LECTURE SERIES: Half a Revolution: Gender Convergence in Paid Work and Housework across Cohorts in Europe and the US

Has the gender revolution stalled? An influential thesis says yes. We test it with time-use data from the US, Germany and six other European countries, using 48 surveys covering adults aged 25-40 born between the 1940s and 1990s. Taking a cohort rather than a period perspective, we examine paid work alongside three kinds of unpaid work: core housework, occasional housework, and childcare. Across cohorts, women sharply increased their paid hours and reduced their core housework, while men’s core housework rose modestly but consistently. This convergence is strikingly similar across welfare states and is not confined to the highly educated. Childcare is the exception: mothers’ time rose even more than fathers’, widening the gap. The second half of the gender revolution is under way, but it remains lopsided.

A lecture by Daniel Oesch.

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