Unemployment and the division of housework in Europe

Abstract

Unemployment, especially in insecure times, has devastating effects on families, but it is not clear what happens to domestic work. On the one hand, unemployment frees up time for more housework by both men and women. On the other hand, once unemployed, women may take on more additional housework than men do, either because they capitalize on their time to act out traditional gender roles or because unemployment compounds women’s general disadvantage in household bargaining. Multi-level analyses based on the European Social Survey show that both men and women perform more housework when unemployed. However, the extra domestic work for unemployed women is greater than for unemployed men. They also spend more time on housework when their husband is unemployed. Compared to their employed counterparts, unemployed women, but not men, perform even more housework in a country where the unemployment rate is higher.