Sarah Green Carmichael, Columnist

It’s Time for Women to Quit Housework (Again)

Men are doing more household labor than they used to, but ingrained attitudes make it hard to narrow the gender gap.

September 5, 2023 at 1:30 PM UTC

Sarah Green Carmichael is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and editor. Previously, she was an executive editor at Harvard Business Review.

Women are socialized to find housework gratifying.
Source: Getty Images

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In the US, the average woman spends so much more time on chores than the average man that to equalize the load, women would have to quit the housework entirely on Sept. 5 for the remainder of the year. And that represents progress: The gender gap in chores narrowed a bit from last year, when women would have had to quit on Aug. 29, a day I dubbed “Equal Housework Day.”

Since 2012, men have added about 12 minutes a day of household labor, extending a gradual long-term rise. To my surprise, women haven’t dialed back, but have added about 5 minutes each day. If men are doing more, why aren’t women doing less?