| Older adults in the division of domestic labor in communities on the outskirts of Beirut | ||
| Rima R. Habib - Ayman Zohry- Iman Nuwayhid - Faten Najdi | ||
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Abstract |
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The gendered division of domestic labor has
been widely studied over the last three decades.
However, older adults’ contribution to housework,
especially in patriarchal communities in the Middle
East, has been largely overlooked. This article examined
the participation of older members of the household
in domestic labor in three communities in the
outskirts of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. Drawing on
a sample of 2,797 households, the results revealed that
three salient factors seemed to have the major impact
on older adults’ participation in domestic labor; these
were the presence of adult women (18–59 years old) in
the household, the marital status and age of older
adults. Older men’s participation in domestic labor was
much lower than that of older women, suggesting that a
gender divide exists among older adults in the patriarchal
setting of the study. Housework remains feminized
in the later stage of life.
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| Eur J Ageing (2006) 3:137–145 | ||