School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications

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    Gendered housework under China's privatization: the evolving role of parents
    Tan, X ; Ruppanner, L ; Wang, M (Taylor & Francis, 2021)
    In China’s multigenerational society, parents fulfill essential family functions including housework–a critical site of gender inequality with important consequences. Combining data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (n = 14,096 person-years, 1997–2015) with a province-level privatization index, we find that co-residing with parents was associated with less housework time, whereas co-residing with sick parents was associated with more housework time. These associations were stronger for women than men. Our results highlight the increasingly important role of parents to help their adult daughters or daughters-in-law cope with housework demands as China’s economy was privatized.
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    Restless sleep and emotional wellbeing among European full-time dual-earner couples: gendered impacts of children and workplace demands
    Tan, X ; Ruppanner, L ; Hewitt, B ; Maume, D (Routledge, 2022)
    Role strain theory illuminates how work and family impinge on our intimate lives in gendered ways. Drawing upon data from the 2012 European Social Survey, we estimate structural equation models to understand the links between work and family conditions on full-time dual-earning couples’ restless sleep and emotional wellbeing. Our results show that young children (aged two or under) disrupt full-time working mothers’ but not full-time working fathers’ sleep, improving emotional wellbeing for fathers but not mothers. Compared to men, women report a significantly larger association between work hour dissatisfaction and restless sleep, probably highlighting the more time strain they experience due to their family responsibility on top of their full-time work. These gender gaps are the most pronounced among those couples working longest hours, suggesting that when inter-role strain intensifies for both partners, women suffer disproportionately. Collectively, our findings identify significant and gendered consequences of childcare and workplace demands and spotlight restless sleep as a key mechanism linking women’s role strain to poor emotional wellbeing.
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    Emotional and financial health during COVID-19: The role of housework, employment and childcare in Australia and the United States
    Ruppanner, L ; Tan, X ; Carson, A ; Ratcliff, S (WILEY, 2021-09)
    During the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world witnessed major economic, school, and daycare closures. We sampled respondents in Australia and the US during the height of the first restrictions to understand how the first quarantine structured their emotional strain and financial worry (825 Australians and 835 Americans aged between 18 and 65; May 2-3, 2020; source YouGov). We apply structural equation modeling to demonstrate that the emotional well-being impacts of COVID-19 are not only gendered but also vary between childless people and parents. Specifically, we show that compared to Australians, Americans were more impacted by changes in their financial circumstances. Further, while the financial worry and emotional strain impacts were similar between childless people and parents in Australia, significant differences existed between the two groups in the United States. In particular, we identify American mothers as the most disadvantaged group-feeling the most anxious and financially worried about both employment and domestic changes under COVID-19. Policy wise, we argue that COVID-19 is exacerbating gender inequality in emotional health. To slow down this trend, more adequate mental health supports are needed, particularly for mothers.
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    Profiling racial prejudice during COVID-19: Who exhibits anti-asian sentiment in Australia and the United States?
    Tan, X ; Lee, R ; Ruppanner, L (WILEY, 2021-12)
    Following the COVID-19 outbreak, anti-Asian racism increased around the world, as exhibited through greater instances of abuse and hate crimes. To better understand the scale of anti-Asian racism and the characteristics of people who may be expressing racial prejudice, we sampled respondents in Australia and the United States over 31 August-9 September 2020 (1375 Australians and 1060 Americans aged 18 or above; source YouGov). To address potential social desirability bias, we use both direct and indirect (list experiment) questions to measure anti-Asian sentiment and link these variables to key socioeconomic factors. We find that, instead of being universal among general populations, anti-Asian sentiment is patterned differently across both country contexts and socioeconomic groups. In the United States, the most significant predictor of anti-Asian bias is political affiliation. By contrast, in Australia, anti-Asian bias is closely linked to a wide range of socioeconomic factors including political affiliation, age, gender, employment status and income.
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    Do managers sleep well? The role of gender, gender empowerment and economic development
    Tan, X ; Ruppanner, L ; Maume, D ; Hewitt, B ; Useche, SA (Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2021-03-17)
    Work demands often disrupt sleep. The stress of higher status theory posits that workers with greater resources often experience greater stress. We extend this theory to sleep and ask: do managers report more disrupted sleep and does this vary by gender and country context? Data come from the 2012 European Social Survey Programme and our sample comprised those currently employed in their prime working age (n = 27,616; age 25-64) in 29 countries. We include country level measures of the Gender Development Index (GDI) and gross domestic product (GDP). We find that workers sleep better, regardless of gender, in countries where women are empowered. For managers, women sleep better as GDI increases and men as GDP increases. Our results suggest that men experience a sleep premium from economic development and women from gender empowerment.
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    Shifting Inequalities? Parents’ Sleep, Anxiety, and Calm during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia and the United States
    Ruppanner, L ; Tan, X ; Scarborough, W ; Landivar, LC ; Collins, C (SAGE Publications, 2021)
    As a cultural ideal, hegemonic masculinity positions men as breadwinners in the gender order—a position that systematically benefits men and disadvantages women. Because economic success is key to performing masculinity (Connell 2005), the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout offer an opportunity to evaluate shifting gender dynamics amidst rapid changes in employment and domestic demands for heterosexual couples with children. Closures of schools, daycare facilities, and workplaces around the world shifted more paid and unpaid work into the home, leading journalists and academics to question whether the pandemic would be a catalyst to “un-stall” the gender revolution. Specifically, they wondered if men would take on more domestic work, generating a more equal gender division of household labor (Smith and Johnson 2020). In this essay, we argue that traditional gender roles were reinforced for U.S. parents but were eroded for Australian parents—with disparate consequences for their well-being during the first few months of the pandemic.