10. L'inégal partage des responsabilités familiales et domestiques est toujours d'actualité

Marta Dominguez Folgueras

Regards croisés sur l'économie, 2014, vol. n° 15, issue 2, 183-196

Abstract: To understand fully the actual state of the sharing of domestic responsibilities, this paper uses the data collected in most European states about the different timetables within a couple. Those data are similar enough from one country to another to enable us to draw accurate comparisons across states and at different periods. The main result is that despite women entering the labour market and technology making huge progress over the past few decades, women are still in charge of most domestic chores. However, statistically significant differences across countries are to be noticed. What is of the utmost importance is not so much the quantity of chores rather than the quality of the chores that are accomplished. Indeed, women are mostly responsible for cleaning the house and cooking for the family, when men garden and potter around. Young and unmarried couples, in which the woman has a higher education degree, are much more likely to share equally domestic responsibilities. This is true as long as they do not have any child. The presence of children in the family makes the sharing much inequitable than average, especially when they are toddlers. The economic theory of the rational sharing of domestic production fails to explain why a majority of women who have a better position on the labour market than their partner continue to abide by the traditional sharing. Gender studies help us understand more fully how primary socialisation leads children to accept to play a gendered part when they grow up, and to therefore reproduce the traditional model that still prevails over Europe.

Date: 2014
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