Expectant Parents’ Anticipated Changes in Workload After the Birth of Their First Child

The birth of a first child is a time of major transition for a couple, marked by significant changes in the roles and responsibilities of both parents. The nature of their responsibilities change, and the volume of their work increases markedly. Comparative data from a national longitudinal study indicate that adults of childbearing age (25-44 years) invest more combined total work hours into the home and workplace than other adults, with workloads of 82 to 84 hours per week for employed women and 70 to 71 hours per week for employed men compared with less than 67 and 61 hours per week for older women and men, respectively.¹ The way partners respond to these workload issues can have an impact on marital happiness, as shown by several studies demonstrating an association between wives’ marital satisfaction and their husbands’ participation in household work.^2-7 The sharing of work responsibility is particularly important in the first few months after childbirth, with research demonstrating a significant association between the mother’s mental health and the degree of her partner’s emotional and practical support.⁸ However, many new mothers perceive a decline in their husbands’ participation in household chores and expressions of caring over the first postpartum year.⁹

Is this move to a more traditional division of labor intentional? Would it persist if couples were given the opportunity to learn about and plan for their postpartum responsibilities? Would a more equitable division of family and household work enhance the mental and physical health of women and men and increase their marital happiness in these early childbearing years? These questions form the basis of this research in postpartum health and family systems and are particularly relevant to family physicians who work within a broad definition of health that considers the context of community and family. Though it is common for family physicians to refer expectant parents to prenatal classes on childbirth and infant care, couples typically have few or no opportunities to formally prepare themselves for their postpartum lifestyle changes, including their new and increasing work responsibilities. Parenting classes address the needs of the child and the parent-child relationship¹⁰ while couples’ groups look at partners’ communication and conflict management,¹¹ but few structured opportunities exist for couples to plan for family and household work needs after their child is born.

There were 3 goals for this study: (1) describe the work patterns of a group of employed couples living together and expecting their first child; (2) provide a formal opportunity for couples to establish a plan for sharing postpartum work; and (3) evaluate gender differences in anticipated changes in workload from before to after childbirth. Of special interest was learning how couples intended to share postpartum work responsibilities (eg, equally vs unequally) when given a formal opportunity to actively plan for postpartum work distribution. This descriptive study represents the initial phase of a randomized controlled trial testing the impact of a prenatal work planning session (conducted in the context of childbirth education classes) on the partners’ postpartum work distribution, selected mental and physical health outcomes, and marital satisfaction.

Methods

English-speaking couples living together and expecting their first child were eligible for this study. Participants were recruited from prenatal classes offered through 2 St. Paul HealthEast hospitals from November 1998 through August 1999. Research assistants visited 30 of 34 HealthEast prenatal classes during the third class session to describe the study, enroll participants, and distribute prenatal surveys. Potential subjects were told that couples randomized to the intervention would attend 2 breakout sessions that would address emotional and practical support around the time of childbirth. Data for this study were derived from prenatal surveys and from worksheets indicating partners’ anticipated postpartum work time commitments.

The prenatal survey completed independently by all subjects during the third prenatal class session was used to gather demographic data (age, sex, education, race, marital status, and employment status); information on work responsibilities, including the number of hours per week devoted to employment and various household chores; perceptions of equity of household responsibilities among partners (measured on a 1 to 7 scale where 1=partner does everything, 4=we share equally, and 7=I do everything); and satisfaction with the partner’s contribution to household responsibilities (1=very dissatisfied and 7=very satisfied).

Approximately half of the enrolled couples were then randomized to the intervention, which consisted of 2 30-minute breakout sessions held during the fourth and fifth prenatal classes. In the first session partners were asked to tell each other what the other person did to make them feel loved and cared for. During the second breakout session each couple completed a worksheet together that asked them to list the amount of time each partner planned to spend at 6 months postpartum doing various tasks, caring for their child, and participating in paid employment. Suggested time estimates for the work tasks (in hours per week) were provided (Table 1) based on the results of a previous pilot study that asked first-time parents to estimate their actual workloads at 6 months postpartum. Parents were also asked to indicate any time contributed to these areas by outside sources (eg, babysitter, daycare provider, relative, housekeeper).

