Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the association between education and the time spouses spend on housework and childcare in Japan between 1991 and 2016. Wives spend much more time on domestic work than husbands. Better educated people are leading a slow shift to greater gender equality at home.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates how the association between education and the gender division of labour in housework and childcare has changed in Japan since the 1990s, using quinquennial Japanese national time use surveys from 1991-2016. Wives continue to spend much more time on all types of domestic work than husbands throughout these years, but the link between education and time spent on housework and childcare has changed for both genders. Better education became associated with more time spent on housework for men and less time for women from 2006, and more time spent on childcare by both genders after 2001. The gender gap in housework and childcare contributions in Japan remains consistent with gender specialisation theory. However, over time better educated men and women have led a shift to somewhat more gender-equal housework contributions suggesting that educational attainment may translate into normative shifts in attitudes to domestic roles of husbands and wives. When it comes to childcare mothers and fathers with higher educational qualifications are spending increasingly longer time with their children. Here educated mothers', rather than fathers' contributions to childcare time have risen particularly sharply between 1991 and 2016. Overall the association between education and longer time spent on childcare is consistent with shifts to more intensive parenting practices observed mothers and fathers with tertiary education throughout European and Anglophone societies. The fact that better educated women boost their childcare time more than highly educated men in Japan points to the persistence of social norms that make children virtually exclusively their mothers' responsibility.