Review of Population and Social Policy, No. 9, 2000, 195–220

Gender, Employment, and Housework in Japan,
South Korea, and the United States
Noriko O. TSUYA*, Larry L. BUMPASS**, and Minja Kim CHOE***

Abstract
This study examines employment and housework in Japan, South
Korea, and the United States, using data from three sets of recent national
surveys on the family. For all three countries, the study found as follows. First,
family factors such as the presence and age of children and co-residence withor nearness to parents strongly affect wives’ employment status and hours but
have little effect on husbands’ employment patterns. Second, although wives
shoulder a large part of housework, total workload of both spouses becomesalmost equal when housework and employment hours are considered jointly.
However, wives’ total workload increases dramatically as their own
employment hours increases, indicating the “double burden” of unpaid
housework for employed wives. Third, the gender division of labor at home isinfluenced by time availability of each spouse for housework as well as family
situations such as presence of nonadult children and co-residence with parents.
Moreover, in the United States, the gender division of household labor is also
influenced by such socio-demographic factors as education of both spouses
and husbands’ age.

1. Introduction
Economic and domestic activities are the two major spheres of adult lives incontemporary societies. Though conceptually distinct and often studied
independently, these two spheres are interrelated, and changes in one sphereinfluence the other. In pre-industrial societies, family was the single mostimportant social institution on which all members depended for their livelihood.
The transition from agrarian to industrial economies resulted in the separation ofwork and home, along with the increasing division of labor in economic activities,
with men becoming the primary breadwinner and women adopting the role offull-time homemaker (Oakley 1976; Rindfuss, Brewster, and Kavee 1996). The
Prepared for presentation at the 4th Kosei Seisaku Seminar, “20-seiki no Kazoku no Katachi:
Kokusai Hikaku no Shiten-kara,” United Nations University, Tokyo, March 13, 2000. This study
draws heavily on the findings from the ongoing international research project “Work and FamilyLife in Comparative Perspective.” The authors are especially grateful to Ronald R. Rindfuss andKaren Oppenheim Mason for their collaboration and support.
* Faculty of Economics, Keio University, Tokyo.
** Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
*** Population and Health Studies, East-West Center, Honolulu.

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Noriko O. TSUYA, Larry L. BUMPASS, and Minja Kim CHOE

expansion of the market economy, combined with increasing global influencessuch as exposure to mass media, has brought about other profound changes inmany aspects of family life (Caldwell 1976; Freedman 1975; Goode 1963).
As these macro economic-structural changes proceeded, paid employment of
women outside the home increased dramatically after World War II in much of
the industrialized world (Oppenheimer 1994; Rindfuss, Brewster, and Kavee
1996; Shimada and Higuchi 1985). These changes made the combination ofmarket and family roles increasingly more difficult for adult women and men
living in industrialized countries. This was particularly so for women, given thepersistence of cultural expectations regarding the gender division of labor in thehome and hence the expansion of a “double shift” among those employed fulltime (Ferree 1991; Hochschild 1991; Goldscheider and Waite 1991).
The growth of the market economy was also accompanied by changes in views
toward marriage, family, and gender roles. The transition from family-based
production to individual wage earning eroded the once strong sense of obligations
to one’s family, emphasizing instead individual well-being and self-satisfaction(Lesthaeghe 1983). To be sure, societies have different preexisting family values
and systems, and these cultural differences and differing histories have left uniqueimprints on family life, serving as a filter through which influences of the market
economy altered family life. Nonetheless, family systems in societies with
distinctively different familial-cultural backgrounds are being pushed to similar
directions, even while each retains certain aspects of its unique cultural history.
In the context of these transformations, this study compares employment andhousework in Japan, South Korea (hereafter called “Korea” for linguistic simplicity),
and the United States, using data from three sets of recent national surveys on thefamily. These three countries have in common either traditional family value
orientations or the levels of industrial development. Based on the value principles ofpatrilineal familism, Japan and Korea have evolved two of the most patriarchal familysystems and gender roles found in modern history (Lee 1978; Smith 1987; Tsuya andChoe 1991). This is not to say that family culture is identical in Japan and Korea—itclearly is not. Nonetheless, this distinctive cultural tradition in the two East Asian
countries poses a sharp contrast to the cultural heritage of the United States, which isindividualistic and more egalitarian (Lesthaeghe and Wilson 1986; Steinhoff 1994).
On the other hand, viewed from the economic-structural perspective, the UnitedStates and Japan—the world’s largest and second largest economies—share anumber of features of advanced industrial development. By contrast, much of
economic growth in Korea has occurred extremely rapidly over the last two decades.
The relationship between work and family reflects the joint influences of
economic structure and family culture. In this context, we examine and compare
the relationship between employment and housework among married women andGender, Employment, and Housework in Japan, South Korea, and the United States

