Abstract

Published: 27/07/2026

We examine how communication transparency moderates the division of household-like labor when intimate partners face conflicting financial incentives. In a preregistered laboratory experiment, 99 heterosexual cohabiting couples jointly folded towels under a payment structure in which personal over-contribution reduced individual earnings while raising the likelihood of increased aggregate payout – thereby rewarding free-riding.

Within each couple, one randomly selected partner received an additional individual goal with a contingent bonus, creating motivational asymmetry. Couples were randomly assigned to a transparent condition (goal disclosure permitted) or a non-transparent condition (goal disclosure prohibited). Contrary to our preregistered prediction, women did not assume a larger share of labor. Instead, results revealed a significant Gender × Transparency interaction. In the non-transparent condition, incentivized men contributed substantially more than incentivized women – a pattern we interpret as reflecting men’s selective response to the individual performance goal at the expense of individual financial reward. Women’s lower contribution under the same conditions reflects a financially rational response to the overall payment structure. An alternative decomposition confirmed that the interaction was driven entirely by women: transparency significantly increased incentivized women’s contribution but had no effect on men’s. We propose that transparency introduced domain-specific identity threat for women – for whom domestic performance carries evaluative stakes – while leaving men’s goal-driven contribution unchanged. These findings suggest that gendered domestic labor division reflects the interaction between motivational orientation and informational context rather than static gender preferences.