Gender Disparities in Housework over the Long Run: A Comparative Analysis of France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States

Ariane Pailhé, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Anne Solaz, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Clara Champagne, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)

Individuals’ use of time has dramatically changed across the last decades in most industrialized countries. However, women still perform the bulk of non market work. What change is observable in the patterns of men and women's time spent in housework and childcare over the past 3 decades in France, the Netherlands, the UK and the US? Which factors play in favor or against the gender gap in housework and parenting? Is it changes in family structure, changes in labor force participation, and or social changes and changes of norms? There is a slight decrease of the gender housework time gap over time, mainly due to the decrease of female participation in domestic tasks. Decomposition analysis shows that these trends are due to changes in practices rather than changes in individuals’ characteristics. Among explained factors, the increase of female employment is everywhere the main driver of changes.