Men’s Employment Hours and Time on Domestic Chores in European Countries

Abstract

Over the past decades, the gender gap in housework has become smaller and scholars have called on changing structural conditions and on the diffusion of egalitarian gender roles to explain why. In particular, women’s presence in the public sphere is found to be associated with a more egalitarian division of chores between partners. However, despite the large presence of women in the public sphere in many countries, the gender gap in housework has not disappeared. This article asks whether the widespread presence of men in the public sphere is slowing the diffusion of more egalitarian practices of housework division. Using multilevel models on European Social Survey data (2010), the article shows that in countries where men work long standard hours, women perform relatively more housework and men relatively less, highlighting the importance of men’s aggregate behavior in explaining partners’ relative time on housework.