Men who equally share child-care duties with their female partners have significantly higher levels of satisfaction with their sex lives and their relationship as a whole, claims new research presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.
In the study, Georgia State University assistant professor of sociology Daniel L. Carlson and co-authors Sarah Hanson and Andrea Fitzroy, both graduate students, looked a data from more than 900 heterosexual couples who responded to the 2006 Marital Relationship Study (MARS).
They found that when women were responsible for all or most of the child care duties, both men and women reported the lowest relationship and sex life quality. Couples that equally divided up those duties, however, reported having higher quality relationships and better sex lives.
“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 explained in a statement Sunday.
Women who care less for children have better sex lives
The study authors divided the couples into three categories: those in which women did at least 60 percent of the childcare-related tasks, those in which men did at least 60 percent of those duties, and those in which each partner did between 40 and 60 percent of such tasks. They also reviewed the relationship satisfaction, conflict, sexual frequency, and sex life quality of each couple.
They 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 those who split childcare duties. Also, when men were the ones primarily in charge of caring for children, their quality of sex life was at its lowest, while their partners had higher quality sex lives than the other women in the study.
The current study was limited to only heterosexual couples and did not feature any same-sex couples. It also only featured four different types of tasks, including which parent was responsible for making the rules for the children, who enforced those rules and delivered punishment when they were broken, who praised the kids for their achievements, and who played with them.
“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,” explained Carlson. He added that, in future research, he and his colleagues hope to learn more about the mechanisms behind this link between shared child care duties and relationship quality.
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