Abstract
We compare the association between educational attainment and housework participation among single and married women in Japan and the US. Using the cross-sectional time-use diaries from the 2006 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) and the 2006 Japanese Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities (STULA) and unconditional quantile regressions (UQR), we test whether educational attainment is associated with less time spent on housework in Japan compared to the US. We find that this assumption stands only for American women and non-married Japanese women. However, married Japanese women are unlikely to reduce participation in housework with an increase in their educational level. Married Japanese women are more likely to do more housework proportionately to the level of their education. The findings reveal the presence of a marriage penalty among highly educated Japanese women. In Japan, the institute of marriage places higher expectations regarding women’s housework participation on married women with higher levels of education, thereby penalising Japanese women with higher educational attainments. Our findings illustrate that the tenets of the resource-based and gender-centred frameworks developed based on the empirical findings in Western countries cannot always directly apply to the patterns observed in East Asia.
Highlights
Global societies are moving towards an equal division of labour (Altintas and Sullivan 2017; Kan et al 2011; Marshall 2011; Sullivan et al 2018) but the gains for women have been relatively slow (Treas and Lui 2013)
The overall trends demonstrate that women with higher levels of educational attainment engage in housework less than women who have lower levels of education (Altintas and Sullivan 2017; Álvarez and Miles 2003; Chesters 2011; Evertsson and Nermo 2007; Fuwa and Cohen 2007; Gupta 2007; Ruppanner 2010), partially because they have better skills to negotiate housework responsibilities and mature in more egalitarian educational environments, with the normalised expectations of an equal division of housework labour at home (Altintas and Sullivan 2017)
Time Use Survey (ATUS) and the Japanese Survey of Time Use and Leisure Activities (STULA) to test whether educational level produces differences in the allocation of time to housework at different levels of housework participation among non-married and married Japanese women in the same way as it does in the US
Summary
Global societies are moving towards an equal division of labour (Altintas and Sullivan 2017; Kan et al 2011; Marshall 2011; Sullivan et al 2018) but the gains for women have been relatively slow (Treas and Lui 2013). The present paper discusses the association of education with housework participation at different life-course stages, mainly focusing on marriage and parenthood. These stages are the major milestones of adult life and affect how much educational attainment ameliorates the necessity to do housework. We reconcile the three directions identified in the previous research by (1) examining cross-national variations, (2) differentiating by level of housework participation, and (3) analysing the association between education and housework participation on different life-course transitions. Time Use Survey (ATUS) and the Japanese Survey of Time Use and Leisure Activities (STULA) to test whether educational level produces differences in the allocation of time to housework at different levels of housework participation among non-married and married Japanese women in the same way as it does in the US
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