197

men in their midlife in the three countries. Specifically, we first look at the patterns
and factors of employment among currently married women and men aged
20–59 and their spouses. Because many of the major changes are those in genderroles associated with wives’ employment (Bianchi and Spain 1996; Goldscheider
and Waite 1991), we focus much of our discussion on wives’ employment.
Because labor market activities of married women are related closely tohusbands’ employment patterns and are also affected profoundly by their family
situations, it is necessary to examine the employment of married women in thecontext of couples’ shared labor market roles and family responsibilities.
This study next turns to housework and the gender division of labor at home. Our
approach here is based primarily on the concept of “joint household production” ofcouples and other household members. We therefore compare the division ofhousehold labor among all household members including couples in midlife acrossour three countries. Recognizing that “joint household production” includes bothlabor market and household time allocation, we also examine the “total workload” ofmarried women and men which consists of employment and housework combined.
When we look at the gender division of labor at home, it is true that married womenshoulder a large majority. However, when housework and employment hours arejointly considered, gender inequality in total workload becomes much less in all
three societies than when the focus is solely on household tasks. Although we do
not intend to gloss over large gender inequality in the home, we think it isimportant to examine gender balance in housework by simultaneously taking
into account the worlds of work and home. Throughout the study, we compare
the effects of a range of family and socioeconomic factors thought important toemployment and housework of married women and men in the three countries.

2. Data and Measures
2.1. Data and Methods

Data for this comparative study consist of subsamples of currently married men
and women aged 20–59 and their spouses drawn from three sets of nationalfamily surveys conducted in the late 1980s and mid-1990s. Although the surveys
are not identical, they were designed to be comparable. The National Survey on
Work and Family Life in Japan (hereafter called the Japanese survey) was
conducted in January–February 1994, using the stratified two-stage probability
sampling technique (for further information, see Nihon Daigaku Sogo Kagaku
Kenkyusho 1994). The survey was intended to parallel the 1987–88 National
Survey of Families and Households in the United States (NSFH1), as well as to

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collect nationally representative information on marriage, work, and family life
specific to concerns with Japanese families. The survey sampled 3,500 womenand men aged 20–59 of all marital statuses, 2,447 (around 70%) of whom
returned a self-administered questionnaire that requested them to answer
questions pertaining not only to themselves but also, when appropriate, to theirparents and, if they were married, to their spouses. This study focuses on 1,837
currently married women and men aged 20–59 and their spouses.
The National Survey on the Quality of Life in the Republic of Korea (hereafter
called the Korean survey) was conducted in August 1994, based on a national
probability sample of 2,970 households. For one-half of the selected households,
the survey was administered to household heads aged 20 or older via face-toface interviews. For the remaining one-half, if the household heads were married,
their spouses were chosen to be interviewed; if single, the heads themselves werechosen to be the respondents (for specifics of the survey, see Chang, Kim, and Pae1994). Given the nature of this sample, single and formerly married individuals are
acutely underrepresented. However, basic characteristics of the subsample ofcurrently married women and men closely match those found in the 1990
population census of the Republic of Korea. This study focuses on 1,953 currently
married women and men aged 20–59 and their spouses. While the Japanesesurvey included several questions asked in the NSFH1, the Korean survey was
designed to replicate many of the questions posed in the Japanese survey.
The U.S. data are drawn from a subsample of 3,667 currently married nonHispanic white women and men aged 20–59, which in turn was drawn from the
13,017 respondents aged 19 and over who were interviewed by the first wave of
the National Survey of Families and Households. The NSFH is a large-scale,nationally representative survey of the noninstitutionalized population of theUnited States designed to collect information on a variety of issues pertaining toAmerican family life (for further details, see Sweet, Bumpass, and Call 1988 andSweet and Bumpass 1996). Conducted in 1987–88, NSFH1 is based on interviews
with 13,007 primary respondents from a stratified, clustered national probability
sample. Information was also collected from the spouse or cohabiting partner ofthe primary respondent by a self-administered questionnaire. The limits in termsof ethnicity for the U.S. subsample were imposed to avoid compounding crosscultural comparisons with internal differences in familial cultural backgrounds ofvarious racial and ethnic groups within the U.S. population. Not only do family
behaviors differ markedly between minorities and majority whites, studies havefound that predictor variables have different effects for blacks and Hispanics
compared to majority whites (e.g., Bumpass and Sweet 1992; Carter 1993).
Although each of the independent variables were examined by both bivariate
and multivariate models for each of the three countries, we present mostly theGender, Employment, and Housework in Japan, South Korea, and the United States

