Women Still Do Most of the Housework, and Men Are Still Fine With That

The woke young men of today know a woman’s place isn’t in the kitchen, but somehow she keeps ending up there anyway.

While young people are often credited with promoting a more open-minded approach to gender roles, new surveys suggest all that open-mindedness isn’t actually reflected in most households just yet.

According to the New York Times, a new survey from Gallup found that even among 18-34-year-olds, heterosexual couples were no more likely than their older counterparts to divide housework equitably, with women still bearing the brunt of the labor. Meanwhile, a sociology study from last month found that similarly gendered notions of household labor still persist among high school students as well. Asked about their ideal (heterosexual) family arrangement with young children, nearly a quarter of high school seniors surveyed said it was for the man to work full time and the woman to stay home.

While the results did still reveal that women are doing slightly less housework than their generational predecessors and men are doing slightly more, a significant gap remains. The Times reports women spend about an hour more a day than men on housework, as well as an additional hour on child care.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out this additional household burden is affecting women’s success in other areas, particularly at the office. According to the Times, unequal distribution of domestic labor is a major contributing factor to gender gaps in pay and promotion at work.

“If young people can’t even envision a model of what men’s time at home might look like, that’s evidence that our beliefs about gender are really strong and sticky,” Joanna Pepin, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, told the Times. “That’s yet another thing that’s getting in the way of social change.”

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