Unpaid Working Time and Disproportionate Female Hazard: an Intersectionality Perspective

How has the distribution of unpaid working time between men and women evolved over the last twenty years? Does unpaid working time still disproportionately affect women, more than fifty years after the massive entry of the female labour force into formal employment? And, if so, which market and non-market factors drive this stratification and could possibly facilitate the transition out of an unequal intrahousehold division of labour? This paper leverages the most complete dataset collecting individual time diaries, the ATUS-CPS 2003-2022, to investigate the role of market variables − such as real wages, household income, industry and occupation − vis-à -vis non-market factors − such as gender, race, household type and state of residence − in explaining variations in unpaid time allocation. By exploiting both the cross-sectional and panel dimensions of the dataset, we provide novel evidence on individual time allocation and its gendered distribution, integrating an intersectional perspective that looks at the role of income classes and socio-material conditions in affecting the likelihood of escaping disproportionate exposure to unpaid work. Our results indicate that, despite clear class-based patterns, belonging to the upper income class is not enough for women to escape disproportionate burdens.