Intergenerational correlation of domestic work: Does gender matter?

Abstract

Despite the increasing prevalence of dual-earner couples, women still perform the bulk of domestic and parental tasks within the household. In this paper, we investigate the role of the parental model in the persistence of this gender inequality. We study the possible correlation between the domestic time of parents and their young adult co-resident children using the French time-use survey conducted in 1999-2000 in which all family members aged above 14 years old were interviewed. Estimation results show a positive relationship between child and parental housework times. Girls' participation in domestic tasks is much higher than that of boys, but a gendered effect of the intergenerational relationship is not systematically confirmed and depends on the type of domestic tasks.