BACKGROUNDGendered trends in housework provide an important insight into changing gender inequality. In particular, they shed light on the debate over the stalling of the 'gender revolution'. Additionally, the gender division of housework is significantly related to couple well-being; disagreements over housework are among the major sources of marital conflict. OBJECTIVEThe objective is to bring the evidence on gendered trends in time spent on core housework up to date, and to investigate cross-national variation in those trends. METHODSUsing 66 time use surveys from 19 countries, we apply a random-intercept, randomslope model to investigate half a century of change in gender differences in housework . RESULTSThere is a general movement in the direction of greater gender equality, but with significant country differences in both the level and the pace of convergence. Specifically, there was a slowing of gender convergence from the late 1980s in those countries where men and women's time in housework was already more equal, with steeper gender convergence continuing in those countries where the gender division of housework was less equal.

Past research shows that time spent in developmental care activities has been increasing in the United States over recent decades, yet little is known about how this increase is distributed across parents with different levels of education. Have children born into different socioeconomic groups been receiving increasingly equal developmental care from their parents, or is the distribution of parental time investment becoming more unequal? To answer this question, the author analyzed the American Heritage Time Use Study (1965–2013) and showed that the gap between high‐ and low‐educated parents' time investment in developmental child care activities has widened. An increasing absence of fathers in households with low‐educated mothers has exacerbated the trend. This study documents growing inequality in parental time inputs in developmentally salient child care activities in the United States.

Comparing a cluster of European countries that have recently experienced very low fertility with other industrialized countries, we hypothesize a connection between fertility behavior and fathers' increasing participation in unpaid work. Using cross-national time use data we find significant evidence of recent increases in the contribution of younger, more highly educated fathers to child care and core domestic work in very lowfertility countries that have recently experienced upturns in fertility. The pace of these increases exceeds that found in the comparison group of other industrialized countries. We interpret these findings as suggestive evidence for a process of cross-national social diffusion of more egalitarian domestic gender relations, in particular among more highly educated fathers, acting to facilitate a turnaround in the pattern of postponed and foregone fertility which has characterized lowest low-and very lowfertility countries.

In this article, the authors explore how data on the use of time might be used to investigate the multilevel connections between family-related policies and fathers' child care time in a cross-national context. The authors present a case study analysis of “fathering strategies” in which empirical findings from time-use data are compared with detailed policy information from Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These analyses show that time-use data can not only shed light on the effects of specific policies in different national contexts but also point to the need to consider the complexity of multiple policies and their adoption in specific national contexts across time. The authors describe the development of a cross-national, cross-time database that combines time-use data with relevant social and family policy information, with the aim of providing a multilevel research tool to those interested in exploring further the relationships between policy and family work.

This article brings up to date welfare regime differences in the time fathers spend on childcare and core housework, using Multinational Time Use Study data (1971-2010) from fifteen countries. Although Nordic fathers continue to set the bar, the results provide some support for the idea of a catch-up in core housework among Southern regime fathers. The results also suggest an increasing polarization in Liberal countries, whereby fathers who were meaningfully involved in family life were increasingly likely to spend more time doing core housework and, particularly, childcare. Fathers living in Corporatist countries have been least responsive to change.