Student t tests were used to investigate gender differences in the amount of time invested in work prenatally, perceived degree of sharing household tasks with the partner, satisfaction with the partner’s contribution to household work, and projected prenatal to postpartum work changes. Paired t tests were used to examine subjects’ anticipated prenatal to postpartum changes in workload. Congruency in partners’ perceptions about how they currently share household responsibilities was determined by summing their responses to the question, “Please circle the number that best describes how you and your partner currently share household responsibilities.” Responses were given on a 1 to 7 scale where 1=“partner does everything,” 4=“We share equally,” and 7=“I do everything.” Thus, a summed score of 8 indicated perfect congruency.

Results

Of the 722 expectant parents informed of the study, 76 were ineligible to participate (usually because they were not living with a partner), 346 refused to participate (the most common reason for refusal was concern about leaving the large classroom for a breakout session), and 300 (149 men and 151 women) agreed to participate, for a response rate of 46% (300/646). The mean age of the participants was 29.3 years (standard deviation=4.6); 93.3% were white; 88.6% were married; 97.9% were employed; and 62% had a 4-year college or advanced degree. A total of 132 people (66 men and 66 women) participated in the breakout sessions.

The amount of time expectant fathers and mothers devoted to various household tasks and employment prenatally is shown in Table 1. Although men and women contributed similar amounts of time to household work—18.2 and 20.0 hours, respectively—they tended to divide these tasks according to traditional work patterns, with men investing more time in household repairs, lawn care, and snow removal, and women spending more time with cooking, cleaning, laundry, and shopping. Compared with women, men worked longer hours at their jobs, and this resulted in a heavier mean total prenatal workload for men by 8.4 hours per week (P=.000).

In response to the question of how they shared household responsibilities, women reported a belief that they contributed more to household chores than their partners (mean=4.4 and 3.8 for women and men, respectively; P=.000). This finding is consistent with women’s slightly higher estimated contributions to household tasks (P=NS). Partners’ perceptions about how they shared household work were congruent: 90% of couples had summed congruency scores in the 7 to 9 range, which allows for no more than a 1-point deviation from a perfect summed congruency score of 8. On average men were more satisfied than women with their partner’s contribution to household work (mean=6.0 and 5.4 for men and women, respectively; P=.000). The projected prenatal to postpartum changes in workload were considerable for both men and women (Table 2). Women predicted an 85% increase, and men anticipated a 53% expansion of total workload, with a net result of women planning to work 9 hours per week more than men at 6 months postpartum (P <.001). Both men and women predicted significant increases in time spent on household tasks, child care, and total work; the projected changes in effort related to child care and total work were significantly greater for women than men (P=.000), as shown in Table 3. Both men and women planned to reduce their paid work commitments after childbirth, women to a greater degree than men (P=.000).

Discussion

The results indicate that while men shouldered heavier workloads prenatally, women anticipated working longer hours than men at 6 months postpartum by 9 hours per week. This amounts to an 85% (48.7 hours/week) increase in workload for women, compared with a 53% (33.3 hours/week) increase for men. Although both are astounding increases, women clearly anticipated a larger expansion of work than men. Such dramatic changes in work responsibilities realized by new mothers might be at least partially responsible for the mental and physical problems that often plague women after childbirth.^8,12

The projected postpartum difference in workload between men and women was not unexpected, given the findings of Kahn¹ that on average, adult women of all ages in the United States bear heavier total workloads than men. It is noteworthy, however, that this gender difference in workloads was anticipated even by a group of couples who had had an opportunity to systematically study and preplan their postpartum work distribution.

It appears that to some degree these planned gender discrepancies in postpartum work responsibilities might be explained on the basis of traditional sex role assumptions. Women planned to take on more of the child care and household responsibilities after childbirth than men: 79 versus 52 hours per week. To help compensate for this considerable expansion of unpaid work, expectant mothers also planned to trim an average of 11.7 hours per week from their paid jobs compared with expectant fathers’ anticipated drop of 2.2 hours per week. For many women this change would likely result in part-time work. Previous studies have documented that both men and women tend to work part-time more in the childbearing years than at any other time in their adult lives, and women’s use of part-time work hours during this period of life tends to be much greater than men’s, often 2 to 3 times more.¹³ These data reinforce the need for couples to consider many complex issues in their postpartum workload planning, such as whether their dissimilar reductions in paid work will have a differential impact on their career satisfaction and opportunities and whether their joint plans for curtailing employment hours could ultimately benefit the family unit by improving child and family development.

