Housework burden a game of two halves – until baby is born

PROFESSIONAL women who have always split the housework equally with their partner may be in for a big surprise after they have their first child, according to a study of new parents.

It found that, although both partners believed their workload had increased dramatically when the baby arrived, it was the woman who tended to be left with the lion’s share.

Detailed time diaries showed that while the man’s workload increased by an average 40 minutes, his wife’s jumped by two hours. The reasons for the difference in responsibility are complex but could be due to what is known as ‘gatekeeping’, where mothers essentially control how much fathers are involved in childcare and what they can do.

‘Women ended up shouldering a lot more of the work that comes with a new baby, even though men and women thought they added the same amount of additional work,’ said researcher Professor Claire Kamp Dush of Ohio State University.

The study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, followed 182 couples who had previously divided the housework equally, and who both continued working after the baby was born.

The woman’s increased workload in the home was not due to her spending less time at work than her partner, the researchers said.

‘The woman is doing more of the housework and more of the childcare, while not doing any less paid work,’ said Professor Kamp Dush.

‘The egalitarian relationship they had before the baby was born is essentially gone.’

The academic warned that ‘gatekeeping’ was not necessarily a route to happy family life. ‘Women shouldn’t try to manage their partner’s parenting,’ she said. ‘But men also need to take the initiative and learn childcare duties that their own socialisation may have neglected.

Professor Kamp Dush added: ‘These are the couples you would expect to have the most egalitarian relationships. They have the education, the financial resources and the other factors that researchers have believed would lead to equal sharing of responsibilities. But that’s not what we found.’

Couples were studied during the final three months of the pregnancy, and again when the baby was nine months old.

Before the baby was born, the couples shared duties equally, with both reporting that they did an average 15 hours of housework per week.

But while men did get involved in childcare once the baby was born, they also reduced the amount of housework they did by an average of five hours per week.