Is your housework split sexist?

Summary

More or Less: Behind the Stats

Episode: Is Your Housework Split Sexist?

Host: Tim Harford (BBC Radio 4)
Guest: Corinne Lo, Associate Professor at Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Date: October 25, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode investigates whether the division of housework between men and women is influenced primarily by economics or entrenched gender roles, even in homes where women out-earn their male partners. Tim Harford interviews Corinne Lo about her research on household labor, explicitly drawing on survey data from the US, UK, and Australia and exploring the persistent imbalance of unpaid housework in couples—especially when women are the primary breadwinners.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Gender Revolution in Work and Housework

• Women's Changing Roles:
  • Since the 1960s, women have steadily increased their paid market work. Their hours spent on housework decreased initially, thanks to technological advances, but have since plateaued.
  • Men, however, have shown little change in either paid work or housework since the mid-1970s.
  • Quote:
    • “Women have undergone a gender revolution, but men haven’t…what we see for men is that their time is just completely flat.”
      — Corinne Lo (02:29)

2. Specialization and Efficiency in the Household

• Economic Theory of Specialization:
  • Traditionally, economics suggests that efficiency in a household often involves specialization, where one partner focuses on paid work while the other takes on more home tasks.
  • This could justify some imbalance in housework if aligned with earning power.
  • Quote:
    • “There can be these kind of big returns, what we call convex returns, where it kind of skyrockets if you put a little bit more effort into your labor in the workforce.”
      — Corinne Lo (03:51)

3. The Persistent Gendered Imbalance—Even When Women Earn More

• Surprising Findings:
  • Even when the woman is the main or sole breadwinner, she continues to undertake much more of the housework—almost double in cooking and cleaning—than her lower-earning male partner.
  • In contrasts, in same-sex couples, the breadwinner generally does less housework, regardless of gender.
  • Quote:
    • “When it is a heterosexual couple with a female breadwinner, that's the only time the breadwinner does more of the housework.”
      — Corinne Lo (05:56)

4. Testing the Theories: Divorce and Economic Incentives

• Results After Separation:

  • After divorce, women's housework decreases while men's increases—suggesting that men are fully capable of housework but weren't contributing before.
  • Quote:
    • “When they're divorced, the woman's time doing housework goes down and the man's...goes up. ...suddenly when they get divorced, he finds the broom, he learns how to boil water, right?”
      — Corinne Lo (06:32)

• Wage Ratios and Housework:

  • Even when wives earn much more than their husbands (e.g., she’s a nurse, he’s a driver), men’s share of housework does not increase.

  • Quote:

    • “Men's time just doesn't budge across those ratios.”
      — Corinne Lo (07:24)

  • Men’s jobs being less flexible is often given as an excuse, but data from industries with flexible, hourly wage jobs still shows women outpacing men in housework, even when women’s earnings dwarf men’s.

  • Quote:

    • “She still works fewer hours than him. ...they would literally have more money in their household budget ...But something’s holding them back. ...something is gender roles.”
      — Corinne Lo (08:10 & 08:57)

5. Global Patterns and Cultural Universality

• Not Only an American Phenomenon:
  • Similar patterns found in the UK and Australia; housework inequality is common worldwide.
  • As women’s economic power grows globally, the issue of “housework inequality” is becoming more prominent.
  • Quote:
    • “This housework inequality was very common in a lot of other countries. And it becomes more of an issue...as women's earning power grows.”
      — Corinne Lo (09:26)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Economic Theory vs. Reality:
  “If women were just doing more home production because they did less market work...that would be fine...But what I find...is that when the woman is actually the breadwinner, she still does more home production.”
  — Corinne Lo (04:40)

• On Divorce Unveiling Capabilities:
  “When they're divorced...suddenly when they get divorced, he finds the broom, he learns how to boil the water, right?”
  — Corinne Lo (06:32)