Although expectant fathers and mothers in this study tended to follow traditional patterns in their qualitative division of various household responsibilities, they devoted similar amounts of total time to household tasks (18.2 and 20.0 hours/week, respectively). This finding contrasts with that of previous studies showing a much greater share of household work being performed by women,^1,14,15 often twice as much or more.^1,14,16 The results could be related to several factors. First, the observed prenatal work patterns may be somewhat atypical for these couples: Several women indicated that they had cut back on their housework or employment hours because of pregnancy-associated fatigue or other health problems. Second, this was a very homogenous population of employed young couples without children, in contrast to the more diverse samples (which included adults with children and more unemployed wives) used in many previous studies. Alternatively, these findings might represent a societal trend toward men and women sharing housework more equitably.

Importantly for many of these parents, the changes in work that they anticipated after giving birth likely represent the largest and most abrupt increase in work responsibilities that they will face in their adult lives. Unfortunately, it is a change for which many parents are ill-prepared. This lack of preparation is likely due, at least in part, to the paucity of information available on new parents’ actual workloads (no specific information was found in the medical, sociological, and psychological searches), society’s tendency to focus on the health needs of newborns and children more than those of their parents, and the absence of a consistent method for educating adolescents and young adults about the responsibilities of supporting and nurturing a family.

Each of these needs will be addressed. First, additional research is needed on changes in work responsibilities for new parents from more diverse populations, and we need a greater understanding of how these work responsibilities affect health and marital well-being (the goal of the ongoing randomized controlled trial). Second, we need a broader view of postpartum care, such that the physical, mental, and social needs of both the parents and newborn are considered in an ongoing manner. This is a perspective that family physicians are uniquely positioned to adopt and foster within the context of prenatal and postpartum care for the family unit. Moreover, family physicians could also be part of the solution to the third need, that of teaching would-be parents about postpartum work and family responsibilities. These efforts may pay important dividends in strengthening the fiber of the family and improving the well-being of its individual members.

Limitations

The limitations of this study include the modest response rate, the potential for selection bias, and the relatively homogeneous sample. In addition, parents’ estimations of work time may not be completely accurate, and these simple estimations do not account for such factors as the intensity of work at any given time (as when one juggles numerous responsibilities concurrently) or the issue of who holds the ultimate responsibility for a given task. Though future workload projections may be even more inaccurate than current estimations, the results shown here are more than individuals’ guesses about their future work; they represent couples’ intentional plans for sharing postpartum work responsibilities.

Conclusions

These expectant first-time parents anticipated considerable expansions in their work activities after childbirth, with women planning a greater share of the total postpartum workload. This information is important for new parents and for the health care providers who attend them as they resume their household, family, and paid work responsibilities after childbirth.

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the University of Minnesota graduate school.

The author would like to thank Anne Marie Weber-Main for her editing assistance and Bruce Center for his help with data analysis.

The birth of a first child is a time of major transition for a couple, marked by significant changes in the roles and responsibilities of both parents. The nature of their responsibilities change, and the volume of their work increases markedly. Comparative data from a national longitudinal study indicate that adults of childbearing age (25-44 years) invest more combined total work hours into the home and workplace than other adults, with workloads of 82 to 84 hours per week for employed women and 70 to 71 hours per week for employed men compared with less than 67 and 61 hours per week for older women and men, respectively.¹ The way partners respond to these workload issues can have an impact on marital happiness, as shown by several studies demonstrating an association between wives’ marital satisfaction and their husbands’ participation in household work.^2-7 The sharing of work responsibility is particularly important in the first few months after childbirth, with research demonstrating a significant association between the mother’s mental health and the degree of her partner’s emotional and practical support.⁸ However, many new mothers perceive a decline in their husbands’ participation in household chores and expressions of caring over the first postpartum year.⁹

Is this move to a more traditional division of labor intentional? Would it persist if couples were given the opportunity to learn about and plan for their postpartum responsibilities? Would a more equitable division of family and household work enhance the mental and physical health of women and men and increase their marital happiness in these early childbearing years? These questions form the basis of this research in postpartum health and family systems and are particularly relevant to family physicians who work within a broad definition of health that considers the context of community and family. Though it is common for family physicians to refer expectant parents to prenatal classes on childbirth and infant care, couples typically have few or no opportunities to formally prepare themselves for their postpartum lifestyle changes, including their new and increasing work responsibilities. Parenting classes address the needs of the child and the parent-child relationship¹⁰ while couples’ groups look at partners’ communication and conflict management,¹¹ but few structured opportunities exist for couples to plan for family and household work needs after their child is born.