199

results of the bivariate analyses (i.e., observed percentages and numbers). We
turn to multivariate results when controlling for other variables leads tosignificantly different results than we would infer from the observed
differences. 1 As this was especially the case in the analysis of the genderdivision of household labor (husbands’ share in housework), we present only
the predicted percentages, controlling for the effects of other demographic,socioeconomic, and household factors. Of the three surveys, only the Japanesesample is self-weighting (no sample weight needed). For the other two, allcross-tabulations used weights but multivariate analyses were done withoutsample weights.
2.2. Dependent Variables

This study has two general dependent variables: employment and housework. In
the analysis of employment, we look at three aspects: (1) employment status, (2)employment hours, and (3) commuting time and the hour that the respondent
returned home from work. Employment status was measured by a dummy
variable indicating whether a person was employed or not. Employment hours
were measured by a continuous variable indicating usual hours spent per weekon employment. As for commuting time and the hour respondent returned homefrom work, all three surveys collected information on the number of minutes that
respondents and their spouses usually took to commute one way to the place ofwork. The Japanese and Korean surveys also asked about the usual time thatthey left home for work and when they arrived home from work. The absence of
this information for the United States makes it necessary to focus only on the two
East Asian countries for this part of the analysis.
The second half of the study pertains to the analyses of three aspects ofhousework: (1) the number of hours spent on housework by couples and otherhousehold members, (2) the total workload of both spouses, and (3) husbands’
relative shares in the total time spent by couples on housework. Through theseanalyses, we direct attention to both absolute and relative investments of bothspouses in household tasks. Here, an explanation of measurements of “housework”
is in order because the Korean survey defined and measured housework timedifferently from the Japanese and U.S. surveys. The Japanese and U.S. surveys asked
the amount of time spent per week on each household task traditionally gendertyped as “female”: cleaning house, doing laundry (for the United States, laundry and1

Due to differences in the nature of each dependent variable, different multivariate models were
employed. Employment status (employed or not) was examined by a binary logistic regression
model; hours of employment and share (percentage) of husband in housework were bothanalyzed by an OLS multiple regression model.

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ironing), cooking, cleaning up after meals, and grocery shopping.2 On the other
hand, the Korean survey measured time spent per day on “housework as a whole”
including, in addition to these conventional female tasks, such chores as child care,helping children with homework, activities related to education of children, visiting
relatives, and other work needed to run the household. Because the Korean survey
asked only the time spent on all of these household (and related) activities as awhole, it was impossible to distinguish how much of the overall time spent onhousework was on the traditionally female tasks. Thus, the data on housework for
Korea are not exactly comparable to those for Japan and the United States, and weneed to be cautious in making three-country comparisons.
Total workload was measured by adding together the hours spent per week
on housework and on employment. The relative share of housework wascomputed by dividing the husbands’ housework hours by the combinedhousework hours of both spouses.
2.3. Independent and Control Variables

In addition to including the spouse’s employment hours, this study looks atfamily and socioeconomic factors thought to affect wives’ employment andcouples’ housework time, including: (1) age of the youngest child, and (2) coresidence with or nearness to parents. Our analyses also control for the effects ofbasic demographic and socioeconomic factors such as couples’ education, age,and place of residence. In the analysis of housework, additional control
variables—husbands’ income and sex of respondent—are also included. In
addition, the multivariate analysis of housework considers respondent’s sex tocontrol for the effect of proxy reporting for Japan and Korea, and the effect ofdifferent modes of data collection for the United States.

