Gender Gap in Unpaid Household Work Hurts Women’s Careers
As women work to shatter the glass ceiling in the workplace, new data analysis suggests that their household roles may play a part in inhibiting their careers.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), a think tank that focuses on issues of women’s equality, joined with the relief organization Oxfam to conduct an analysis of how women’s roles in their personal lives impact their professional and overall well-being. Researchers used data from the 2018 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to see if there was a correlation between unpaid housework and economic inequalities between the genders.
They learned that women are not only grappling with inequalities in the workplace, but they are also facing inequalities in their household.
According to the study, women 15 and older spend on average 5.7 hours per day doing household chores and taking care of children and elders. In comparison, men 15 years and older spend on average 3.6 hours per day on such activities.
That translates into women spending 37% more time on household duties than men.
While this gap showed up among all age groups, it was most pronounced among younger women — specifically:
Among those ages 15-24, women spent 54% more time on household duties than men.
Among those ages 25-34, women spent 51% more time on household duties than men.
How unpaid house work affects professional women
The study found that women with full-time jobs experienced less of a gender gap in household responsibilities than women who weren’t working full time. Women who work 35 or more hours per week spend on average 4.9 hours per day on unpaid household duties, while their working male counterparts spend on average 3.8 hours per day.
In other words, women with full-time jobs spend an average of 22% more time on household duties than similarly employed men.
Unpaid time hurts women more, the study found. According to ATUS data, when researchers controlled for age, education, race/ethnicity, marital status, place of birth and family income, they found that each percentage-point increase in time spent by women doing unpaid work correlated with a 0.062% drop in weekly earnings. However, among men they found that unpaid work had no impact on their earnings.
One possible reason for this discrepancy is that women are more likely than men to reduce the amount of time they spend in the paid workforce because of their household duties.
“While men may also face consequences at work if they request time to provide care, more women reduce time in the paid workforce,” researchers wrote. “As a result, many men continue to receive promotions, while women’s upward mobility stalls.”
Women face many barriers in the workforce, including the gender pay gap. However, there are steps women can take to try to achieve workplace equity. Strategies include brushing up on your negotiation skills so you can better secure a higher salary, and finding places where the gender pay gap is shrinking the fastest.
