L Ruppanner
Biographic Data
| ID | 28526 |
|---|---|
| NAME | L Ruppanner |
| GIVEN NAMES | L |
| FAMILY NAME | Ruppanner |
| SIGNATURE | RUPPANNER L |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Melbourne |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6111-1914 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 71 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 987 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 71 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 16 |
Social Correlates of Social Capital Access Among Gay and Bisexual Men in Japan
Significant health disparities exist between gay and bisexual men (GBM) and the general population in Japan and internationally. Social capital is recognized as a key factor for positive health and well‐being outcomes, including HIV prevention behaviors, among GBM. However, limited research examines how the sexual orientation of alters (i.e., possessors of resources within social capital networks) impacts access to these resources. In this study,…
Power, Status, Legitimacy, and Shame in Organizations
The power-status theory of emotions posits that emotions arise out of a process in which people compare the levels of status and power that they experience against some standard of status and power adequacy. Power-status theory is effective at predicting emotions, but it does not formally specify a structural mechanism that explains how actors determine what constitutes adequate or inadequate power and status. The authors argue that legitimacy, o…
Underemployment and mental health amongst working-age Australians
Underemployment is an increasingly persistent and pervasive feature of contemporary labour markets and there is some evidence to suggest that underemployment is an important social determinant of health and well-being. However, the evidence base has tended to focus on hours-based underemployment more than others like skills-based underemployment. Moreover, the gendered dimensions of underemployment remain under-researched despite evidence to sugg…
Take a Load Off? Not for Mothers
Globally, women perform the lion’s share of domestic labor. Research indicates that gender disparities in cognitive labor—the “thinking work” required to anticipate and monitor household needs—are even more pronounced than in physical household labor. Although traditional theories explain the gender division of physical household labor in terms of time, money, or gender performance, the applicability of these frameworks to the mental load is uncl…
The cognitive labour of being a ‘good’ dad
Bias and Discrimination Against Women and Parents in Semi‐Automated Hiring Systems
Today, organizations are increasingly relying on automated hiring. The mechanization of the hiring process is assumed to render it more neutral, but a growing literature shows algorithmic decisions are as likely to be biased (Dickson, 2018). In this study, we test two types of biases: (1) gender bias; and (2) parenting bias, (i.e., whether mothers and fathers with an extended gap to care for children are penalized vis‐à‐vis those with uninterrupt…
Policy interventions for the future of work
This paper examines how Australian attitudes toward the future of work shape support for policy interventions, drawing on nationally representative survey data (n = 1,035). We focus on three dimensions of technological change: displacement, deskilling, and de-intensification, and analyse how these expectations map onto preferences for investment, compensation, and steering policies. Our findings show that those concerned about displacement suppor…
Gendered associations between time-related underemployment and mental health
BACKGROUND: Underemployment is an increasing feature of global labour markets. However, the mental health impacts of underemployment remain relatively under-researched. Longitudinal evidence is particularly sparse, as is accounting for gender differences in the association. Addressing key gaps, this study examines the association between time-related underemployment and mental health in Australian adults. METHODS: Pooled panel data from 21 waves …
The Gendered Flexibility Paradox and Remote-First Work
Recent technological advances and globalised distribution of work have accelerated the rise of remote-first organisations where everyone works remotely, yet the effects of this approach on working parents remain underexplored. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 25 mothers and 16 fathers from 31 remote-first organisations, this study examines the gendered impact of standardised remote-first flexibility on work-family reconciliation. Findings s…
Unpaid labour and mental health-the role of perceived fairness and satisfaction in division amongst working-age adults; a longitudinal analysis using 18 waves of panel data
Across the globe, the division of unpaid labour remains highly gendered and unequally shared. This has consequences for women's economic security and their ability to participate equally in paid work. Whilst unpaid labour time has been shown to be associated with poorer mental health, understanding how the unequal division of unpaid labour impacts mental health requires further scrutiny. Utilising 18 annual waves (2005-2022) of the HILDA survey, …
The Caregiving Gap