3. Employment
3.1. General Patterns

Table 1 presents the percentage distribution of the usual weekly employment
hours of husbands and wives in Japan, Korea, and the United States. The left
panel of the table shows that virtually all husbands were employed, ranging from2

The NSFH1 also collected information on the time spent in “male” tasks such as household
maintenance or auto repair, as well as such gender-neutral tasks as paying bills and keeping
household financial records. However, since the Japanese and Korean surveys did not collectthis information, we were unable to analyze the time spent on nonfemale household tasks.

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201

Table 1 Percentage distribution of usual work hours per week of husbands andwives: South Korea, 1994; Japan, 1994; and the United States, 1987–1988
Hours per Week
Not employed
Employed
15 or less
16–34
35–41
42–48
49–59
60 or more
Mean work hours of
those employed
Number of cases

Korea

Husbands
Japan

U.S.

Korea

Wives
Japan

U.S.

5.1

3.9

9.5

73.7

42.7

33.8

0.2
3.2
1.7
27.7
38.7
23.4

2.9
2.0
16.1
29.7
26.1
19.4

1.0
2.8
41.5
15.5
17.4
12.3

0.1
2.5
0.9
8.1
7.7
7.0

7.0
15.2
12.4
12.9
5.8
4.0

5.6
16.3
33.0
6.0
4.0
1.3

52.3

49.2

44.5

49.7

36.2

35.9

1,744

1,825

3,577

1,795

1,821

3,553

Note: For Korea and the United States, the percentages are weighted but the number of cases is
unweighted; for Japan, all of the percentages are unweighted.

96% in Japan to 91% in the United States. This reflects the persisting expectationin all three countries that men’s primary activity should be to provide economic
support for their families. There were, however, substantial intercountry
differences in the number of hours worked, especially in the proportion of thoseworking long hours. On average, Korean husbands worked the longest hours(52.3 hours per week), whereas American husbands spent the least amount oftime on employment (44.5 hours per week) and Japanese husbands were in the
middle (49.2 hours per week). The difference between the United States andKorea amounts to almost one full workday per week.
We are uncertain how much of these differences in husbands’ employment
hours can be attributed to cultural factors affecting labor supply, on the one
hand, or to the structure of opportunities and options in the marketplace, on theother. In any event, differences this large are likely to affect husbands’
involvement in family life, especially contributions to household tasks. This isespecially so when these differences in employment hours are compounded bydifferences in commuting time. We will examine these later in the study.
We next turn to wives’ employment status and hours. In recent decades married
women’s employment has increased greatly in Japan and the United States andhas started to rise in Korea (Ferree 1991; Tsuya 1992; Cho et al. 1997, 232). As
shown in the right panel of Table 1, whereas the proportion employed is similar
in Japan and the United States, it is much lower in Korea. Only about one-quarter(26%) of Korean wives are employed, compared to 57% and 66% of Japanese andAmerican wives, respectively. Comparing Japan and the United States, Japanese
wives are more likely to stay home as full-time homemakers or work part-time202

Noriko O. TSUYA, Larry L. BUMPASS, and Minja Kim CHOE

(less than 35 hours a week), but intercountry differences are small.
Nonetheless, among those who are employed, Korean wives work much longer
hours than either Japanese or U.S. wives. Employed Korean wives spend almost 50
hours per week in the workplace, whereas their Japanese and U.S. counterparts
spend about 36 hours weekly. This large difference stems primarily from the virtual
absence of part-time employment in Korea. These long work hours among
employed Korean wives suggest the lack of flexible employment opportunities formarried women in the Korean labor market. Employed wives in all three countries
shoulder heavy responsibilities both in the home and the workplace. With
employed Korean wives working on average 50 hours a week—a higher averagethan those of Japanese and American husbands—it must be extremely difficult
for Korean wives to balance work and family responsibilities. This may, in turn,
be a major reason why only a small percentage of Korean wives are employed.
3.2. Factors Affecting Wives’ Employment