There were 3 goals for this study: (1) describe the work patterns of a group of employed couples living together and expecting their first child; (2) provide a formal opportunity for couples to establish a plan for sharing postpartum work; and (3) evaluate gender differences in anticipated changes in workload from before to after childbirth. Of special interest was learning how couples intended to share postpartum work responsibilities (eg, equally vs unequally) when given a formal opportunity to actively plan for postpartum work distribution. This descriptive study represents the initial phase of a randomized controlled trial testing the impact of a prenatal work planning session (conducted in the context of childbirth education classes) on the partners’ postpartum work distribution, selected mental and physical health outcomes, and marital satisfaction.

Methods

English-speaking couples living together and expecting their first child were eligible for this study. Participants were recruited from prenatal classes offered through 2 St. Paul HealthEast hospitals from November 1998 through August 1999. Research assistants visited 30 of 34 HealthEast prenatal classes during the third class session to describe the study, enroll participants, and distribute prenatal surveys. Potential subjects were told that couples randomized to the intervention would attend 2 breakout sessions that would address emotional and practical support around the time of childbirth. Data for this study were derived from prenatal surveys and from worksheets indicating partners’ anticipated postpartum work time commitments.

The prenatal survey completed independently by all subjects during the third prenatal class session was used to gather demographic data (age, sex, education, race, marital status, and employment status); information on work responsibilities, including the number of hours per week devoted to employment and various household chores; perceptions of equity of household responsibilities among partners (measured on a 1 to 7 scale where 1=partner does everything, 4=we share equally, and 7=I do everything); and satisfaction with the partner’s contribution to household responsibilities (1=very dissatisfied and 7=very satisfied).

Approximately half of the enrolled couples were then randomized to the intervention, which consisted of 2 30-minute breakout sessions held during the fourth and fifth prenatal classes. In the first session partners were asked to tell each other what the other person did to make them feel loved and cared for. During the second breakout session each couple completed a worksheet together that asked them to list the amount of time each partner planned to spend at 6 months postpartum doing various tasks, caring for their child, and participating in paid employment. Suggested time estimates for the work tasks (in hours per week) were provided (Table 1) based on the results of a previous pilot study that asked first-time parents to estimate their actual workloads at 6 months postpartum. Parents were also asked to indicate any time contributed to these areas by outside sources (eg, babysitter, daycare provider, relative, housekeeper).

Student t tests were used to investigate gender differences in the amount of time invested in work prenatally, perceived degree of sharing household tasks with the partner, satisfaction with the partner’s contribution to household work, and projected prenatal to postpartum work changes. Paired t tests were used to examine subjects’ anticipated prenatal to postpartum changes in workload. Congruency in partners’ perceptions about how they currently share household responsibilities was determined by summing their responses to the question, “Please circle the number that best describes how you and your partner currently share household responsibilities.” Responses were given on a 1 to 7 scale where 1=“partner does everything,” 4=“We share equally,” and 7=“I do everything.” Thus, a summed score of 8 indicated perfect congruency.

Results

Of the 722 expectant parents informed of the study, 76 were ineligible to participate (usually because they were not living with a partner), 346 refused to participate (the most common reason for refusal was concern about leaving the large classroom for a breakout session), and 300 (149 men and 151 women) agreed to participate, for a response rate of 46% (300/646). The mean age of the participants was 29.3 years (standard deviation=4.6); 93.3% were white; 88.6% were married; 97.9% were employed; and 62% had a 4-year college or advanced degree. A total of 132 people (66 men and 66 women) participated in the breakout sessions.

The amount of time expectant fathers and mothers devoted to various household tasks and employment prenatally is shown in Table 1. Although men and women contributed similar amounts of time to household work—18.2 and 20.0 hours, respectively—they tended to divide these tasks according to traditional work patterns, with men investing more time in household repairs, lawn care, and snow removal, and women spending more time with cooking, cleaning, laundry, and shopping. Compared with women, men worked longer hours at their jobs, and this resulted in a heavier mean total prenatal workload for men by 8.4 hours per week (P=.000).

