Study suggests gender inequality affects marriages

Research published in the journal Psychological Science shows that women tend to fall out of love in a more extreme way than men, and the division of domestic tasks and childcare may explain this. Over the years, women in heterosexual marriages tend to fall out of love more faster for their partners than men in the same situation – and the unfair division of household chores and childcare can help understand why this happens.

The conclusion is from a recent study, published in the specialized journal Psychological Science and authored by behavioral economist Saurabh Bhargava, from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, in the United States.

The survey, carried out with 3,867 American adults with between two and 20 years of marriage, found that women with more than three years of relationships reported feeling love or passion for their partners 55% less frequently than women in more recent relationships. Among men, this rate was much lower: 9%.

Women fall in and out of love in more extreme ways

Over the course of ten days and in 30-minute intervals, participants recorded who they were with and how they felt. The data was complemented by a longer questionnaire about the type of love they felt and for whom.

Although women were more likely than men to declare romantic feelings in the early stages of a relationship, this situation did not last long, with women recording a much steeper decline in these feelings compared to their male partners.

In the case of those who reported especially intense initial feelings, the drop in affection towards their partners fell by almost 80% over the years, while in men the drop was 30%.

After about seven years of marriage, women and men were roughly equally likely to report being in love.

Division of domestic tasks and child care

Although the decline in affection can be explained, in part, by the very fact that women tended to fall in love more extreme than men at the beginning of the relationship – in these cases, they reported having romantic feelings almost twice as often – Bhargava also suggests that women's “disenchantment” may be related to their perception that domestic tasks and childcare are not shared fairly within marriage.

In long-term relationships, they ended up taking on most of the work at home. Men spent more time relaxing or napping.

Women's complaints about the division of domestic tasks are not new. In Brazil, a 2022 survey by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed that women dedicated 9.6 hours more per week than men to caring for the home or loved ones.

Bhargava also points out that, unlike women, men are more likely to feel love for their partners when they are with children.

Another study suggests that gender inequality affects women's sexual desire

Another 2022 study, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, found that the unequal division of household chores in a heterosexual relationship is related to a drop in sexual desire in women.

“Performing a large proportion of household chores was associated with significantly less sexual desire for a partner,” the study states.

The results, according to the authors, suggest that the phenomenon is related both to the perception of the partner as someone “dependent” and that the division of domestic labor is “unfair”.

“Low libido in women is a symptom of a larger problem – heteronormativity –, which creates inequalities in the division of domestic labor, among other things.”

ra (ots)