Household Labor and the Future

For 4- to 8-year-olds

This study will take place on a Zoom video call with a researcher! Selecting “Schedule a time to participate” will take you to a booking website, where you can select a time and date that works best for you.

In this study, your child will be asked to distribute chores to a set of hypothetical parents and answer some questions about the type of chores they see their own parent(s) doing in their house. They will also be asked about who they think will do more work in their future households and what type of careers they think they could have when they grow up. You will be asked to fill out a questionnaire about the amount of work you and your partner (if applicable) do in the house. Some families may also be invited to do a second zoom call 2-3 months later. If you do this second session, your child will be read a story about some families living in the future and answer the same questions as the first session. Following this session, you would be asked to fill out a second questionnaire regarding the types of careers and media your child is exposed to.

Previous research suggests that at a young age, many children are developing ideas about fairness while simultaneously growing up in households where chores are unevenly split. We want to learn if children view these uneven divisions of household labor as fair and if they’ll choose to continue dividing chores in the same way when given the opportunity. We also want to learn how household labor distribution influences what work children expect to do in their future families as well as the types of careers they think they can have in the future.

The Zoom session will take approximately 25 minutes, and the parent questionnaire will take anywhere between 15-25 minutes. If you are invited to do the second session a couple of months later, the second Zoom session will take approximately 45-50 minutes and the second parent questionnaire will take anywhere between 15-25 minutes.

The breakdown for compensation is as follows:
- $5 for the Zoom session
- $8 following completion of the parent questionnaire ($4 per parent completes the questionnaire)

If you are invited to do the second session after 2-3 months:
- $10 following the second Zoom session
- $5 following completion of the second questionnaire (1 parent required to complete ONLY)