After their first child is born and during the child's first year, many couples find that the responsibilities of being a parent and managing their household end up being divided unequally.

Studies have considered factors, such as work schedules and childcare options, that lead to this unequal division of responsibilities, but it's less clear how the decisions are made when it comes to assigning different responsibilities to each partner.

A new study looked at the kinds of conversations couples have about the division of parenting and household responsibilities. It found that these sorts of conversations are generally led by women.

The expectation that fathers will work full time and mothers will take on childcare responsibilities during maternity leave remain unquestioned.

The findings are based on research by Clare Stovell, a lecturer at University College London, that involved 63 interviews with 25 cohabitating, heterosexual couples in the United Kingdom.

Seventeen of the 25 couples were already parents of preschoolers, and eight were first-time parents. Couples who were already parents were asked to recall making decisions about parental leave, paid work and childcare when they had their first child.

Couples who were expecting their first child were interviewed twice. The first interview came prior to the birth, as decisions about leave were being made. Then they were interviewed again nine to 12 months later — after the birth of their child — to discuss decisions about their work and family arrangements following leave.

The interviews were designed to discover what couples discussed regarding shared responsibilities and what went unsaid. Stovell also analyzed what seemed to drive couples' decision-making styles. Participants were asked to describe their decision-making process: were these decisions affected by how much they shared household and other responsibilities?

Women tended to focus on childcare options outside the home and how they might change their schedules after returning to work. The decisions rarely, if ever, took men's work schedules into consideration.

Instead of calculating how much different ways of dividing up responsibilities might cost, couples focused on the affordability of their preferred option, Stovell found. Because decisions were based on assumptions about what was financially possible, they did not always lead to an equal division of responsibilities. The emphasis was on family finances.

Expectations that fathers will work full time and mothers will take on childcare responsibilities during maternity leave remain unquestioned, Stovell explained. It is also expected that women will return to work with an abbreviated schedule following leave, including those who earn the same amount of money as their partners.

Because decisions were based on assumptions about what was financially possible, they did not always lead to an equal division of responsibilities.

“Despite the expectation that couples would discuss and negotiate work-family decisions before becoming parents, these findings suggest that many make these decisions individually, especially women, without explicit discussion,” said Stovell.

She cited four main reasons for the lack of communication on work-family issues seen in her findings:

  • Couples, their families and employers may have traditional ideas about gender roles which provide a default model for new parents to follow.
  • Couples also may not see the need to discuss their risk of falling into traditional gender roles when they become parents.
  • Couples may not have a pressing reason to discuss the man's work schedule because their decisions are based on external factors such as nursery and childcare waitlists which do not rely on fathers' participation.
  • Men don't want to create tension with their partner and so are often unsure of how to start the conversation.

“This study highlights the need for better support to achieve a more equal sharing of responsibilities,” said Stovell. “…[W]omen and men at the beginning of their careers should be encouraged to plan for changes in their work arrangements when they become parents.”

The study is published in the Journal of Family Studies.