Socioeconomic Status and Housework: Cultural Differences in Participation in Routine Housework in Japan, Canada, and the US

Abstract

The assumption about social class and participation in housework are based on the empirical results in Western countries. As such SES is assumed to work in the similar way in other regions. This can often lead to wrong interpretations in other cultural areas. One such exception is Japan. I analyze time-use diaries from the American Time Use Survey for the period from 2003 to 2016, 1986-2010 Canadian General Social Survey, and the 2006 Japan Basic Survey on Social Life (社会生活基本調査). Using the negative binomial regression, I test whether socioeconomic status is associated with less time spent on housework as the outsourcing hypothesis predicts. I find that this hypothesis stands only for Canadian and American women in wealthier households, whereas married Japanese women are unlikely to reduce the participation in housework with the increase of their socioeconomic status.

Keywords: gender and housework, marital status gap, routine housework