Education and Gendered Division of Domestic Labor Over Time in Contemporary Japan

Ekaterina Hertog , University of Oxford
Man Yee Kan, University of Oxford

This paper investigates how the association between education and the gender division of labour in housework and childcare has changed in Japan since the 1990s, using quinquennial Japanese national time use surveys from 1996-2016. Wives continue to spend much more time on all types of domestic work than husbands throughout these years, but the link between education and time spent on housework and childcare has changed for both genders. Better education became associated with more time spent on housework for men and less time for women from 2006, and more time spent on childcare by both genders after 2001. The gender gap in housework and childcare contributions in Japan remains consistent with gender specialisation theory. However, over time better-educated men and women have led a shift to somewhat more gender-equal housework contributions and have increasingly adopted an intensive parenting ideology that promotes heavy investment in parenting.

See paper

 Presented in Session 230. Gender and Time Use