Julie Brines

About

Julie Brines is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington. She holds a BSc from Western Washington University and an AM and PhD from Harvard University. Her research examines how gender influences the division of labor and the production and distribution of key goods within families, with a focus on the consequences of these arrangements for family stability and how legal and economic environments shape these outcomes. She is interested in understanding the social changes in couples' work and earnings arrangements and combines interests in gender and sexualities, family relations, stratification, household economics, and the social psychology of close relationships. Brines has authored widely-cited papers on economic dependency, gender, and the division of housework, as well as on the operating principles of durable cohabiting and marital unions. Her recent work includes a study on household task division and sexual frequency in marriage, which explores how gender enactments influence a couple's sex life, receiving international media coverage. Her research also encompasses income disparities in preventative health care, perceptions of fairness in marriage, patterns of nonstandard employment in dual-earner households, and the effects of economic factors on marital disruption, especially in the context of the Great Recession. She is affiliated with the UW Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology and the UW Center for Statistics in the Social…

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Developmental psychology
• Demographic economics
• Gender studies
• Economics
• Social psychology
• Law
• Psychology

Selected publications

• The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home

  Journal of Marriage and the Family · 1990-02-01 · 2245 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Economic Dependency, Gender, and the Division of Labor at Home

  American Journal of Sociology · 1994-11-01 · 1414 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Why does housework remain "women's work"? Some scholars argue that economic dependency comples wives to exchange unpaid labor for a share of the husband's income. Others claim that wives perform housework-and husbands avoid it-to enact symbolically their femininity or masculinity. This article examines both perspectives and finds that among wives the link between housework and the transfer of earnings in marriage complies with rules of economic exchange. However, the more a husband relies on his…

  PublisherDOI

• The Ties That Bind: Principles of Cohesion in Cohabitation and Marriage

  American Sociological Review · 1999-06-01 · 583 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  A vast literature addresses the correlates of marital stability, but little is known about what unites cohabiting partners over time. Although a specialized division of labor might increase the benefits of marriage and strengthen ties between husband and wife, transactional considerations make specialization unattractive for cohabitors. Drawing from work on the emergence of commitment, we argue that cohabitors are more likely to remain together under conditions of equality. Using data from the P…

  PublisherDOI

• The Panel Study of Income Dynamics: A User's Guide.

  Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · 1992-07-01 · 519 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Introduction Study Design Field Procedures Data Preparation Data Quality Content Data Files Data Analysis Getting Started

  PublisherDOI

• Familiar Exploitation: A New Analysis of Marriage in Contemporary Western Societies.

  Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · 1995-03-01 · 254 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Introduction. 1. Feminism and the Family. Part I: Critical Perspectives. 2. Part of Capitalism: Accounts of Womens' Oppression in the Family by Traditional Marxists. 3. Still Part of Capitalism? Marxist Feminist Accounts of the Family. Part II: A New Theoretical Approach to the Western Family. 4. Housework, Household Work and Family Work. 5. The Family as an Economic System: Introduction and Common Misconceptions. 6. The Family as an Economic System: Theoretical Outline. Part III: Empirical Stud…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• J. Baxter

  10 shared

• Katherine Young Graham

  6 shared

• Belinda Hewitt

  University of Melbourne

  6 shared

• Mary K. Salazar

  6 shared

• T. Tai

  Providence University

  6 shared

• Tanya Pergola

  Hartmann Group (Germany)

  5 shared

• Scott Coltrane

  4 shared

• Judith Treas

  4 shared

Labs

• Julie Brines LabPI

Education

• B.S.

  Western Washington University

• Other

  Harvard

• Ph.D.

  Harvard

Similar researchers at University of Washington

• Kyle Crowderh-51
• Alexes Harrish-18
• Nathalie Williamsh-18