{"id":12121,"date":"2025-09-30T17:44:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T17:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/?p=12121"},"modified":"2025-09-30T17:44:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T17:44:45","slug":"housework-gender-expectations-in-american-households","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/2025\/09\/30\/housework-gender-expectations-in-american-households\/","title":{"rendered":"Housework Gender Expectations in American Households"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n Melissa A. Milkie, Liana C. Sayer, Kei Nomaguchi, and Hope Xu Yan, <\/span>“Who\u2019s Doing the Housework and Childcare in America Now? Differential Convergence in Twenty-First-Century Gender Gaps in Home Tasks,” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World<\/em>,<\/a><\/span> 2025<\/span><\/div>\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“Housework<\/a>” by pasukaru76<\/a> is marked with CC0 1.0<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, researchers estimate that women do twice as much housework as men. While the gender gap in unpaid domestic labor shrank substantially over the second half of the 20th century, it stabilized in the mid-1990s, with women still shouldering a larger amount of housework and childcare. So what do these twentieth-century trends mean for the division of domestic labor in the twenty-first century? Who\u2019s doing the housework and childcare in American households today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melissa Milkie<\/a> and colleagues answer these questions using time diary data from the American Time Use Survey<\/a>. This survey captures married men and women\u2019s time spent on daily housework and childcare activities and the researchers focused on changes in the data between 2003 and 2023. Overall, the authors found that while married women still do more housework and childcare than married men, the gender gap has gradually narrowed over the twenty-first century.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>The biggest change in housework was found in men\u2019s increased<\/em> participation and women\u2019s decreased<\/em> participation in traditionally \u201cfeminine\u201d tasks like cooking, cleaning, and laundry. In 2003, married women spent 4.2 times as many hours on these core housework<\/em> tasks as married men, but today that ratio has dropped to 2.5 times \u2013 a 40% decrease.In 2003, married women spent 4.2 times as many hours on these core housework<\/em> tasks as married men, but today that ratio has dropped to 2.5 times \u2013 a 40% decrease.<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated these shifts. In 2020, both men and women increased their housework time. By 2023, women\u2019s average housework time returned to pre-pandemic levels, while men maintained their higher housework involvement. Men\u2019s increased participation in core housework activities like cooking and cleaning since the pandemic marks an important shift in their behavior \u2013 signaling greater gender convergence in traditionally feminine tasks.\u00a0Lastly, the gender gap in childcare also notably shrank slightly between 2003 and 2023. Women average 1.8 hours of childcare per day compared to men\u2019s 1 hour, the smallest gender gap in childcare time recorded in the past 60 years<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors also explored why<\/em> these shifts were happening. Married women\u2019s reduced housework time can be attributed to broader population shifts over the 21st century, primarily increased income and education among women. From 2003 to 2023, married men started doing more housework, likely because ideas about gender roles at home changed and partners began expecting a more equal share of chores. The pandemic period, in particular, signals a crucial moment in the twentieth century for changes in men\u2019s unpaid domestic labor, with married men and fathers increasing and maintaining their hours in domestic labor.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the pace of change has slowed and women still do more, the gender gap in unpaid domestic labor time is shrinking \u2013 primarily driven by married men\u2019s increased time and married women\u2019s decreased time in traditionally feminine housework tasks.\u00a0This study suggests that the gender gap in domestic labor has not stalled, but rather changed in significant ways as gender roles continue to evolve and adapt in twenty-first-century couples.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melissa A. Milkie, Liana C. Sayer, Kei Nomaguchi, and Hope Xu Yan, “Who\u2019s Doing the Housework and Childcare in America Now? Differential Convergence in Twenty-First-Century Gender Gaps in Home Tasks,” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 2025 “Housework” by pasukaru76 is marked with CC0 1.0. Today, researchers estimate that women do twice as much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2217,"featured_media":12122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,13,85],"tags":[140806,140773,140833,140782,140783,140826,30297,140843,138098,140792,122686,140841,17316,140779,140778,140810,139178,27442,140812,140796,139541,140820,140842,139669,140794,140836,140829,140844,138870,140819,140805,138104,2721,140822,140808,140824,140789,140809,140800,138058,140835,22452,33639,2778,105602,140817,140828,140837,140775,140799,140807,140840,140823,140827,255,140787,140793,140777,140801,140825,140804,140780,140774,140830,320,140803,140781,138068,138067,1976,140795,140776,140790,140815,140786,17572,140798,140797,19376,4374,140838,140839,140821,140816,140788,138907,26524,140831,138303,140802,140558,140594,139022,140784,140832,140818,140811,37972,140791,140834,140813,140814,140785,139530],"class_list":["post-12121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gender","category-inequality","category-politics","tag-american-families","tag-american-households","tag-american-marriage","tag-american-time-use-survey","tag-atus","tag-balancing-chores","tag-care-work","tag-changing-marriages","tag-childcare","tag-childcare-time","tag-childrearing","tag-chore-distribution","tag-chores","tag-cleaning","tag-cooking","tag-core-housework","tag-covid-19-pandemic","tag-division-of-labor","tag-domestic-gender-gap","tag-domestic-inequality","tag-domestic-labor","tag-domestic-work","tag-equality-at-home","tag-everyday-life","tag-evolving-expectations","tag-evolving-gender-roles","tag-family-division-of-labor","tag-family-gender-dynamics","tag-family-life","tag-family-responsibilities","tag-family-sociology","tag-fathers","tag-femininity","tag-feminist-sociology","tag-gender-and-family","tag-gender-and-parenting","tag-gender-convergence","tag-gender-differences","tag-gender-equity","tag-gender-expectations","tag-gender-expectations-in-families","tag-gender-gap","tag-gender-norms","tag-gender-roles","tag-gendered-labor","tag-historical-trends","tag-home-life","tag-home-responsibilities","tag-hope-xu-yan","tag-household-dynamics","tag-household-expectations","tag-household-gender-gap","tag-household-studies","tag-household-time-use","tag-housework","tag-housework-inequality","tag-housework-time","tag-kei-nomaguchi","tag-labor-division","tag-labor-inequality","tag-labor-trends","tag-laundry","tag-liana-sayer","tag-long-term-trends","tag-marriage","tag-marriage-studies","tag-married-couples","tag-married-men","tag-married-women","tag-masculinity","tag-masculinity-at-home","tag-melissa-milkie","tag-men-and-chores","tag-mens-participation","tag-mens-work","tag-mothers","tag-pandemic-housework","tag-pandemic-shifts","tag-parenthood","tag-parenting","tag-role-of-fathers","tag-role-of-mothers","tag-routine-chores","tag-shifting-norms","tag-shrinking-gap","tag-social-change","tag-social-norms","tag-sociological-analysis","tag-sociological-research","tag-sociology-of-family","tag-sociology-of-work","tag-sociology-research","tag-socius","tag-time-diary-data","tag-time-use-study","tag-twenty-first-century-families","tag-unpaid-care-work","tag-unpaid-work","tag-women-and-chores","tag-womens-burden","tag-womens-education","tag-womens-income","tag-womens-work-2","tag-work-family-balance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/files\/2025\/09\/7036563037_92d54fa95a_o.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12121"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12126,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12121\/revisions\/12126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}