• On Gender Roles Entrenching Inequality:
  “We were left with no choice but to conclude that something is...gender roles.”
  — Corinne Lo (08:57)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:08] – Introduction by Tim Harford
• [02:29] – Corinne Lo on time-use data and the "partial gender revolution"
• [03:51] – Specialization theory and its limitations in practice
• [04:40] – Examination of breadwinner status vs. housework burden
• [06:32] – Divorce as a test for economic rationality in housework division
• [07:24] – Wage ratios and stubborn patterns in men's housework contributions
• [08:57] – Concluding observation: Gender roles as the underlying mechanism
• [09:12] – Global findings and cross-country replication of results

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Conclusion

The episode robustly challenges economic and cultural assumptions about how and why housework is divided. Across the US, UK, and Australia, the “female breadwinner” paradox persists: heterosexual women who earn more than their partners still do the bulk of unpaid home labor. Corinne Lo’s research strongly suggests that economic rationality alone can’t explain these patterns; deeply ingrained gender roles continue to dictate the division of domestic labor in ways that resist market logic.

The discussion is candid, data-driven, and relevant, revealing not only how far gender equality has come—but also the stubborn persistence of sexist patterns at home, regardless of who brings home the paycheck.

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For further reading, Corinne Lo’s book is titled Feminomics (UK) / Having It All (US).

Transcript

[Tim Harford]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

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[Podcast Host (More or Less)]

Hello and thanks for downloading the More or Less podcast with a programme that looks at the numbers in the news and in life and in your marriage. I'm Tim Harford. Do you ever have fights with your partner about who does more of the housework and whether it's fair?

[Corinne Lo]

Whether?

[Podcast Host (More or Less)]

Well, data might have the answer. Corinne Lo is an associate professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She analyses surveys of how people spend their time, particularly in terms of home production, that is things such as cooking and cleaning and market work, that is paid work. If you're the male half of a heterosexual couple, I'm afraid it's bad news. Or, depending on your point of view, maybe good news, but good news that you need to make sure your partner doesn't hear. We sat down to talk it all over while Corinne was in the UK to promote her new book on the subject titled Feminomics in the UK and having it all in the us.

[Tim Harford]

So, Corinne, welcome to More or Less. You've been looking at, among other things, how time is spent differently by men and women in the home. So looking at the U.S. give us the statistical story there.

[Corinne Lo]

Yeah, it is fascinating because what I see in the time use data is that women have undergone a gender revolution, but men haven't. So I see women's time in market work start to, you know, skyrocket beginning in the 1960s and you see their time on housework and going down because we get those time saving technologies, you know, the dishwasher and the microwave and that kind of plateaus, that kind of levels out. We're at the limit of what machines can do for us at home. There's still now these tasks that kind of require us operating those machines. And what we see for men is that their time is just completely flat. So market work stays the same, 40, 45 hours a week. Time doing housework stays the same. It hasn't budged since the mid-1970s. It just stays flat. And so I think we have this very partial gender revolution which is leaving us in an awkward spot.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, so you're describing women doing more paid work and because of time saving technology, less unpaid work in the home, men's habits haven't changed at all much. So if women are doing less work, unpaid work, does that then mean that the, the amount of unpaid work between the sexes is, is the same now?

[Corinne Lo]

No, not at all. So women are still doing massively more unpaid work. And from an economics perspective, that could be okay because we believe in something called specialization in the household, which is often when you form a household, it's more efficient. Let's say you have a law career and maybe you met at law school. So two people have a law career. Well, it might efficient to have. And you know, Talking about the US here having one person work 80 hours a week and make partner, than Both people work 40 hours a week and both miss that bar. Right. There can be these kind of big returns, what we call convex returns, where it kind of skyrockets if you put a little bit more effort in to your labor in the workforce.

[Tim Harford]

And so this is the idea going back to Gary Becker.

[Corinne Lo]

Exactly.

[Tim Harford]

Nobel Prize winner in economics.

[Corinne Lo]

Exactly. So we.

[Podcast Host (More or Less)]

So you're.

[Tim Harford]

So you're better off if you specialize.

