In heterosexual couples, men do not take on more housework when women earn more, according to a new study from Corrine Low, associate professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
In her analysis, Dr. Low found that men in the United States spend roughly 8 hours every week completing housework, while women spend about 20 hours. Even when women are the higher earner for their household, men still spend a similar amount of time on housework as they would if they were the higher earner. In dual-earning couples, men do about the same amount of housework per week when they earn 20 percent of the household income as they do when they earn 80 percent. This trend has barely changed over time, with men doing roughly the same amount of housework now as they did in the 1980s.
The gender imbalance in housework was found even in couples where both partners have a college education and could afford to pay for help. It also exists in both couples without kids and couples with children above age five, suggesting factors like maternity leave and breastfeeding are not the only drivers of this unequal distribution.
Notably, the total value of time spent on housework falls after divorce; men’s time on housework goes up, while women’s time goes down. Furthermore, men are more likely to take on housework when single or when living with another man. In same-sex couples, the lower earner takes on more housework.
Dr. Low examined this trend further by studying women immigrants in the United States from countries where men do little housework compared to those from countries with more equal housework distribution. Women immigrants who hail from countries with a higher gender imbalance are more likely to stay single or marry outside their ethnic group when they live in cities with high-earning potential. In contrast, the effect of men being low-earning is more muted for women from countries with a lower gender imbalance.
“We need a second gender revolution,” Dr. Low told Knowledge at Wharton. “The first was women entering the workforce and taking on these roles; the second is men stepping up at home and sharing chores equally.”
Dr. Low joined the Penn Wharton faculty in 2014. She recently published her first book, Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours (Flatiron Books, 2025). Dr. Lowe earned her bachelor’s degree in economics and public policy from Duke University and her Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University.