In response to the question of how they shared household responsibilities, women reported a belief that they contributed more to household chores than their partners (mean=4.4 and 3.8 for women and men, respectively; P=.000). This finding is consistent with women’s slightly higher estimated contributions to household tasks (P=NS). Partners’ perceptions about how they shared household work were congruent: 90% of couples had summed congruency scores in the 7 to 9 range, which allows for no more than a 1-point deviation from a perfect summed congruency score of 8. On average men were more satisfied than women with their partner’s contribution to household work (mean=6.0 and 5.4 for men and women, respectively; P=.000). The projected prenatal to postpartum changes in workload were considerable for both men and women (Table 2). Women predicted an 85% increase, and men anticipated a 53% expansion of total workload, with a net result of women planning to work 9 hours per week more than men at 6 months postpartum (P <.001). Both men and women predicted significant increases in time spent on household tasks, child care, and total work; the projected changes in effort related to child care and total work were significantly greater for women than men (P=.000), as shown in Table 3. Both men and women planned to reduce their paid work commitments after childbirth, women to a greater degree than men (P=.000).

Discussion

The results indicate that while men shouldered heavier workloads prenatally, women anticipated working longer hours than men at 6 months postpartum by 9 hours per week. This amounts to an 85% (48.7 hours/week) increase in workload for women, compared with a 53% (33.3 hours/week) increase for men. Although both are astounding increases, women clearly anticipated a larger expansion of work than men. Such dramatic changes in work responsibilities realized by new mothers might be at least partially responsible for the mental and physical problems that often plague women after childbirth.^8,12

The projected postpartum difference in workload between men and women was not unexpected, given the findings of Kahn¹ that on average, adult women of all ages in the United States bear heavier total workloads than men. It is noteworthy, however, that this gender difference in workloads was anticipated even by a group of couples who had had an opportunity to systematically study and preplan their postpartum work distribution.

It appears that to some degree these planned gender discrepancies in postpartum work responsibilities might be explained on the basis of traditional sex role assumptions. Women planned to take on more of the child care and household responsibilities after childbirth than men: 79 versus 52 hours per week. To help compensate for this considerable expansion of unpaid work, expectant mothers also planned to trim an average of 11.7 hours per week from their paid jobs compared with expectant fathers’ anticipated drop of 2.2 hours per week. For many women this change would likely result in part-time work. Previous studies have documented that both men and women tend to work part-time more in the childbearing years than at any other time in their adult lives, and women’s use of part-time work hours during this period of life tends to be much greater than men’s, often 2 to 3 times more.¹³ These data reinforce the need for couples to consider many complex issues in their postpartum workload planning, such as whether their dissimilar reductions in paid work will have a differential impact on their career satisfaction and opportunities and whether their joint plans for curtailing employment hours could ultimately benefit the family unit by improving child and family development.

Although expectant fathers and mothers in this study tended to follow traditional patterns in their qualitative division of various household responsibilities, they devoted similar amounts of total time to household tasks (18.2 and 20.0 hours/week, respectively). This finding contrasts with that of previous studies showing a much greater share of household work being performed by women,^1,14,15 often twice as much or more.^1,14,16 The results could be related to several factors. First, the observed prenatal work patterns may be somewhat atypical for these couples: Several women indicated that they had cut back on their housework or employment hours because of pregnancy-associated fatigue or other health problems. Second, this was a very homogenous population of employed young couples without children, in contrast to the more diverse samples (which included adults with children and more unemployed wives) used in many previous studies. Alternatively, these findings might represent a societal trend toward men and women sharing housework more equitably.

Importantly for many of these parents, the changes in work that they anticipated after giving birth likely represent the largest and most abrupt increase in work responsibilities that they will face in their adult lives. Unfortunately, it is a change for which many parents are ill-prepared. This lack of preparation is likely due, at least in part, to the paucity of information available on new parents’ actual workloads (no specific information was found in the medical, sociological, and psychological searches), society’s tendency to focus on the health needs of newborns and children more than those of their parents, and the absence of a consistent method for educating adolescents and young adults about the responsibilities of supporting and nurturing a family.