[Corinne Lo]

So we might be. And so you might think that that's totally fine. Okay. But here's the catch. We don't see it in the reverse. So if women were just doing more home production because they did less market work on average than men, or earned less for their market work, that would be fine, just efficient specialization. But what I find in my paper that I call winning the bread and baking it too, is that when the woman is actually the breadwinner, she still does more home production. And I thought that must be driven by childcare. And I was going off of this was a little bit of me search. I was going off of my own experience here and being like, well, maybe this is because, you know, she's the default Parent and the kid wants mom and whatever. So I excluded childcare. And when I did, I found that women do twice as much cooking and cleaning as their lower earning male partner. When she's the breadwinner, she still does almost twice as much cooking and cleaning. In a lot of couples now, two people work, but one is the breadwinner, one earns more, right? And in more most couple types, when I see a heterosexual couple with a male breadwinner, that breadwinner does less of the housework. When I see a lesbian couple, whoever the breadwinner is, does less of the housework. And then when I see two men together, you know, gay men, whoever's the breadwinner does less of the housework, right? But when it is a heterosexual couple with a female breadwinner, that's the only time the breadwinner does more of the housework.

[Podcast Host (More or Less)]

Now, Corinne didn't want to jump to conclusions. Perhaps there was something else going on with couples where the women earned more, which led to these outcomes. One theory would be that men are so utterly terrible at household tasks and women so efficient that it makes economic sense for, well, for her to do the work. Corinne tested that theory using couples who've separated.

[Corinne Lo]

When they're divorced, the woman's time doing housework goes down and the man's time doing housework goes up. And if we take the sort of implied time cost of producing that housework, so we take the time they spend multiplied by their wage, that implied time cost goes down in divorce because it's actually she was doing too much relative to her wages, he was doing too little. And then suddenly when they get divorced, he finds the broom, he learns how to boil the water, Right.

[Podcast Host (More or Less)]

Corinne had a second test for whether the decision making is economically rational. And that's to look at what happens to housework when the earnings are divided differently. You might think that in couples where the wife earns a lot more than the husband, the wages here are probably a reasonable proxy for the demands of the job. Well, the husband would do more housework.

[Corinne Lo]

So what we did is we lined everybody up by the earnings ratio in the household, and we said, let's look at the couples where, you know, the husband earns 80% of the income, and then all the way to the couples where the husband only earns 20% of the income. And what we found is that men's time just doesn't budge across those ratios.

[Tim Harford]

No response to, to the economic incentives.

[Corinne Lo]

There's no response to what should be the implied cost of having so much on her plate, which is her wage. And in the data, I see these couples, because then the next thing people say is, well, men's jobs are inflexible. They can't take the time to kind of, you know, adjust their work hours and do more housework. So I look at couples where they both work for a wage. And in the us, the modal couple being the.

[Tim Harford]

This is the most common arrangement is.

[Corinne Lo]

Is that she's a nurse and he's in transportation, truck driving or Uber driver. Right. That's just like an example of these couples where they're both hourly paid. And in those couples, even when her wage is more than twice as much as his wage. Right. She's still doing a massive amount more housework. And then here's the kicker. She still works fewer hours than him. He works more hours in the market. So this couple, if he would pick the kids up from daycare so that she could pick up a shift as a nurse, they would literally have more money in their household budget because her wage is more than twice his wage. But something's holding them back. And we were left with no choice but to conclude that something is. Gender roles.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, that is the situation in the us Then you've gone into great detail about the American situation. Is there anything we can say more globally about how heterosexual couples divide their time?

[Corinne Lo]

Yeah, so we replicated this because we were like, is this American? Gender roles? Right. So we replicated this in the UK and in Australia as well, and we had the same findings there about the female breadwinners still doing more of the housework.

[Podcast Host (More or Less)]

So.

[Corinne Lo]

So we don't think that this is just an American phenomenon. We also, just looking at sort of the global data, we saw that this housework inequality was very common in a lot of other countries. And it becomes more of an issue, as I said, as women's earning power grows, which it is globally.

[Podcast Host (More or Less)]

Thanks to Corinne Lo, author of Feminomics, if you're in the UK or having it all if you're in the us. And that's it for this week. If you've seen a number you think we should take a look at, email us at more or lessbc.co.uk. we will be back next week. Until then, goodbye.

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