Mothers still do more childcare per week than fathers. We call this the caregiving gap, a persistent source of gender inequality. Meanwhile, men's involvement in care boasts wide-ranging benefits for women, men, and children. Here, we focus on one important, understudied cultural dimension that shapes men's time spent in care: confidence. We apply unique data from The American Social Survey ( n = 1061) to weigh two theoretical arguments-gender so…
A typology of US parents' mental loads
ObjectiveThis article examines whether domestic cognitive labor functions like other forms of domestic labor as a means to "do gender."BackgroundDomestic cognitive labor is increasingly conceptualized as the invisible thinking work associated with childcare and housework. A critical question for this growing literature is the gender distribution of cognitive labor tasks: do women do it all, or does domestic cognitive labor follow similar patterns…
Remote Work Penalties
Remote, home-based work has long been devalued in the United States as it is associated with flexible work, disproportionately pursued by women, and a violation of ideal worker norms. The shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic created a scenario where a large proportion of professional/white-collar workers experienced remote work; and workers and managers witnessed the potential for continued productivity. This potentially shifted managers’ perce…
Do working parents in the United States expect work location to impact job and family satisfaction in the post-pandemic period? Evidence from a survey experiment
The pandemic response allowed many parents in the United States and globally to work remotely for the first time ever which, for many, continued into the recovery. It is unclear whether, after a period when a large segment of the United States labor force worked remotely, remote work is viewed favorably or unfavorably among employed parents. We present results from a survey experiment assessing whether employed parents in the United States percei…
Silicon caregivers
From online trolls to ‘Slut Shaming
Fair political representation is an important goal of democratic governments, yet Australia lags behind many democracies in women's representation in elected politics. Attacks against women in public spaces through harassment and verbal abuse have long constrained women's ease in physical spaces and, in the digital age, this has extended into online spheres. This paper examines the impact of on- and offline incivility on women's experiences in lo…
Understanding Public Support for Policies Aimed at Gender Parity in Politics
Across the globe, women are underrepresented in elected politics. The study's case countries of Australia (ranked 33), Canada (61) and the United States (66) rank poorly for women's political representation. Drawing on role strain and gender-mainstreaming theories and applying large-scale survey experiments, we examine public opinion on non-quota mechanisms to bolster women's political participation. The experimental design manipulates the politi…
Covid ‐19 and the role of gender, earnings, and telecommuting in parents' employment
Objective To understand how married mothers' and fathers' earnings and ability to telecommute structured their employment throughout the COVID‐19 pandemic. Background We weigh two competing explanations—rational choice and gendered resources—to evaluate the association between married parents' financial and workplace resources and sustained employment throughout the pandemic. Method We use hierarchical logistic regression models to analyze rotati…
Remote Schooling and Mothers’ Employment During the Covid-19 Pandemic by Race, Education, and Marital Status
Public schools in the United States saw unprecedented reductions to in-person instruction during the 2020–2021 school year. Using the Elementary School Operating Status database, the American Community Survey, and the Current Population Survey, we show remote instruction was associated with reduced employment among mothers compared with fathers and women without children. The gender gap in employment between mothers and fathers grew as much as 5 …
Linked Fate and Social Identity
The recent social and political inequalities women face in the United States have raised new questions about how distinct groups of women respond to a changing landscape. Here, we assess how racial and political differences shape women's social identity as women and its association with support for abortion and the MeToo movement. Using original survey data, we find that for both Black and white women, gender-linked fate-the belief that one's fat…
Children of the Revolution
This study investigates whether parents spend different amounts of time in housework, childcare, and employment across birth cohorts. We apply data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS; 2003-2018) and age-cohort-period models to compare parents' time spent in these activities across three successive birth cohorts: Baby Boomers (1946-1965), Generation X (1966-1980) and Millennials (1981-2000). For housework time, we find no evidence of cohort c…
Restless sleep and emotional wellbeing among European full-time dual-earner couples
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 fath…
The Nexus Between China’s Global Image and Attitudes Toward Diasporic Chinese
