Stall or Convergence in the Gender Revolution? Mothers’ vs. Fathers’ Work Time in the 21st Century

• In Event: Family Section Open Call Paper Session

Abstract

Have mothers’ and fathers’ daily rhythms—paid work, domestic work, and free time—become more similar since the beginning of the 21st century? A stalled revolution perspective argues that mothers’ and fathers’ lives have been at a place of unequal stasis without significant evidence of change toward equality. Alternately, a gender convergence approach argues that parents’ lives have become slowly more similar after the relative flattening of men’s increased contributions. We introduce the differential convergence perspective, that focuses on the quality of change and reveals the “who” and “what” of recent behavioral shifts. Our recent study on unpaid work revealed, using data from the 2003-2023 American Time Use Survey (ATUS), that married fathers’ and mothers’ housework and childcare time converged from the early 2000s to the 2020s, with mothers and fathers both showing changes in certain activities In this study, using additional data from the ATUS (N = 64,349) from 2003-2024, we extend previous findings with a more expansive focus that brings in types of childcare, as well as paid work for a fuller picture of workloads. With a finite aspect of time, we show the importance of also considering “free” time of leisure, personal care, and sleep to show gender convergence in culturally meaningful arenas more holistically. We show the continued slow drop in “core” or feminine housework by mothers, with fathers increased time in “core” or feminine housework. Fathers also continued to increase time in childcare, across all forms of care including the more traditionally-female coded basic care of (young) children, developmental time and child management to further narrow the carework gap with mothers – which COVID-19 a breakpoint likely fueling this. Findings indicate mothers’ time allocated to paid work has moved significantly, with the gendered ratio going from .05:1 to 066:1in the latest era.

Authors

• Melissa Milkie, University of Toronto

• Liana C. Sayer, University of Maryland-College Park

• Kei Nomaguchi, Bowling Green State University

• Fabio Robibaro, University of Toronto