Who's Still Doing the HOUSEWORK? New research suggests that young people are holding on to traditional ideas about who does what at home. Will the pandemic change that?

• Author: Miller, Claire Cain
• Position: NATIONAL

For most of American history, gender roles were rigidly defined: Men went to work while women stayed home to cook, clean, and care for the children.

Stereotypes about gender have been changing in recent decades, however. There's now almost universal support for women to pursue careers or political office, and women today tend to get more education than men.

But in one area, change has been minimal: Even young people, who tend to support gender equality in many facets of life, are holding on to traditional views about who does certain chores. A recent survey from Gallup found that among opposite-sex couples, those ages 18 to 34 were no more likely than older couples to divide most household work equitably. And a sociology study published this year found that when high school seniors were asked about their ideal family arrangement with young children, almost a quarter said it was for the man to work full time and the woman to stay home, a larger share than desired any other arrangement, including having both parents work. A majority said a father staying home was unacceptable.

Experts say these results show just how long it can take for societal expectations to truly shift.

"If young people can't even envision a model of what men's time at home might look like, that's evidence that our beliefs about gender are really strong and sticky," says Joanna Pepin, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the authors of the high school study. "That's yet another thing that's getting in the way of social change."

A Significant Gap

Surveys over several decades show that women now do a little less housework and child care, and men do a little more. But a significant gap remains: Women still spend about an hour more a day than men on child care and an hour more on housework, particularly daily indoor chores such as cooking or cleaning. Men, meanwhile, are more likely to do occasional outdoor chores, such as yard work (see graph, facing page).

The disparity affects other aspects of women's equality: The extra time women spend on domestic labor is a leading cause of the gender gaps in pay and promotions at work, economists say. For every dollar a man earns, women make about 81 cents, according to a 2020 PayScale report. Men also hold about 62 percent of manager-level positions.

Researchers have different ideas about why the division of labor has been so slow to change, despite women's other gains. One of the simplest explanations: Men...