Each of these needs will be addressed. First, additional research is needed on changes in work responsibilities for new parents from more diverse populations, and we need a greater understanding of how these work responsibilities affect health and marital well-being (the goal of the ongoing randomized controlled trial). Second, we need a broader view of postpartum care, such that the physical, mental, and social needs of both the parents and newborn are considered in an ongoing manner. This is a perspective that family physicians are uniquely positioned to adopt and foster within the context of prenatal and postpartum care for the family unit. Moreover, family physicians could also be part of the solution to the third need, that of teaching would-be parents about postpartum work and family responsibilities. These efforts may pay important dividends in strengthening the fiber of the family and improving the well-being of its individual members.

Limitations

The limitations of this study include the modest response rate, the potential for selection bias, and the relatively homogeneous sample. In addition, parents’ estimations of work time may not be completely accurate, and these simple estimations do not account for such factors as the intensity of work at any given time (as when one juggles numerous responsibilities concurrently) or the issue of who holds the ultimate responsibility for a given task. Though future workload projections may be even more inaccurate than current estimations, the results shown here are more than individuals’ guesses about their future work; they represent couples’ intentional plans for sharing postpartum work responsibilities.

Conclusions

These expectant first-time parents anticipated considerable expansions in their work activities after childbirth, with women planning a greater share of the total postpartum workload. This information is important for new parents and for the health care providers who attend them as they resume their household, family, and paid work responsibilities after childbirth.

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the University of Minnesota graduate school.

The author would like to thank Anne Marie Weber-Main for her editing assistance and Bruce Center for his help with data analysis.

The birth of a first child is a time of major transition for a couple, marked by significant changes in the roles and responsibilities of both parents. The nature of their responsibilities change, and the volume of their work increases markedly. Comparative data from a national longitudinal study indicate that adults of childbearing age (25-44 years) invest more combined total work hours into the home and workplace than other adults, with workloads of 82 to 84 hours per week for employed women and 70 to 71 hours per week for employed men compared with less than 67 and 61 hours per week for older women and men, respectively.¹ The way partners respond to these workload issues can have an impact on marital happiness, as shown by several studies demonstrating an association between wives’ marital satisfaction and their husbands’ participation in household work.^2-7 The sharing of work responsibility is particularly important in the first few months after childbirth, with research demonstrating a significant association between the mother’s mental health and the degree of her partner’s emotional and practical support.⁸ However, many new mothers perceive a decline in their husbands’ participation in household chores and expressions of caring over the first postpartum year.⁹

Is this move to a more traditional division of labor intentional? Would it persist if couples were given the opportunity to learn about and plan for their postpartum responsibilities? Would a more equitable division of family and household work enhance the mental and physical health of women and men and increase their marital happiness in these early childbearing years? These questions form the basis of this research in postpartum health and family systems and are particularly relevant to family physicians who work within a broad definition of health that considers the context of community and family. Though it is common for family physicians to refer expectant parents to prenatal classes on childbirth and infant care, couples typically have few or no opportunities to formally prepare themselves for their postpartum lifestyle changes, including their new and increasing work responsibilities. Parenting classes address the needs of the child and the parent-child relationship¹⁰ while couples’ groups look at partners’ communication and conflict management,¹¹ but few structured opportunities exist for couples to plan for family and household work needs after their child is born.

There were 3 goals for this study: (1) describe the work patterns of a group of employed couples living together and expecting their first child; (2) provide a formal opportunity for couples to establish a plan for sharing postpartum work; and (3) evaluate gender differences in anticipated changes in workload from before to after childbirth. Of special interest was learning how couples intended to share postpartum work responsibilities (eg, equally vs unequally) when given a formal opportunity to actively plan for postpartum work distribution. This descriptive study represents the initial phase of a randomized controlled trial testing the impact of a prenatal work planning session (conducted in the context of childbirth education classes) on the partners’ postpartum work distribution, selected mental and physical health outcomes, and marital satisfaction.

Methods

English-speaking couples living together and expecting their first child were eligible for this study. Participants were recruited from prenatal classes offered through 2 St. Paul HealthEast hospitals from November 1998 through August 1999. Research assistants visited 30 of 34 HealthEast prenatal classes during the third class session to describe the study, enroll participants, and distribute prenatal surveys. Potential subjects were told that couples randomized to the intervention would attend 2 breakout sessions that would address emotional and practical support around the time of childbirth. Data for this study were derived from prenatal surveys and from worksheets indicating partners’ anticipated postpartum work time commitments.