We first look at the relationship between husbands’ employment hours andwives’ employment status and hours.3 As shown in the top left panel of Table 2,
whereas there are no clear patterns between the percentage of wives employed
and husbands’ employment hours in Japan and Korea, these variables arenegatively and almost linearly associated in the United States. This inverse
relationship holds even after the effects of other family, socioeconomic, anddemographic factors are controlled (data not shown). This suggests that in the
United States, wives are less likely to be employed when their husbands work
longer hours in the marketplace. We can speculate that American wives find agreater need to stay home given their husbands’ heavier commitment toemployment. It is also possible that husbands work longer hours to compensate
for the fact that their wives are not working. While the latter seems less likely, it
might be the case when the wife is staying home to take care of small children.
When we turn to hours of work among employed wives, however, we see amarkedly different picture (top right panel, Table 2). Wives’ employment hours
have a strong positive relationship with husbands’ employment hours in all three
countries. This positive association remains even after the effects of other3

We do not discuss the results of the analysis of factors affecting husbands’ employment hours
because there is not much to report. Across all three countries, the factors that affect wives’
employment status and hours have little systematic (and at best weak) relationship withhusbands’ work hours. This suggests that, consistent with the perception that men’s place is in
employment rather than the home, their economic behavior is driven primarily by market
rather than domestic factors. Of course, this is not to say that husbands’ employment does nothave important implications for their families.

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Table 2 Percentage of wives employed and their mean work hours per week,
by selected characteristics: South Korea, 1994; Japan, 1994; and theUnited States, 1987–1988
Characteristics
Husbands’ work hours per week
34 or less
35–41
42–48
49–59
60 or more
Age of youngest child
Preschool agea
School ageb
No child under age 18
Living with or near parents
Co-resides with parents
Does not co-reside but lives nearby
NeitherNumber of cases

Percent of Wives
Employed
Korea Japan
U.S.

Wives’ Work Hours
per Week
Korea Japan
U.S.

31.1
30.7
22.9
19.1
26.0

52.8
57.9
58.9
56.6
55.1

76.2
67.6
71.6
64.8
63.6

34.1
45.6
44.5
50.5
57.5

23.3
32.3
34.9
37.3
45.4

30.9
35.4
37.7
38.1
37.9

20.3
23.8
24.5

33.6
66.2
60.8

57.5
71.1
68.3

48.7
50.5
49.3

37.2
35.4
36.8

33.5
35.8
37.5

28.3
24.3
22.4
1,795

63.5
56.8
53.4
1,821

NA
69.3c
65.7
3,553

48.9
49.6
49.9
472

39.4
36.2
33.9
1,043

NA
34.5c
36.2
2,352

Notes: For Korea and the United States, the percentages are weighted but the number of cases is
unweighted; for Japan, all of the percentages are unweighted.
Key: NA = Not applicable.
a For Korea and Japan, 0–6; for the United States, 0–4.
b For Korea and Japan, 7–17; for the United States, 5–17.
c Includes 5 cases of co-residence with parents.

independent and control variables are controlled. This suggests a “joint economic
response hypothesis”—namely, that perceived financial needs of the family affectthe employment patterns of both husbands and wives.
In summary, although husbands’ employment hours do not affect whether theirwives are employed or not (except in the United States, where there is a significant
negative relationship), once wives are employed, they tend to work longer hours
when their husbands also spend longer hours in the labor market in all three
countries. This underscores the difficulties that employed couples (especiallyemployed wives) face in carrying out their domestic roles in addition to their heavy
economic responsibilities. When both husbands and wives work long hours in
the labor market, their time available for family life must be severely constrained.
The presence and age of children are probably the most important factors
affecting married women’s employment. Women’s obligations in raising children(especially small children) have played a major role in female labor force
participation in the United States (Bumpass 1990; Sweet 1970). The United States
also has witnessed dramatic increases in employment among mothers of smallchildren in recent years. The M-shaped age pattern of women’s labor force

