Monday, August 24, 2015

Couples that split childcare duties have higher quality relationships and sex lives

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/asa-cts081815.php

Public Release: 23-Aug-2015
Couples that split childcare duties have higher quality relationships and sex lives
American Sociological Association

Heterosexual couples that split childcare duties have higher quality relationships and sex lives than those who don't, according to new research that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

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Carlson, Hanson, and Fitzroy found that when women were responsible for most or all of the childcare, men and women reported lower quality relationships and sex lives compared to couples that split childcare responsibilities.

"One of the most important findings is that the only childcare arrangement that appears really problematic for the quality of both a couple's relationship and sex life is when the woman does most or all of the childcare," Carlson said.

Unlike mothers, fathers in a heterosexual relationship could take on most or all of the childcare responsibilities without negative effects on the quality of the couple's relationship. In addition, couples in which men did most or all of the childcare had just as much sex as couples with egalitarian arrangements, and were just as satisfied with the amount of sex they were having.

Interestingly, however, Carlson said that men who did most or all of the childcare reported having the lowest quality sex lives of men in the study, but their female partners reported having the highest quality sex lives of women in the study.

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The three dimensions of childcare were physical/emotional childcare, interactive childcare, and passive childcare, which includes supervising and monitoring. The four tasks that the researchers looked at were who was responsible for making the rules for the children, who enforced the rules or punished the children when they broke them, who praised the children for their accomplishments, and who played with the children.

"We only had one physical task, and that task revolved primarily around playing with the children, including sports and games, but nothing about who feeds or bathes them," Carlson said.

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