The prenatal survey completed independently by all subjects during the third prenatal class session was used to gather demographic data (age, sex, education, race, marital status, and employment status); information on work responsibilities, including the number of hours per week devoted to employment and various household chores; perceptions of equity of household responsibilities among partners (measured on a 1 to 7 scale where 1=partner does everything, 4=we share equally, and 7=I do everything); and satisfaction with the partner’s contribution to household responsibilities (1=very dissatisfied and 7=very satisfied).

Approximately half of the enrolled couples were then randomized to the intervention, which consisted of 2 30-minute breakout sessions held during the fourth and fifth prenatal classes. In the first session partners were asked to tell each other what the other person did to make them feel loved and cared for. During the second breakout session each couple completed a worksheet together that asked them to list the amount of time each partner planned to spend at 6 months postpartum doing various tasks, caring for their child, and participating in paid employment. Suggested time estimates for the work tasks (in hours per week) were provided (Table 1) based on the results of a previous pilot study that asked first-time parents to estimate their actual workloads at 6 months postpartum. Parents were also asked to indicate any time contributed to these areas by outside sources (eg, babysitter, daycare provider, relative, housekeeper).

Student t tests were used to investigate gender differences in the amount of time invested in work prenatally, perceived degree of sharing household tasks with the partner, satisfaction with the partner’s contribution to household work, and projected prenatal to postpartum work changes. Paired t tests were used to examine subjects’ anticipated prenatal to postpartum changes in workload. Congruency in partners’ perceptions about how they currently share household responsibilities was determined by summing their responses to the question, “Please circle the number that best describes how you and your partner currently share household responsibilities.” Responses were given on a 1 to 7 scale where 1=“partner does everything,” 4=“We share equally,” and 7=“I do everything.” Thus, a summed score of 8 indicated perfect congruency.

Results

Of the 722 expectant parents informed of the study, 76 were ineligible to participate (usually because they were not living with a partner), 346 refused to participate (the most common reason for refusal was concern about leaving the large classroom for a breakout session), and 300 (149 men and 151 women) agreed to participate, for a response rate of 46% (300/646). The mean age of the participants was 29.3 years (standard deviation=4.6); 93.3% were white; 88.6% were married; 97.9% were employed; and 62% had a 4-year college or advanced degree. A total of 132 people (66 men and 66 women) participated in the breakout sessions.

The amount of time expectant fathers and mothers devoted to various household tasks and employment prenatally is shown in Table 1. Although men and women contributed similar amounts of time to household work—18.2 and 20.0 hours, respectively—they tended to divide these tasks according to traditional work patterns, with men investing more time in household repairs, lawn care, and snow removal, and women spending more time with cooking, cleaning, laundry, and shopping. Compared with women, men worked longer hours at their jobs, and this resulted in a heavier mean total prenatal workload for men by 8.4 hours per week (P=.000).

In response to the question of how they shared household responsibilities, women reported a belief that they contributed more to household chores than their partners (mean=4.4 and 3.8 for women and men, respectively; P=.000). This finding is consistent with women’s slightly higher estimated contributions to household tasks (P=NS). Partners’ perceptions about how they shared household work were congruent: 90% of couples had summed congruency scores in the 7 to 9 range, which allows for no more than a 1-point deviation from a perfect summed congruency score of 8. On average men were more satisfied than women with their partner’s contribution to household work (mean=6.0 and 5.4 for men and women, respectively; P=.000). The projected prenatal to postpartum changes in workload were considerable for both men and women (Table 2). Women predicted an 85% increase, and men anticipated a 53% expansion of total workload, with a net result of women planning to work 9 hours per week more than men at 6 months postpartum (P <.001). Both men and women predicted significant increases in time spent on household tasks, child care, and total work; the projected changes in effort related to child care and total work were significantly greater for women than men (P=.000), as shown in Table 3. Both men and women planned to reduce their paid work commitments after childbirth, women to a greater degree than men (P=.000).