The COVID-19 pandemic intensified unfavorable international news coverage of the Chinese Government with consequences for the Chinese diaspora broadly. To understand these relationships, we conducted surveys in Australia and the United States from 8 to 21 June 2021. Using a survey experiment, we find a significant negative impact of the Chinese Government’s early handling of COVID-19 on public sentiment toward the Chinese Government in Australia …
Response to David Blau's Essay
Many experts and policymakers agree on the potential benefits of expanding early childhood education and childcare, including improved long-term outcomes for the children in the programs and economic outcomes for their parents. The recognition of these benefits is reflected in the recently proposed Build Back Better Act, which includes funding to reduce the financial burden of childcare on families. However, there has been significant debate on h…
An Argument for Universal Preschool and Childcare in the U.S
Covid‐19 and the gender gap in work hours
School and day care closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic have increased caregiving responsibilities for working parents. As a result, many have changed their work hours to meet these growing demands. In this study, we use panel data from the US Current Population Survey to examine changes in mothers' and fathers' work hours from February through April 2020, the period of time prior to the widespread COVID-19 outbreak in the United States and thr…
The mental load
The mental load has received considerable public attention especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, we synthesize existing literature to argue that the mental load is a combination of cognitive and emotional labor and it is this combination that makes the mental work a load. We argue that the way the mental load operates within families and society has three characteristics: (1) it is invisible in that it is enacted inter…
Early Signs Indicate That Covid-19 Is Exacerbating Gender Inequality in the Labor Force
In this data visualization, the authors examine how the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis in the United States has affected labor force participation, unemployment, and work hours across gender and parental status. Using data from the Current Population Survey, the authors compare estimates between February and April 2020 to examine the period of time before the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States to the height of the first wave, when…
Gender Linked Fate, Race/Ethnicity, and the Marriage Gap in American Politics
In this study, we explore the predictors of gender linked fate with a focus on marital status for different racial/ethnic groups. We argue that marriage alters women’s perceptions of self-interest by institutionalizing their partnerships with men and consequently leading women to feel less connected to other women. We assess our hypothesis using the 2012 American National Election Study. While we find that married white women and Latinas have sig…
The Gendered Consequences of a Weak Infrastructure of Care
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended in-person public education across the United States, a critical infrastructure of care that parents-especially mothers-depend on to work. To understand the nature and magnitude of school closures across states, we collected detailed primary data-the Elementary School Operating Status database (ESOS)-to measure the percentage of school districts offering in-person, remote, and hybrid instruction models for element…
Expensive Childcare and Short School Days = Lower Maternal Employment and More Time in Childcare? Evidence from the American Time Use Survey
This study investigates the relationship between maternal employment and state-to-state differences in childcare cost and mean school day length. Pairing state-level measures with an individual-level sample of prime working-age mothers from the American Time Use Survey (2005-2014; n = 37,993), we assess the multilevel and time-varying effects of childcare costs and school day length on maternal full-time and part-time employment and childcare tim…
Good Housekeeping, Great Expectations
Gender remains a key predictor of housework in modern society. However, previous studies have been relatively limited in their ability to adjudicate between possible mechanisms operating at the individual and social-interactional level that may cause this relationship. To address this gap, we employ a novel experimental design in which respondents view and evaluate photos of a relatively clean or messy room, which is ostensibly occupied by either…
Mission Impossible? New Housework Theories for Changing Families
Theoretical approaches to housework do not reflect contemporary families and gender relations. We evaluate assumptions about gender and families in three dominant explanations and propose theoretical extensions. First, we suggest a work–family fit approach that examines housework and resources at a household level. Second, we propose the diverse capital perspective that extends earnings centered assessments of housework bargaining. Finally, a “do…
Does Unequal Housework Lead to Divorce? Evidence from Sweden
