Who’s Really Doing The Work At Home?

When one kid wakes up puking, there’s a thick silence between my husband and me as we strip the bed and wait for the other to utter the words, “I’ll stay home with him.”

On many workdays around 4 p.m., texts fly between us as we jockey for freedom from school pickup. We’re both busy, and yet the subtext is always I am busier. My meeting is more important; I’m the one who’s closer to the edge.

It shouldn’t be a competition, but it feels like one. And I’m not sure whether I’m winning or losing.

The numbers don’t tell the whole story

Data shows that while fathers are spending a lot more time doing housework and childcare, mothers are still doing almost double the amount.

A 2019 U.S. Gallup poll found that although women make up half of the workforce, they still take on a larger share of household responsibilities—especially routine, time-intensive tasks like cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Men tend to do more “occasional” chores like yard work or car maintenance.

A 2020 Pew Research study (conducted during the pandemic) showed that 55 percent of men were satisfied with their household chore split, whereas only 38 percent of women felt the same. When they were asked how chores are divided, 59 percent of women said they do more, and only six percent said their partner does more. Forty-six percent of men believed chores were shared about equally.

So even when men feel things are fair, women often feel exhausted. And they’re not imagining it. According to the 2023 American Time Use Survey, 86 percent of women and 71 percent of men did some kind of household work daily, and while women spent an average of 2.7 hours per day on these tasks, men spent just 2.1 hours. If you do the math, that’s over four hours more per week for women.

Old habits die hard

Research from the University of Alberta (2024) suggests that waiting for things to "even out" over time is a losing strategy. The study, which tracked 520 people from ages 25 to 50, found that the housework gap established at age 25 remained virtually unchanged by middle age.

The data revealed a startling trend during the child-rearing years (specifically ages 32 and 43) where women’s domestic workload increased significantly, and men actually contributed less to chores than normal during this period.

According to lead author Matthew Johnson, "Once these patterns are set early in the relationship, they tend to persist".

The second shift never ends

A study published in the Canadian Review of Sociology in 2022 found that the gender gap in unpaid work has only modestly closed—and that change is “largely attributable to women doing less rather than men doing more.” Women are expected to spend more than three times as much on unpaid care work as men, and they’re over it.

In other words, maybe the family outsources. Maybe things just don’t get done. And yet women are still held responsible for making sure someone does the work.

Even men with progressive values don’t necessarily take on more unless their partners hold them accountable—putting women in charge not only of the chores, but the mental labour of keeping track.

The chore math

The 2024 Families Count report from The Vanier Institute of the Family shows just how persistent the imbalance remains.

Among people working from home:

• Women spent 102.9 minutes/day on unpaid work
• Men spent 62.5 minutes/day

Among those who work in an office:

• Women: 87.3 minutes/day
• Men: 48.5 minutes/day

Women continue to do most meal preparation, laundry, and indoor housework in family homes.

In short, men have not increased their participation in unpaid work, and women have increased their paid work and reduced some unpaid work. But it’s just not enough to close the gap.

So what does “equal” even mean?

Women don’t just want to split the chores—we want to split the responsibility, the vigilance, the pressure. We want to be partners, not project managers. It’s not that we’re keeping score. It’s that we’re tired of being the only ones keeping track.

If we were keeping score (and it shouldn’t be a competition), time and time again, women bear the brunt of work outside the office. Even when they’re not the ones necessarily responsible for those tasks, they’re managing them. Nearly 74 percent of mothers with children under 18 are in the labour force, yet they frequently organize the household, caregiving, and logistical tasks, or the "mental load".

Equal is not only divvying up physical chores but also balancing the unforeseen responsibilities that pop up in a family: caring for a sick kid, keeping up with ever-changing social events and helping with school to-dos. It is only when those expectations are more equally managed that a true shift can happen between moms and dads. And then moms can finally breathe a collective sigh of relief.