sex Couples

Gioia Geremia , Center for Demographic Studies (Barcelona)
Agnese Vitali, University of Trento

The objective of this paper is to explore how the division of paid and unpaid labour, measured by hours spent in paid work, domestic labour and childcare, is distributed among partners in same-sex couples living in Italy. The existing literature highlight an overall equal division of paid and unpaid labour between partners in same-sex couples. We test the specialization theory and the doing gender approach based on primary collected data via an online survey distributed through mailing lists and websites of Italian LGBTQ+ associations. The sample consists of 190 respondents in male (n=52) and female (n=138) cohabiting same-sex couples. Results are in line with the previous research on this topic, since they highlight on average a pattern of equal division of paid and unpaid labour in the majority of the couples analysed, although some differences emerge between male and female same-sex couples. For what concerns childcare, even though in the majority of cases couples equally divide childcare tasks, some patterns of specialization emerge when tasks are unbalanced within the couple. Nonetheless, rather than being unbalanced towards the birth/biological parent, as highlighted by previous research, tasks are unbalanced towards the respondent regardless of the tie they have with the child.

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 Presented in Session 4. Same-sex Couples and Queer Identities