The lack of couple-level data hinders direct exploration of how inconsistencies in couples' housework reports structure their relationship quality. We address this limitation by applying Swedish data from the 2009 Young Adult Panel Study ( N = 1057 couples) matched with Swedish register data (2009-2014) to extend equity theory by estimating mismatch in couples' housework reports on relationship satisfaction and stability. We find women who report…
Harried and Unhealthy? Parenthood, Time Pressure, and Mental Health
Objective: This study investigates the effects of first and second births on time pressure and mental health and how these vary with time since birth and parental responsibilities. It also examines whether time pressure mediates the relationship between parenthood and mental health.Background: Childbirth is a major life course transition that adds a new role to parents' role set and contributes to role strain, of which time pressure is one manife…
Shifting Inequalities? Parents' Sleep, Anxiety, and Calm during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Australia and the United States
This article examines traditional gender roles during the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout as an opportunity to evaluate shifting gender dynamics amidst rapid changes in employment and domestic demands for heterosexual couples with children in Australia and the United States. The authors argue that traditional gender roles were reinforced for U.S. parents but eroded for Australian parents
Conflict and Housework
In this article, I analyse housework conflict cross-nationally using a unique multi-level data set that pairs the 2004 European Social Survey data for respondents in 25 nations with societal measures of gender equality. At the individual-level, I test two theoretical approaches to subjective housework conflict: the distributive justice and relative resources perspectives. The results support both of these theories for men and women. At the countr…
Cross-national reports of housework
Conflict Between Work and Family
Blurred Boundaries
Although well theorized at the individual level, previous research has neglected the role of national context in shaping overall levels of nonwork-work and work-nonwork interference. This study fills this gap by examining how a national context of gender empowerment affects the likelihood of experiencing nonwork-work and work-nonwork interference at the individual and national levels. Controlling for individual-level differences in the distributi…
How do Gender Norms and Childcare Costs Affect Maternal Employment Across US States
In this article, we investigate how state-to-state differences in U.S. childcare costs and gender norms are associated with maternal employment. Although an abundance of research has examined factors that influence mothers' employment, few studies explore the interrelationship between maternal employment and culture, policy, and individual resources across U.S. states. Using a representative sample of women in the 2017 American Community Survey a…
Fairness and Housework
Using 2002 International Social Survey Program (ISSP) data, the relationship of individual level characteristics with the division of labor was examined for three countries with different patterns of female labor force participation and country-specific gender equality. The impact of two theories, distributive justice and relative resources, was assessed for Sweden, the Netherlands, and Hungary. The author finds that the distributive justice theo…
Emotional and financial health during Covid‐19
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 tha…
Housework conflict and divorce
Macro-level measures of divorce have important consequences on individual-level housework dynamics. Previous research has focused on the relationship between access to divorce at the country level and divisions of housework at the individual level. The article extends this literature by investigating the relationship between individual-level housework conflict and country-level measures of divorce and women's bargaining power. Using European Soci…
From online trolls to ‘Slut Shaming
Fair political representation is an important goal of democratic governments, yet Australia lags behind many democracies in women's representation in elected politics. Attacks against women in public spaces through harassment and verbal abuse have long constrained women's ease in physical spaces and, in the digital age, this has extended into online spheres. This paper examines the impact of on- and offline incivility on women's experiences in lo…
Research Note
In the fall of 2020, school districts across the country reopened under a variety of instructional modes. Some districts returned to in-person instruction and some operated remotely. Others reopened under hybrid models, wherein students alternated times, days, or weeks of in-person instruction. To capture this variation, we developed the Elementary School Operating Status (ESOS) database. ESOS provides data on elementary school districts' primary…
Are States Created Equal? Moving to a State With More Expensive Childcare Reduces Mothers' Odds of Employment
Married mothers who relocate are less likely to be employed after an interstate move than married childless women and nonmobile mothers. Here, we ask whether moving to a state with more expensive childcare is associated with lower odds of maternal employment among mothers who had been employed prior to relocation. We use hierarchical binomial logistic regression models, combining data from the 2015 American Community Survey five-year sample and s…