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Noriko O. TSUYA, Larry L. BUMPASS, and Minja Kim CHOE

participation that was once common in the United States is still observed in both
Japan and Korea, suggesting that women’s employment in those two countries
is strongly related to their roles as wife and mother (Brinton 1988; Tsuya andChoe 1991).
As expected, the proportion employed is notably lower among mothers ofpreschool children in all three countries, especially Japan and the United States(left side of second panel, Table 2). This general pattern remains even after theeffects of the other factors are controlled. Differences are in the expected
direction but remain small in Korea. All this having been said, we should notethat employment is not absent among mothers of small children in the two East
Asian countries and relatively common in the United States. Despite the culturalemphasis on the importance of mothers of small children staying home and thepersistence of the view that mothers’ employment is harmful to children in all
three countries (Bumpass and Choe 2000), one-fifth of mothers with smallchildren in Korea and one-third of such mothers in Japan are employed. In the
United States, the proportion is almost 60%.
When we turn to work hours among employed wives, we see a different
pattern for the comparison between Japan and the United States (right side ofsecond panel, Table 2). The results become even more distinctive once theeffects of other family, socioeconomic, and demographic factors are controlled.
The expected effect persists in the United States, with mothers of preschool
children working the least hours (about 4 hours less than mothers without any
children under age 18). In Japan, on the other hand, it is mothers with schoolage children who are likely to work the least hours. This may reflect the impactof the mother’s heavy responsibility for education of children in school (Tsuya
and Choe 2000). In Korea, we see little variation by the presence and age ofchildren, again suggesting the dominant effect of the structure of available jobs
over labor supply preferences in the country.
Co-residence with (or nearness to) parents affects wives’ employment by
providing a ready source of assistance in household chores. Studies show that inJapan co-residence with parents facilitates wives’ employment, especially fulltime employment (Martin and Tsuya 1992; Morgan and Hirosima 1983; Tsuya
1992). Whereas few married couples share a household with their parents in the
United States—except during brief spells of parental dependence (Bumpass
1994)—grandparents still provide an important source of support (Cherlin and
Furstenberg 1986).
Though the effects of co-residence with or nearness to parents are not large,
there are consistent differences in all three countries (third panel, Table 2). The
highest proportion of wives are employed when married couples are living withparents, and higher proportions are employed when parents live closer. The

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205

effects of co-residence with or nearness to parents are statistically significant inall three countries, and these general patterns remain when the effects of otherfactors are controlled.
Considering work hours of employed wives, however, we find the expected
pattern only among Japanese wives. In Japan, co-residence with or nearness toparents significantly and almost linearly increases wives’ employment hours. In
neither Korea nor the United States is there a clear relationship between
intergenerational co-residence (or nearness) and wives’ employment hours.
3.3. Commuting Time

Commuting time is a critical component of the time men and women spend on
employment, yet it is often ignored in considerations of the time demands oflabor market work and their potential effects on family life. In all three countries
a majority of husbands work more than 41 hours per week (i.e., more than 8hours per day, 5 days a week), with Korean and Japanese husbands working
especially long hours. Once employed, wives also spend a substantial number ofhours on employment in all three countries. Given these facts, it is important toconsider the time employed husbands and wives spend commuting between
home and workplace, as well as the time they arrive home from work.
It is widely believed that large Asian cities (including Tokyo and Seoul)present congestion and long commuting hours. We find a somewhat different,
more complicated story when we compare the number of minutes that working
husbands and wives have reported in the three countries. The story depends, inpart, on how we treat around one-quarter to one-third of the cases in the two
Asian countries that turned up as “unknown (no answer)” on this variable (Table3). If we treat these cases as missing data, the average commuting time (oneway) for employed husbands was 77 minutes in Korea, 37 minutes in Japan, and21 minutes in the United States.
However, we have a reason to think that this assumption is probably incorrect
and that many shopkeepers and small business proprietors in Korea and Japan
had no “commuting time” to report since they lived above or next to their placeof employment.4 Based on this assumption, the average commuting time of
employed husbands was estimated to be 57 minutes in Korea, 28 minutes inJapan, and 21 minutes in the United States. Hence, the averages were not all thatdifferent between Japan and the United States though the distribution was more
4

In the Japanese and Korean surveys, the questions on commuting time were addressed to those
who worked “outside the home.” We presume that many respondents who were self-employed
or small business proprietors interpreted this as being applicable only to those who were
employees of organizations located away from their residence.

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Noriko O. TSUYA, Larry L. BUMPASS, and Minja Kim CHOE

Table 3 Percentage distribution of minutes spent by husbands and wives incommuting to work (one way): South Korea, 1994; Japan, 1994;
and the United States, 1987–1988
Minutes
15 or less
16–30
31–45
46–60
61–90
91 or more
Mean commuting timein minutes
No answer
Number of cases

Korea

Husbands
Japan

U.S.

