How Men and Women Spend Their Time
In one of my many failed schemes to introduce a more equitable division of labor into my home, I stuck lined Post-it Notes on the refrigerator. “Please write down the chores you do. At the end of the week, we’ll figure out if anything needs to change.” I recorded my contributions zealously: cooking, dishes, laundry, sweeping, swiping (bathrooms). Although they did a few household tasks—a load of dishes here, a trash run there—my husband and daughters declined to participate. Perhaps they forgot. But I suspect that they didn’t want to recognize who does and who doesn’t benefit from our existing arrangement.
The results of the 2018 American Time Use Survey (ATUS), released last week, succeed where I didn’t in demonstrating the continuing imbalance in American family life—writ large. Over the past calendar year, U.S. Census Bureau staff, acting on behalf of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), called about 9,600 people 15 years old or older and grilled them about all their activities in the 24-hour period
