ITR/PE(SBE): The Impact of Internet Use on Women's Activity Patterns and the Gender Division of Household Labor

随着互联网上信息资源数量和交易机会的快速增长，互联网使用正在成为社会不平等的一个重要维度。在那些将受到这一社会和技术趋势重大影响的人中，妇女的状况需要特别关注，因为新技术不一定会像过去关于妇女的城市经历和与新技术的互动的研究所表明的那样，给她们的日常生活带来重大的有益变化。这项研究分析了互联网使用对女性的活动模式和家务劳动的性别分工的影响。它试图回答以下问题：(A)互联网的使用是否有助于放松妇女的一些时空限制，从而允许在现实世界中更灵活地安排活动的空间和时间，并帮助妇女应对其多重角色的需求？(B)妇女的互联网活动如何影响她们在现实世界中的活动？(C)男女户主使用互联网对家庭劳动性别分工有何影响？为了回答这些问题，将通过一项活动-互联网日记调查收集俄亥俄州哥伦布市女性样本的数据。假说将通过结构方程模型比较不同互联网使用水平的女性的经历来检验。基于地理信息系统的三维可视化也将被用于分析时空活动--互联网日记数据。这项研究将加深我们对互联网使用对女性活动模式和家务劳动性别分工的影响的理解。研究结果将有助于在几个重要领域制定社会和经济政策。例如，旨在通过远程办公减少差旅的可持续交通政策需要从这种理解中了解情况。如果妇女的许多旅行需求不能被在家利用互联网工作所取代(例如，开车接送孩子)，那么鼓励妇女远程办公既不会减少交通，也不会减少她们在日常生活中的压力。此外，这项研究将对旨在促进电子商务和互联网使用的经济政策产生重大影响。如果互联网的使用加强了现有的家庭劳动性别分工，而不是产生更公平的性别关系，可能需要适当的经济政策来折衷减少整个社会性别不平等的目标。

With the rapid growth in the amount of information resources and transaction opportunities on the Internet, Internet use is becoming an important dimension of social inequality. Among those who will be significantly affected by this social and technological trend, the situation of women calls for special attention because new technologies may not necessarily lead to significant beneficial changes in their everyday lives as suggested by past studies on women's urban experiences and interaction with new technologies. This research analyzes the impact of Internet use on women's activity patterns and the gender division of household labor. It attempts to answer the following questions: (a) Is Internet use helping to relax some of women's space-time constraints, thus allowing more flexible spatial and temporal arrangement of activities in the physical world and helping women to cope with the demand of their multiple roles? (b) How do women's Internet activities affect their activities in the physical world? (c) How does the Internet use of the female and male heads of household affect the gender division of household labor? To answer these questions, data from a sample of women in Columbus, Ohio, will be collected through an activity-Internet diary survey. Hypotheses will be tested through comparing the experiences of women with different levels of Internet use using structural equation models. Geographic information System-based three-dimensional visualization will also be used to analyze the space-time activity-Internet diary data. The study will enhance our understanding of the impact of Internet use on women's activity patterns and the gender division of household labor. The results will be useful for formulating social and economic policies in several important areas. For example, sustainable transportation policies aiming at reducing the amount of travel through telecommuting need to be informed by such understanding. If women's many needs to travel cannot be substituted by working at home using the Internet (e.g. chauffeuring children), encouraging women's telecommuting will neither reduce traffic nor their stress in everyday life. Further, this research will have significant implications for economic policies aiming at promoting electronic commerce and the use of the Internet. If the use of the Internet reinforces the existing gender division of household labor rather than engenders more equitable gender relations, appropriate economic policies may be needed to compromise the goal of reducing gender inequality in society at large.