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On the reproduction of gendered and classed inequalities: Understanding children's family labor in Brazil
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DOI：10.1016/j.ssresearch.2026.103328.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
The growing scholarship investigating children's use of time consistently shows a gender gap, with boys allocating less time than girls to family labor. Despite important progress in this literature, few studies investigate potential class heterogeneities for understanding gendered patterns of children's time in household tasks. Yet, we know that gender inequalities are often intertwined with class disparities. Moreover, contributions have largely concentrated on high-income settings. This study examines children's family labor in Brazil, a middle-income country with the largest population in Latin America, focusing on class disparities. We address three goals. First, we investigate how mothers' education is related to the gender gap in family labor among Brazilian children. Second, we examine whether fathers' and mothers' distribution of domestic work affects boys' and girls' time in household activities. Third, we explore whether the association between parents' distribution of family labor and children's gendered allocation to these tasks varies across mothers' educational attainment levels. We find that while girls conduct more family labor than boys overall, this disparity is larger among children with lower maternal education. This suggests that, among Brazilian children, family needs significantly impact girls, as their involvement in family labor is negatively associated with their mothers' educational level. Conversely, for boys, socialization may play a more substantial role, as fathers' higher involvement in family labor is linked with increases in boys' time in these tasks, regardless of social class. Our results highlight the need to include intersecting gender and class disparities in the study of children's family labor.
Keywords:
gender inequality
class disparities
children's time use
family labor
Brazil
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