Volume 50 - Article 19 | Pages 503–514  

Housework time and task segregation: Revisiting gender inequality among parents in 15 European countries

By Joan Garcia-Roman, Ariane Ophir

Abstract

Background: Although most countries show a general convergence in men’s and women’s investment in domestic labor, women continue doing more housework, especially among couples with children. However, cross-national descriptive estimates have focused exclusively on routine tasks, thus overlooking potential change in gender inequality in non-routine tasks, as well as the total housework investment, which varies significantly across countries.

Objective: Our aims are twofold: (1) to provide the most recent estimates of housework investments from time-use diaries across all tasks, (2) to describe the relationships between total housework investment, gender inequality, and gender task segregation.

Methods: Using the Harmonized European Time Use Survey (HETUS), we focus on different-sex couples living with children under the age of 18 across 15 European countries (n = 74,630). We measure housework across six primary tasks: cooking, cleaning, laundry, maintenance, gardening and pet care, and household administration.

Results: Mothers continue doing more housework than fathers across all 15 countries. The gender gap in housework is higher in countries with higher levels of total housework investment. However, we also find descriptive evidence that non-routine ‘male-typed’ tasks might be becoming gender-neutral.

Conclusions: Housework scholars should re-visit the typology of task segregation and focus on a comparative investigation of the meaning and standards of housework and their relationship with gender inequality.

Contribution: This note draws attention to the role of the total housework investment in driving cross-national variation in gender inequality, and the importance of a comparative perspective within gender for understanding task segregation.

Author’s Affiliation

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Gender differences in routine housework among one-person households: A cross-national analysis
Volume 52 - Article 12

Educational selectivity of native and foreign-born internal migrants in Europe
Volume 47 - Article 34

Demographic change and increasing late singlehood in East Asia, 2010–2050
Volume 43 - Article 46

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Demographic convergence in marriage timing: Intersecting gender and educational expansion
Volume 52 - Article 14    | Keywords: age at marriage, convergence, cross-country, education, gender, union formation

Job creation, job destruction, and fertility in Germany
Volume 52 - Article 13    | Keywords: fertility, gender, Germany, job creation, job destruction, labor market, spatial modelling, unemployment

Gender differences in routine housework among one-person households: A cross-national analysis
Volume 52 - Article 12    | Keywords: cross-national research, gender, housework, unipersonal households

Is single parenthood increasingly an experience of less-educated mothers? A European comparison over five decades
Volume 51 - Article 34    | Keywords: age, children, cross-national comparison, education, Europe, family life course, inequality, single motherhood

The transition to adulthood in Europe at the intersection of gender and parental socioeconomic status
Volume 51 - Article 23    | Keywords: Europe, Europe, event history, event history, gender, multilevel analysis, parental socio-economic status, stratification, transition to adulthood