Do high childcare costs and low access to Head Start and childcare subsidies limit mothers' employment? A state-level analysis
Profiling racial prejudice during Covid‐19
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 potentia…
Children of the Revolution
This study investigates whether parents spend different amounts of time in housework, childcare, and employment across birth cohorts. We apply data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS; 2003-2018) and age-cohort-period models to compare parents' time spent in these activities across three successive birth cohorts: Baby Boomers (1946-1965), Generation X (1966-1980) and Millennials (1981-2000). For housework time, we find no evidence of cohort c…
Fairness and Housework
Using 2002 International Social Survey Program (ISSP) data, the relationship of individual level characteristics with the division of labor was examined for three countries with different patterns of female labor force participation and country-specific gender equality. The impact of two theories, distributive justice and relative resources, was assessed for Sweden, the Netherlands, and Hungary. The author finds that the distributive justice theo…
Local Labour Markets, Organizations and the Distribution of Family‐responsive Benefits in the USA
Family‐responsive benefits have important consequences for workers balancing work–family demands. Previous research on the distribution of family‐responsive benefits has focused on intra‐organizational determinants or general labour market characteristics, at the expense of local labour market factors. We address this deficiency by analysing a unique random sample of US work establishments nested in their local labour markets. Specifically, we as…
Conflict and Housework
In this article, I analyse housework conflict cross-nationally using a unique multi-level data set that pairs the 2004 European Social Survey data for respondents in 25 nations with societal measures of gender equality. At the individual-level, I test two theoretical approaches to subjective housework conflict: the distributive justice and relative resources perspectives. The results support both of these theories for men and women. At the countr…
Cross-national reports of housework
Housework conflict and divorce
Macro-level measures of divorce have important consequences on individual-level housework dynamics. Previous research has focused on the relationship between access to divorce at the country level and divisions of housework at the individual level. The article extends this literature by investigating the relationship between individual-level housework conflict and country-level measures of divorce and women's bargaining power. Using European Soci…
For the Family
Conflict Between Work and Family
Who Cares? Caregiver Well-being in Europe
This paper analyzes a multi-national sample comparing self-reported well-being of those who provide dependent care with that of noncaregivers. We pair individual-level data from the 2004 European Social Survey (ESS) for respondents in 22 nations (n = 41,000+) with country-level measures of attitudinal support for coresidential familial caregiving (2007 Eurobarometer), old age and family public transfers (OECD Social Expenditures Database, 2014), …
Blurred Boundaries
Although well theorized at the individual level, previous research has neglected the role of national context in shaping overall levels of nonwork-work and work-nonwork interference. This study fills this gap by examining how a national context of gender empowerment affects the likelihood of experiencing nonwork-work and work-nonwork interference at the individual and national levels. Controlling for individual-level differences in the distributi…
Gender Inequalities in the Home
Gender inequalities in the home are reflected across a range of issues centering on care. In this essay, we focus on household labor which is persistent, structured by individual, couple, and structural differences and reflective of broader issues of gender inequality. Initially, we identify the theoretical approaches that serve as the foundation of empirical work on domestic arrangements: relative resources, time availability, and gender display…
Female Power at Work
Understanding the Effects of Crime on Women
The risk-fear paradox, whereby people who experience the least criminal victimisation report the greatest fear of crime, has been established in the extant literature. That this paradox is gendered, notably that women report greater fear yet are less likely to experience crime, has also been consistently identified. However, there remains a largely unanswered call to explore further the distinctive experiences of women and men. There are likely t…
Working Weekends
European countries are undergoing significant changes in employment schedules, including increases in weekend work with potential consequences for families. We focus on one arena of family life-the couple's division of housework-to investigate implications of weekend work for this aspect of gender equality. Furthermore, we situate these divisions within the cross-national context of wives' weekend work to determine whether nonstandard employment …
State liberalism, female supervisors, and the gender wage gap
Shorter Work Hours and Work-to-Family Interference
