Men’s increasing proportion of care tasks at home was first seen in time use studies in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in Northern and Central European countries. In that period,
men’s larger share was mainly related to women spending less time at home, associated with their larger professional participation. Thus the increasing employment rate of women in Europe has slightly reduced their unpaid work. (See figure 4.1; annex 4.1)
There is a connection between women’s work and men’s share of domestic work and paren-tal tasks. Part-time work ‘chosen’ for family reasons is still largely more a women’s than men’s reality, associated with women’s greater involvement in domestic and family tasks (e.g., in France 34% of women chose part-time work for family reasons, against 6% of men;
see Bué 2002; see also Champagne-Morozon, 2012). According to a representative survey in Norway, in households where men share the domestic work, women work 14% more hours in paid work, compared to households with little sharing.84 Across Europe there is a clear tendency that men’s contribution to domestic work comes along with a larger women’s contribution to paid work. Men’s provider role and their share of the household income (among married and cohabitating couples) are strong predictors of a low level of male involvement in domestic work and care tasks, increasing the burden of women.
Men’s increasing share of care and domestic tasks generally strengthens women’s career opportunities and labour market potential, but this depends also on the man’s role in a wider sense which includes his views and norms regarding gender and gender equality and his willingness to balance jobs or careers in the relationship. Even if patriarchal authority is main-ly weakened in most of today’s Europe, power differences remain. Economic factors (such as gender pay gap, etc) may also prolong men’s breadwinner position, even among couples with gender equal ideals.
Today, men in Europe rate the benefit of domestic work quite differently. This is indicated by their highly varying share of care, and is further highlighted by the country reports of the current project. Men’s reduced work time and extended use of time at home results from a number of factors, some of them not especially being gender equal, like unemployment – so we should not expect automatic gender equal effects at homes as a result of men taking a larger share of domestic work.
Likewise, it is not the case that a woman’s full employment ‘guarantees’ her man’s partici-pation at home. However, employment remains important as one of the key factors for gen-der equality. Women’s march towards full employment is a clear trend both in Europe and elsewhere, increasing the need for other work input in the household. This can come from other family members, paid help – or from men.
From 2005 to 2010, men’s proportion of unpaid work at home has continued to grow (see figure 4.1). In 2010, men’s share of weekly unpaid working time varies from 15.5% in Greece to more than double this figure, reaching 40.3% in Sweden and 40.2% in Denmark.
84 Calculated by Holter for this report, based on Holter, Svare & Egeland (2009).
Figure 4.1 Men’s share in weekly unpaid working time, by country, in %, 2005 and 2010
Source: EWCS 2005 and EWCS 2010; EWCS 2005: combination of different variables: ef4.1c, ef4.1d; explanations:
average weekly unpaid working time: unpaid work is calculated for 7 days a week and includes hours of caring for and educating own children (included are persons with children aged less than 18 living in the same household) as well as hours for household/cooking-tasks; EWCS 2010: combination of different variables: ef3c, ef3d; explanations: average weekly unpaid working time: unpaid work is calculated for 7 days a week and includes hours of caring and educating for own children (included are persons with children aged less than 18 living in the same household) as well as hours for household/cooking-tasks; EWCS includes only persons in employment/self-employment; own calculations.
In some regions, like Northern Europe, gender equality expectations and norms have be-come stronger, and men have bebe-come more involved. With some exceptions, Nordic coun-tries are at the top of the list in figure 4.1.
The graph shows important variations over the five years period. There was a large increase in men’s share in some countries, like Ireland, Spain, Finland, Denmark and Lithuania.
There was some increase in other countries, like Sweden and Portugal. Yet there was a de-crease in a minority group of countries, like Greece, Bulgaria, Malta, Luxembourg, Belgium and, slightly, Poland.85
The variation patterns can be interpreted as partial progress. In contemporary Europe, men’s share of unpaid work (care and domestic work) is two times higher in the countries with the highest values (some Northern European and Post-socialist countries) than in the countries with the lowest values (some Southern and Post-socialist countries). The country reports often describe national and cultural patterns that vary more than the actual domestic work balance figures. The main tendency is that a higher male share of caring (for children,
85 Norway seems to belong to this group, and shows a decline, while the rest of the Nordic countries show a rise, but this may be due to data error. Men’s participation has increased in the 2000-2010 period, according to other research in Norway. Men increased their household task time by 23 minutes from 2000 to 2010, accord-ing to the latest time use survey. (See Vaage, 2012)
elderly) comes along with a higher share of domestic work (cleaning, shopping, pre-paring meals, etc), although there is variation also regarding this point.
Looking specifically at domestic work, we see large variations of men’s participation. Again, variations between countries are considerable. Yet there are also large differences on the household level, according to which kinds of tasks men engage in.
Men’s proportion of the time spent on domestic tasks varies from 50% or more for some for-merly ‘women-only’ tasks to 10% or less for other tasks. (See Aliaga, 2006) This means that, at the task level, some tasks remain very gender-divided or imbalanced, while others have become more balanced.
Cleaning, still very feminine, and repairs, still very masculine, are examples of still signifi-cantly gendered tasks.
Tasks like preparing meals, cooking, and shopping have shifted towards a more gender-balanced direction over the past decades. These are examples of recently de-gendered tasks, which people do according to their preferences and not based on gender norms.
Care for small children remains mainly a feminine task, yet the gender balance in care tasks at home has gradually grown.
In many countries women are responsible for tasks that require most of the time and are less ‘optional’ and may not be delayed (e.g. caring for elderly in Poland). (See Perek-Białas & Stypińska, 2011)
According to household economic theory (see Becker, 1985), the family is more likely to in-vest in the woman’s education and paid work if there are good public childcare systems, good jobs for women, and a general expectation that a working mother will be good for a child and that men should participate in caring for children.