Gender inequality and housework

Abstract

Using data from the Italian Time-Use survey carried out by ISTAT in 2008-2009, the paper analyses the time spent on housework by men and women. The study focuses on a sub-sample of couples, married and in a non-marital unions, with employed women aged 20-49 years. The paper presents the results of a multivariate analysis that aims to evaluate the effects of individual and household characteristics on time spent in domestic chores and on their distribution between men and women. The results of the regression models sustain some of the assumptions underlying the theory of the time availability and relative resources. Education has opposite effects on domestic work, with high educated women doing less and high educated men doing more comparing with those having low education level. More, when women contribute more to the household income compared to their partners, husbands’ time spent on housework increases and that of women decreases, as relative resources perspective predicts. Couples living in southern Italy, as well as those where the woman works part-time, show the wider gender gap in time allocated to domestic chores.