It's not what I expected: The association between dual-earner couples' met expectations for the division of paid and family labor and well-being

The impact of dual-earner couples' unequal division of paid and family labor after the transition to parenthood is inconsistently linked to well-being outcomes. We argue that this relationship can be better understood by examining the congruence between the post-child division of labor and pre-child expectation for the division of labor. Based on a met expectations framework, this idea was tested with 137 dual-earner heterosexual couples with young children. Hypotheses were testing using polynomial regression analyses with well-being considered in both affective (career, marital, and family satisfaction) and health-related (depressive and physical health symptoms) terms. Results suggested that congruence in the paid labor and childcare domain mattered most for wives' well-being, whereas congruence with household labor mattered most for husbands' well-being. Crossover analyses revealed a similar trend in that wives' expectations-division of paid labor congruence was significantly related to husband's well-being and husbands' expectations-division of household labor congruence was significantly related to wives' well-being. Hypotheses were also tested with pre-child desires for division of labor instead of pre-child expectations. The pattern of results was similar albeit stronger for expectations. Implications include the importance of comprehensively assessing division of labor and the fact that pre-child attitudes are relevant to post-child outcomes.