Does More Egalitarian Ideology Foster More Egalitarian Household Work Division? Marriage,Work,and Family Life in Japan

Abstract

Recent research shows that gender ideology may not be stable among individuals over time. However, there is little evidence on the changes in gender and family attitudes in non-Western contexts. Using data from 11 waves (2011–2021) of the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers (JPSC), we construct fixed-effects models that reveal how women’s gender attitudes, together with life events such as parenthood and women’s employment, shape unpaid work distribution in Japanese couples. Overall, our results show that shifts in wives’ gender ideology do not consistently lead to increased husband participation in domestic labor. However, this relationship becomes more nuanced when we distinguish between weekdays and weekends. On weekdays, when work demands are highest, more egalitarian shifts in the wife’s attitudes are associated with increased domestic involvement from husbands. Yet, the transition to parenthood significantly decreases men’s participation during weekdays, suggesting that women continue to carry the bulk of weekday childcare responsibilities.