For many, work interferes with their home life. To mitigate this encroachment, many welfare states have legislated shorter workweeks. Yet, the effectiveness of this policy on work-to-family interference is mixed, thus requiring additional investigation. We address this gap by applying multilevel data pairing the 2005 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) for individuals in 32 nations ( N = 20,937) with country-level measures of legislated …
Indian time for nature? A multi-level approach to American Indian outdoor time in everyday life
Social scientists have utilized daily time use studies as one method of understanding everyday lives. The bulk of this research, usually quantitative, identifies broad racial, ethnic and gender differences. Yet, certain groups and questions are typically excluded in daily time use research. One such group is American Indians. To address this lacuna, we look at the deeply discussed view that American Indians are closer to nature than other US ethn…
The state of domestic affairs
Gender Linked Fate, Race/Ethnicity, and the Marriage Gap in American Politics
In this study, we explore the predictors of gender linked fate with a focus on marital status for different racial/ethnic groups. We argue that marriage alters women’s perceptions of self-interest by institutionalizing their partnerships with men and consequently leading women to feel less connected to other women. We assess our hypothesis using the 2012 American National Election Study. While we find that married white women and Latinas have sig…
Division of housework and his and her view of housework fairness
Housework studies have long documented a fairness paradox, whereby unequal divisions of housework are evaluated as fair. Gender equality, both at home and at work, is strongly normative in a highly egalitarian country like Sweden, but not always matched by
Mission Impossible? New Housework Theories for Changing Families
Theoretical approaches to housework do not reflect contemporary families and gender relations. We evaluate assumptions about gender and families in three dominant explanations and propose theoretical extensions. First, we suggest a work–family fit approach that examines housework and resources at a household level. Second, we propose the diverse capital perspective that extends earnings centered assessments of housework bargaining. Finally, a “do…
Do Mothers Benefit from Flexible Work? Cross-National Evidence for Work Time, Job Quality, and Satisfaction
Flexible work is commonly implemented to provide workers with greater discretion to accommodate competing demands. While investigated at the individual and organizational levels, less is known about whether national cultures of flexible work are associated with workers’ ability to match their desired to actual work hours. Applying data from the 2005 International Social Survey Programme (n = 19,134 from 32 nations), we investigate whether workers…
Gender Equality and Restless Sleep Among Partnered Europeans
Sleep is situated in the work–family nexus and can be shaped by national norms promoting gender equality. The authors tested this proposition using individual data from the European Social Survey matched to a country‐level measure of gender equality. In individual‐level models, women's sleep was more troubled by the presence of children in the home and partners' unemployment, whereas men's restless sleep was associated with their own unemployment…
Does Unequal Housework Lead to Divorce? Evidence from Sweden
The lack of couple-level data hinders direct exploration of how inconsistencies in couples' housework reports structure their relationship quality. We address this limitation by applying Swedish data from the 2009 Young Adult Panel Study ( N = 1057 couples) matched with Swedish register data (2009-2014) to extend equity theory by estimating mismatch in couples' housework reports on relationship satisfaction and stability. We find women who report…
Spending on Children across Four Countries
Scholars have recently documented inequalities in parents’ spending on children in the United States. This article situates these trends cross-nationally by using expenditure data from the United States, Australia, Spain, and Norway. The article investigates differences across countries in the links between household income, female labor force participation, and spending on children. The links between income, female labor force participation, and…
National Board Quotas and the Gender Pay Gap among European Managers
As European countries have mandated quotas for women’s representation on boards, and as women have increasingly entered the ranks of management, a persistent gender gap in managerial pay remains. Drawing a sample of managers in the 2010 European Social Survey, the gender gap in pay was decomposed, finding that employer devaluation of women accounted for the majority of the gender gap in pay. This was especially true in countries without mandated …
Economics (51 works) · Psychology (47 works) · Demographic economics (46 works) · Work-Family Balance Challenges (43 works) · Sociology (41 works) · Political science (36 works) · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics (28 works) · Labour economics (24 works) · Medicine (23 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (21 works)