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The Great Convergence? Gender and Unpaid Work in Europe and the United States

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  • Ariane Pailhé
  • Anne Solaz
  • Maria Stanfors

Abstract

Over the past decades, men’s and women’s time use has changed dramatically suggesting a gender revolution across industrialized nations. Women increased their time in paid work and reduced time in unpaid activities. Men increased their time in unpaid work, but not enough to compensate. Thus, women still perform more unpaid work irrespective of context. We investigate developments regarding men’s and women’s unpaid work across Europe and the United States, using time diary data from the mid-1980s and onwards. We find evidence for gender convergence in unpaid work over time, but different trends for housework and childcare. Gender convergence in housework was primarily a result from women reducing their time, whereas childcare time increased for both genders only supporting convergence in contexts where men changed more than women. Decomposition analyses show that trends in housework and childcare are generally explained by changes in behaviour rather than compositional changes in population characteristics.

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  • Ariane Pailhé & Anne Solaz & Maria Stanfors, 2020. "The Great Convergence? Gender and Unpaid Work in Europe and the United States," Working Papers 2020-1, French Institute for Demographic Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:idg:wpaper:axfvqld_uclqnee2wfos
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    2. Hertog, Ekaterina & Fukuda, Setsuya & Matsukura, Rikiya & Nagase, Nobuko & Lehdonvirta, Vili, 2023. "The future of unpaid work: Estimating the effects of automation on time spent on housework and care work in Japan and the UK," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    3. Myriam Chatot & Julie Landour & Ariane Pailhé & for the EpiCOV team, 2023. "Socioeconomic differences and the gender division of labor during the COVID‐19 lockdown: Insights from France using a mixed method," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1296-1316, July.
    4. Paige N. Park, 2022. "Occupational Attainment in Germany and the United States 2000-2016," LIS Working papers 827, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Paige N. Park, 2022. "Occupational Attainment Among Parents in Germany and the US 2000–2016: The Role of Gender and Immigration Status," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(6), pages 2447-2492, December.
    6. Bhattacharya, Leena, 2023. "Time allocation of daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law in India: The role of education as bargaining power," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1343, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    7. Laure Spake & Susan B. Schaffnit & Rebecca Sear & Mary K. Shenk & Richard Sosis & John H. Shaver, 2021. "Mother’s Partnership Status and Allomothering Networks in the United Kingdom and United States," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-25, May.

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