Men make a meal of household equality

I wonder who cooked and washed up your Christmas dinner? Chances are it was women. Scores of studies reveal women are still doing the lioness’s share of the work at home. (Lions never did do much work.)

Today, though they begin sentences with “I’m no feminist but …”, women jealously guard what gender equality they have won (and hang on to an advantage or two).

Confident that gender roles were “social constructs” many expected a revolution in the household division of labour as women poured into the paid workforce. But as one disappointed feminist put it, we’ve got a “stalled revolution” on our hands.

Here’s a snapshot. In the mid 1990s women in Australian couples spent nearly 12 hours a week preparing food - their men just three. They spent 14 hours washing clothes and cleaning the house - to their men’s 2½ hours. Childcare involved a similar division of labour.

There are two mitigating factors. First, blokes do more of the “traditional” men’s tasks. They spend slightly more time on family finances and putting out the garbage (though neither takes long). They garden and mow. And do three of the four hours per week spent on improving the house (or resisting its fall into ruin).

Second, as women take on more paid work they do cut back a little around the house. Even so, women still do lots more housework and childcare.

Recently women have scaled back on meal preparation by outsourcing it to the market. Home delivered pizza or Chinese anyone? Pasta sauce or chilled soup from the supermarket? In case you’re wondering, after outsourcing the cooking, couples are outsourcing Dad’s gardening more than Mum’s house cleaning.

Why is there such a disparity? And does it matter?

One view is that it’s all a purely economic transaction. With men earning at higher rates the “opportunity cost” of their time is higher. And specialisation in the division of labour usually improves efficiency.

You’ll be unsurprised to hear that feminists see things differently. They see stereotyped gender roles which have come under vigorous challenge in public life still thriving in the privacy of our homes.

They argue that women’s disproportionate household contribution arises from a power imbalance in favour of men. With women receiving lower pay and couples still paying more attention to the man’s career trajectory, the patriarchy gets its gender expectations met and perpetuates its dominance.

The fact that women’s share of household labour does fall as their relative earnings in the household rises supports both explanations. But the effect is quite small. Women with the same hours and earnings as their men still do most housework. These patterns are similar in all rich Western countries.

New research suggests that men’s contribution rises most if both partners work part-time. But once women’s share of earnings rises above their men’s, men seem to “strike” to defend their (threatened?) masculinity. They actually withdraw from housework.

Even if the couple shares a feminist “gender ideology” of equal housework, guess what? Even that narrows the gender housework gap very little.

What’s going on?

Oddly existing research virtually ignores emerging neuro-psychological research that’s showing just how much differing gender behaviour might reflect different cognitive and neurological development between the sexes.

Boys and girls start with hard-wired cognitive biases. Habits then form from repeated individual choices. And no one would deny that those choices themselves occur within a culture which thinks differently about men and women.

Given that, it’s not so surprising that the sexes often have strong (somewhat) complementary preferences. On becoming parents most women are willing primary providers of primary care - and milk. That gives them enduring skill advantages. So too men often become the handymen without complaint.

There’s usually housework that neither partner fancies. Often men can “hold out” longer while that question of who’ll tidy the lounge just hangs in the air. But though most prefer tidiness, caring relatively less about untidiness is a preference too.

Of course those preferences reflect (among other things) social expectations. But the important question is how well gender roles suit men and women - whether they’re experienced as oppressive or as something which enhances and deepens valuable lived experience.

And it doesn’t seem that women experience the gender housework gap as oppressively imposed by outside expectations. When asked, only one in seven Australian women say they’re unsatisfied. A paltry three per cent are very unsatisfied, though nearly a third think their men could do more.

Meanwhile back in the academy, feminists speak of women’s relative satisfaction in the same way that Marxists used to bemoan the “false consciousness” of proletarians who weren’t revolutionaries.

No doubt there are horror stories among dissatisfied women. And some of us men should probably do more at home. But it doesn’t look like a huge problem.

But I would say that wouldn’t I?

Anyway I’ve got to go - dinner’s ready.