Korea

Wives
Japan

U.S.

9.1
9.3
4.1
11.7
16.2
23.3

19.2
25.5
8.2
13.6
7.5
2.2

46.9
29.9
9.2
4.3
1.1
0.6

14.9
11.1
5.8
11.4
14.9
9.7

37.8
20.1
4.7
2.7
1.2
0.2

61.8
24.6
5.7
2.2
0.3
0.2

77.1

37.2

20.8

57.2

19.7

13.6

26.3
1,655

23.8
1,754

8.0
1,741

32.3
472

33.3
1,043

5.2
1,558

Note: For Korea and the United States, the percentages are weighted but the number of cases is
unweighted; for Japan, all of the percentages are unweighted.

bimodal in Japan. True to the widely held presumptions, the much longer
average commuting time persisted in Korea, even after taking the substantial
proportion of “unknown” cases into account.
Similar intercountry differences existed with respect to the time employed
wives spent commuting, but the time tended to be much shorter. Treating“unknown” cases as missing, the average commuting time for wives was 57
minutes in Korea, 20 minutes in Japan, and 14 minutes in the United States. If wetreat “unknown” cases as those with zero commuting time, the corresponding
averages were 39 minutes in Korea and 13 minutes in Japan and the UnitedStates. This is a point where balancing between family and labor market
obligations has a clear impact on employment, as these findings suggest that, tomeet these obligations, wives must choose from a narrower range of
employment opportunities defined by being closer to home.
Another way of looking at differences in commuting time and, whencombined with differences in employment hours, how they affect family life is to
ask when workers return home. As explained earlier, detailed information exists
with respect to the usual time employed persons leave home for and returnhome from work for Japan and Korea. Table 4 shows that, in Korea, among
employed husbands and wives whose time of return home was determined,
about 35% of husbands and 25% of wives did not usually arrive home from work
until after 8:00 P.M., leaving relatively little time for family life. The levels
returning home this late were much lower among Japanese wives, but still about
one-sixth of Japanese husbands did not come home until after 8:00 P.M.

Gender, Employment, and Housework in Japan, South Korea, and the United States

207

Table 4 Cumulative percentage of husbands and wives returning home fromwork at specified times: South Korea and Japan, 1994
Time Returning Home
Not working
UnknownAmong known, returned by:
5:00 P.M.
6:00 P.M.
7:00 P.M.
8:00 P.M.
9:00 P.M.
After 9:00 P.M.
Number of cases

Husbands
Korea
Japan

Korea

Wives
Japan

5.1
19.5

3.9
22.5

73.7
13.4

42.7
18.8

8.5
18.6
39.2
64.7
82.3
100.0
1,655

25.2
58.7
69.5
87.4
97.1
100.0
1,754

19.1
33.8
57.5
75.1
82.6
100.0
472

56.7
86.8
93.8
97.8
99.7
100.0
1,043

Note: For Korea and the United States, the percentages are weighted but the number of cases is
unweighted; for Japan, all of the percentages are unweighted.

4. Housework
4.1. General Patterns

The upper panel of Table 5 gives the mean hours per week that husbands andwives spent on housework and husbands’ average share of housework in thethree countries. Whereas wives’ housework hours are almost identical in Japanand the United States (33.5 hours and 32.4 hours, respectively), there aresubstantial differences in the housework hours of husbands. Japanese husbands
spent an average 2.5 hours per week on household tasks whereas Americanhusbands spent about 8 hours per week on those tasks. Consequently, Japanesehusbands’ contribution to housework was merely 7% of the time both spouses
spent on housework whereas American husbands contributed approximately 21%.
Given the differences in the definition of “housework,” the average hours in
the Korean data are much higher than in the Japanese and U.S. data. Husbands’
average share of housework in Korea was about 18%, which is almost as high as
it was in the United States. However, if we could extract the time spent only on“female” household tasks in Korea (like we did for Japan and the United States),
the pattern and share of husbands’ housework in Korea would be more similar
to Japan’s. The percentage of husbands who did no housework at all was 43%
for Japan, 33% for Korea, and 10% for the United States. In any event, genderinequality clearly persisted in the division of domestic tasks in all three countries.
When we look at the average total workload, a very different picture emerges.
The lower panel of Table 5 indicates that when household and labor market

