THE INFLUENCE OF ETHNIC EMBEDDEDNESS ON THE GENDER ROLE
ATTITUDES AND DIVISION OF HOUSEHOLD LABOR OF MARRIED
HISPANIC WOMEN













A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the
Louisiana State University and
Agricultural and Mechanical College
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

in


The Department of Sociology






by
Susana Guerra
B.A., Louisiana State University, 1996
M.A., Louisiana State University, 1998
August 2004

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This dissertation is dedicated to Eric, my love.
Thank you for always inspiring me to do my best and remain
true to myself.






























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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


I am truly grateful to Dr. Jill Suitor for not only
first introducing me to the discipline, but also for her
enduring support and mentorship. I would also like to
thank Dr. Yoshinori Kamo for his helpful comments and
suggestions throughout the course of this research. I am
also grateful to Dr. Michael Grimes, Dr. Pamela Monroe and
Dr. Katie Cherry for their valuable comments.

My friends and family have been an enormous source of
support throughout my life and graduate career. Eric,
thank you for your patience and generosity. Mom and Dad, I
truly appreciate your endless support, your love and
strength have always been an inspiration to me. To my
sister and all of my friends who have helped keep me
grounded throughout this process, I am truly indebted to
all of you for your patience and understanding.















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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………………………………………………iii

ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………iv

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………………………1

CHAPTER 2: GENDER-ROLE ATTITUDES, ETHNICITY AND THE
DIVISION OF HOUSEHOLD LABOR…………………………………………………4
Gender-Role Attitudes and the Division of Household
Labor………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………4
Gender-Role Attitudes Among Hispanics…………………………………………………7
Attitudes and Behaviors……………………………………………………………………………………10
Acculturation and Gender Role Attitudes and Behaviors……14
Social Networks and Norm Transmission and Enforcement……16
Simpatia, Collectivism, and Hispanic Traditionalism…………20
Hispanic Social Support Exchange and Norm Transmission
and Enforcement……………………………………………………………………………………………………21

CHAPTER 3: CONCEPTUAL MODEL AND MAJOR HYPOTHESES……………………25
Conceptual Model………………………………………………………………………………………………………25
Hypotheses………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………25

CHAPTER 4: DATA AND METHODS………………………………………………………………………………28
Data………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………28
Sample…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………28
The Division of Household Labor………………………………………………………………31
Gender-Role Attitudes…………………………………………………………………………………………36
Key Independent Variables………………………………………………………………………………39
Control Variables……………………………………………………………………………………………………42
Analytic Strategy……………………………………………………………………………………………………45

CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS……………………………………………………………………………………………………47
Ethnic Embeddedness and Gender-Role Attitudes…………………………47
Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………50
Gender-Role Attitudes, Ethnic Embeddedness and the
Division of Household Labor……………………………………………………………………52
Explaining Wives Contributions to Household Labor………………53
Explaining Husbands’ Contributions to Household Labor……55
Explaining the Gap in Husbands and Wives’ Logged
Contributions to Household Labor………………………………………………………58



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Subsequent Analysis………………………………………………………………………………………………60
Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………64

CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION AND LIMITATIONS…………………………………………………68

REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………74

VITA……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………83




































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ABSTRACT
In this study I examine the effects of both network
structure and network function on the gender role attitudes
and division of household labor among Hispanic women.
Using a representative sub-sample drawn from the first wave
of the National Study of Families and Households, I
determine to what extent network processes help explain the
gender role attitudes and behaviors of Hispanic women.
Specifically, I focus on how embeddedness within a Hispanic
community, as well as a woman’s level of social support
exchange with kin and non-kin help explain her current
gender role attitudes and household labor allocation. I
found that ethnic embeddedness during adolescence best
explained gender role attitudes while current ethnic
embeddedness was a more substantive determinant of
household labor allocation. I conclude that factors
regarding a woman’s level of assimilation, as well as more
precise measures of ethnic embeddedness may help better
explain the relationship between ethnic embeddedness and
gendered attitudes and behaviors.



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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The division of household labor has received considerable
attention over the past three decades. Studies exploring how
families and couples divide household labor have focused
primarily on the influence of work schedules, relative resources
and power, and gender-role attitudes on the division of
household labor. More recently this line of research has
expanded to explore the role of ethnicity in determining
household labor allocation (Kamo and Cohen 1998; Coltrane and
Valdez 1993; Shelton and John 1993).

Because ethnic minorities often face unique structural
barriers and opportunities, it is important to go beyond
traditional approaches to take into account how such dynamics
shape the division of household labor (House et al 1988).
Numerous studies have provided evidence of the importance of
studying ethnic variations in family research (Kamo and Cohen
1998; Shelton and John 1996). Yet, some studies that examine
the relationship between ethnicity and the division of household
labor have yielded mixed results. A review of studies examining
the influence of Hispanic traditionalism on the division of
household labor reveals many inconsistencies in findings (John
et al 1995; Shelton and John 1993). Although Hispanics often
report traditional gender role attitudes (Gonzalez 1982; John et

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al 1995; Mirande 1997; Shelton and John 1993), they often divide
household labor more equitably than their non-Hispanic
counterparts (Hochschild 1989; Shelton and John 1993).
This pattern of inconsistencies highlights the importance
of exploring underlying patterns that may help explain the
relationship between gender and the division of household labor
among Hispanic families. An important question is the role of
cultural context in the development and maintenance of gender-
role attitudes, which, in turn, may affect the division of
household labor. To investigate this issue, the present study
will extend classic work on gender roles by examining the way in
which cultural factors explain variations in gender-role
attitudes, and in turn, the division of household labor, among
Hispanic women.
A major premise of this study is that network members play
a key role in defining and maintaining Hispanic-gender role
attitudes, or more specifically, Hispanic traditionalism.
Therefore, although this study applies the gender-role attitude
perspective to explain the division of household labor of
Hispanic women, it is unique in that it examines cultural and
structural forces that shape these gendered attitudes and
behaviors. In particular, I examine how community-level and
network factors influence Hispanic women’s gendered attitudes
and behaviors. The data I use in this study represent a sub-

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sample of married Hispanic women of the first wave of the
National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH1)(Sweet,
Bumpass and Call 1988).



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CHAPTER 2: GENDER-ROLE ATTITUDES, ETHNICITY, AND THE
DIVISION OF HOUSEHOLD LABOR


Exploring the effects of cultural embeddedness on the
division of household labor requires drawing upon the broader
literature on ethnicity and acculturation, as well as the
literature on the relationship between attitudes and behaviors.
Basically, this is because ethnicity and acculturation affect
the development of attitudes, including gender-role attitudes,
which play an important role in the division of household labor.
In this chapter, I begin by reviewing the literature on gender-
role attitudes and the division of household labor, both in the
general population, and among Hispanics, to lay the groundwork
for the overall conceptual framework. As part of this
discussion, I address the relationship between gender-role
attitudes and behaviors and factors that explain why attitudes
sometimes do not translate into the patterns of behaviors that
would be expected. In particular, I explore why such a
disjuncture between gender-role attitudes and the division of
household labor is particularly likely among Hispanic couples.
Finally, I discuss the relationship between social networks and
acculturation and how they may influence gender-role attitudes
and behaviors.
Gender-Role Attitudes and the Division of Household Labor:
The relationship between gender and the division of household

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