The Gender Revolution Continues: Housework Time in 25 European Countries, 2002–2022

Caroline Berghammer , Vienna Institute of Demography, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Jorge Balmaseda Hernández, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Across western countries, gender equality has advanced significantly over the past decades. However, some recent contributions have cast doubt on the expectation that countries would eventually move towards a “gender egalitarian equilibrium”, showing that, for some contexts and indicators, progress is moving very slowly or has even stalled. This study contributes to that debate by examining trends in housework time among men and women between 2002 and 2022 across 25 European countries based on data from the International Social Survey Programme. We use OLS regression models and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. Our focus is on how the education gap in housework time has changed over the period. This study’s contribution is as follows. First, we extend existing research by covering the most recent period. Second, by including many countries, we can compare different regions, being characterised by different work-family policies or gender norms. Third, we will be able to show whether the highly educated are still the “vanguards of gender egalitarianism” or whether a diffusion to their less educated peers has taken place. Preliminary results show that the gender gap narrowed at a similar pace in both periods (2002-2012 and 2012-2022). In the more recent decade, the closing of the gender gap was driven almost entirely by a decline in women’s housework time, while men’s contribution remained stable. Notably, this decline was concentrated among women with low/medium (non-University) education. This consistent pattern across all European regions suggests that the gender revolution has not stalled; rather, it diffused to the low/medium educated women.

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 Presented in Session 45. Family, Housework and Time Use