Discussion

The results indicate that while men shouldered heavier workloads prenatally, women anticipated working longer hours than men at 6 months postpartum by 9 hours per week. This amounts to an 85% (48.7 hours/week) increase in workload for women, compared with a 53% (33.3 hours/week) increase for men. Although both are astounding increases, women clearly anticipated a larger expansion of work than men. Such dramatic changes in work responsibilities realized by new mothers might be at least partially responsible for the mental and physical problems that often plague women after childbirth.^8,12

The projected postpartum difference in workload between men and women was not unexpected, given the findings of Kahn¹ that on average, adult women of all ages in the United States bear heavier total workloads than men. It is noteworthy, however, that this gender difference in workloads was anticipated even by a group of couples who had had an opportunity to systematically study and preplan their postpartum work distribution.

It appears that to some degree these planned gender discrepancies in postpartum work responsibilities might be explained on the basis of traditional sex role assumptions. Women planned to take on more of the child care and household responsibilities after childbirth than men: 79 versus 52 hours per week. To help compensate for this considerable expansion of unpaid work, expectant mothers also planned to trim an average of 11.7 hours per week from their paid jobs compared with expectant fathers’ anticipated drop of 2.2 hours per week. For many women this change would likely result in part-time work. Previous studies have documented that both men and women tend to work part-time more in the childbearing years than at any other time in their adult lives, and women’s use of part-time work hours during this period of life tends to be much greater than men’s, often 2 to 3 times more.¹³ These data reinforce the need for couples to consider many complex issues in their postpartum workload planning, such as whether their dissimilar reductions in paid work will have a differential impact on their career satisfaction and opportunities and whether their joint plans for curtailing employment hours could ultimately benefit the family unit by improving child and family development.

Although expectant fathers and mothers in this study tended to follow traditional patterns in their qualitative division of various household responsibilities, they devoted similar amounts of total time to household tasks (18.2 and 20.0 hours/week, respectively). This finding contrasts with that of previous studies showing a much greater share of household work being performed by women,^1,14,15 often twice as much or more.^1,14,16 The results could be related to several factors. First, the observed prenatal work patterns may be somewhat atypical for these couples: Several women indicated that they had cut back on their housework or employment hours because of pregnancy-associated fatigue or other health problems. Second, this was a very homogenous population of employed young couples without children, in contrast to the more diverse samples (which included adults with children and more unemployed wives) used in many previous studies. Alternatively, these findings might represent a societal trend toward men and women sharing housework more equitably.

Importantly for many of these parents, the changes in work that they anticipated after giving birth likely represent the largest and most abrupt increase in work responsibilities that they will face in their adult lives. Unfortunately, it is a change for which many parents are ill-prepared. This lack of preparation is likely due, at least in part, to the paucity of information available on new parents’ actual workloads (no specific information was found in the medical, sociological, and psychological searches), society’s tendency to focus on the health needs of newborns and children more than those of their parents, and the absence of a consistent method for educating adolescents and young adults about the responsibilities of supporting and nurturing a family.

Each of these needs will be addressed. First, additional research is needed on changes in work responsibilities for new parents from more diverse populations, and we need a greater understanding of how these work responsibilities affect health and marital well-being (the goal of the ongoing randomized controlled trial). Second, we need a broader view of postpartum care, such that the physical, mental, and social needs of both the parents and newborn are considered in an ongoing manner. This is a perspective that family physicians are uniquely positioned to adopt and foster within the context of prenatal and postpartum care for the family unit. Moreover, family physicians could also be part of the solution to the third need, that of teaching would-be parents about postpartum work and family responsibilities. These efforts may pay important dividends in strengthening the fiber of the family and improving the well-being of its individual members.

Limitations

The limitations of this study include the modest response rate, the potential for selection bias, and the relatively homogeneous sample. In addition, parents’ estimations of work time may not be completely accurate, and these simple estimations do not account for such factors as the intensity of work at any given time (as when one juggles numerous responsibilities concurrently) or the issue of who holds the ultimate responsibility for a given task. Though future workload projections may be even more inaccurate than current estimations, the results shown here are more than individuals’ guesses about their future work; they represent couples’ intentional plans for sharing postpartum work responsibilities.

Conclusions

These expectant first-time parents anticipated considerable expansions in their work activities after childbirth, with women planning a greater share of the total postpartum workload. This information is important for new parents and for the health care providers who attend them as they resume their household, family, and paid work responsibilities after childbirth.

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the University of Minnesota graduate school.

The author would like to thank Anne Marie Weber-Main for her editing assistance and Bruce Center for his help with data analysis.