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Abstract

Given the importance of joint activities in couples’ relationships and the involved gender differences, this article aims to investigate shared activities with the spouse in different aspects of everyday life and their determinants in married men and women in Tehran, the capital of Iran. Through multi-stage cluster sampling, 1,736 samples were selected from 50 districts of Tehran. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a questionnaire instrument. Five dimensions (social contacts, spending time outdoors, spending time indoors, talking with the spouse, and money spending) were extracted from factor analysis. The results indicate that the majority of men and women have joint activities in everyday life. Compared to men, women gain more marital happiness from joint activities, but they reported fewer in some dimensions. The spousal similarity is one of the major determinants of the shared activities with the spouse, both in men and women. Education is among the factors that increase and income difference between the factors that decrease have more effective in women than men. Spousal similarity and gender attitudes have the highest share in explaining shared activities while the share of components related to life cycle is lower. Traditional gender attitudes as a reducing factor have the greatest impact on men. In general, we can say despite the similarities, shared activities with the spouse are not the same for men and women in different aspects. The explanatory power of the model is greater for women than men. It is influenced by various factors, and the impact of these factors is not the same for both sexes.

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