Housework: Who Did, Does or Will Do It, and How Much Does It Matter?
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Level 4 by design analogy (repeated cross-sectional time-diary and survey trend analysis, not clinical CEBM).
OpenAlex W2054019280 · doi:10.1093/sf/sos120
What was done
The authors reviewed and updated trends in gender-based domestic labor and childcare among U.S. adults aged 25–64 from 1965 to 2010. The analysis combined nationally representative historical time-diary data (1965–1999) with American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data (2003–2010) and survey reports from the 1987–1988 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). Trends were examined across all adults, married individuals, and married parents.
What was found
Women's housework time declined continuously between 1965 and 2010, with the largest decrease occurring between 1965 and 1985. Men's housework time more than doubled from 1965 to a peak of 11 hours per week in 1998–1999, before declining to 10 hours per week in 2009–2010. By 2009–2010, women performed 1.6 times as much housework as men overall, with wives doing 1.7 times more than husbands and married mothers doing 1.9 times more than married fathers. NSFH direct survey questions yielded housework estimates approximately 50 percent higher than time diaries. For married mothers, weekly direct childcare hours decreased between 1965 and 1975, but increased from 7.3 hours in 1975 to 13.7 hours in 2009–2010.
Why it matters
This paper demonstrates that the historical narrowing of the domestic gender gap was driven primarily by women reducing their housework hours rather than men fully equalizing the load, with convergence largely stalling after the 1990s.
Limits
The abstract does not report sample sizes, confidence intervals, or statistical significance tests. The data rely on repeated cross-sectional surveys rather than longitudinal panels following the same couples over time, and self-reported standard survey questions substantially overestimate time compared to diary methods.
Cited by
- context The share of domestic work (chores and childcare) performed by men has risen every decade for the last 90 years and is at an all-time high.