Gender Convergence in Domestic Work: Discerning the Effects of Interactional and Institutional Barriers from Large-scale Data

Cross-national trends in paid and unpaid work time over the last 40 years reveal a slow and incomplete convergence of women's and men's work patterns. A simplistic extrapolation would indicate a 70-80 year process of gender convergence, with the year 2010 representing an approximate mid-po...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sociology (Oxford) 2011-04, Vol.45 (2), p.234-251
Main Authors: Kan, Man Yee, Sullivan, Oriel, Gershuny, Jonathan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Child care
Conformity
Constraints
Convergence
Cross-national analysis
Family
Family relations
Females
Gender
Gender differentiation
Gender equality
Gender roles
Housekeeping
Housework
Ideologies
Labor force
Labor markets
Labor time
Males
Men
Occupational segregation
Sex
Sexuality. Marriage. Family relations
Social interaction
Social policy
Sociological analysis
Sociology
Sociology of the family. Age groups
Studies
Time
Unpaid work
Women
Work at home
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Summary:Cross-national trends in paid and unpaid work time over the last 40 years reveal a slow and incomplete convergence of women's and men's work patterns. A simplistic extrapolation would indicate a 70-80 year process of gender convergence, with the year 2010 representing an approximate mid-point. However, in conformity with the expectations of gender theory, time use data show that gender segregation in domestic work is quite persistent over time. Women still do the bulk of routine housework and caring for family members while men have increased their contributions disproportionately to non-routine domestic work, suggesting that gender ideologies and the associated 'doing' of gender in interaction remain important features of the division of domestic labour. The effects of institutional barriers are also apparent, with differential changes in women's proportional contribution to routine housework and caring activities related to different national policy clusters.
ISSN:0038-0385
1469-8684
DOI:10.1177/0038038510394014