208

Noriko O. TSUYA, Larry L. BUMPASS, and Minja Kim CHOE

Table 5 Mean hours per week spent by husbands and wives on housework andtheir average total workload (housework and employment combined):
Japan, 1994; South Korea, 1994; and the United States, 1987–1988

Houseworka
Wives’ hours per week
Husbands’ hours per week
Husbands’ share (%)% of husbands with no housework
Total workloadb
Wives’ hours per week
Husbands’ hours per week
Husbands’ share (%)

Japan
Mean
(N)

Korea
Mean
(N)

U.S.
Mean
(N)

33.5
2.5
7.4
43.1

(1,799)(1,786)(1,769)(1,786)

49.8
12.6
18.4
32.5

(1,752)(1,661)(1,603)(1,661)

32.4
7.8
20.9
10.0

(3,435)(3,143)(2,991)(3,143)

54.7
50.0
48.1

(1,784)(1,778)(1,748)

62.1
62.2
50.4

(1,521)(1,630)(1,422)

55.2
49.6
47.7

(3,352)(3,097)(2,839)Note: For Korea and the United States, the mean hours are weighted; the number of all cases is
unweighted.
a For Japan and the United States, the hours spent on housework were computed by adding the time
devoted to cleaning house, doing laundry (for the United States, laundry and ironing), cooking,cleaning up after meals, and grocery shopping. For Korea, the hours are for “housework as a whole.”b Total workload was computed by adding the number of hours spent on housework and on employment.

hours are considered jointly, gender balance in total workload becomes similar
among the three countries and the obvious gender inequality we saw in thedivision of housework almost disappears. Men’s average share in total workload
was about 48% for Japan and the United States and 50% for Korea.
The gender equality in these overall averages in total workload neverthelessmasks large gender differences in total workload when viewed from theemployment hours of each spouse. As shown in the right panel of Table 6, whereas
the total workload of wives who did not work in the marketplace was considerably
less than that of their husbands, wives’ total workload increased dramatically as
their employment hours increased in all three countries.5 These findings clearly
indicate the “second shift” of unpaid housework for wives who were also employed(Hochschild 1991). The “second shift” is especially notable in Japan: the average
total workload of wives more than doubles from 38 hours to 85 hours per week
when we compare full-time housewives and wives who worked 49 hours or more
per week in the marketplace. Though not as dramatic as in Japan, in the other two
countries the average total workload of wives also increases sharply: from around5

Provided that a substantial proportion of wives who did not work in the labor market weremothers of small children, and that child-care time was not included in housework time forJapan and the United States, the differences in total workload between full-time housewives
and wives employed full-time are likely to be exaggerated. Nonetheless, even when we limit
our analysis to couples who did not have preschool children, the general pattern of the“second shift” still remains in both countries.

Gender, Employment, and Housework in Japan, South Korea, and the United States

209

Table 6 Average total workload (mean hours spent on employment and housework
combined) per week of husbands and wives by their weekly work hours:
Japan, 1994; South Korea, 1994; and the United States, 1987–1988
Work Hours
per WeekJapan

Husbands
Korea

U.S.

Japan

Wives
Korea

U.S.

50.0

62.2

49.6

54.7

62.1

55.2

49.1
40.8
49.3
49.7
51.4
59.9

61.0
NA
NA
57.3a
57.0
69.2

47.6
51.8
48.7
50.1
52.4
54.0

37.6
42.0
60.2
67.7
73.1
84.9

55.4
NA
NA
65.5a
74.8
90.3

40.1
45.2
57.0
65.3
69.0
76.9

12.9
42.0
47.6
56.3
67.7

32.8b
NA
55.2
64.2
80.2

17.4
47.4
52.9
58.7
69.0

43.5
53.0
53.4
56.8
60.1

58.2b
NA
60.6
60.7
69.1

52.2
56.3
56.5
54.1
55.0

Total
Wives
0 (not working)
1–15
16–34
35–41
42–48
49 or more
Husbands
34 or less
35–41
42–48
49–59
60 or more
Key: NA = Not applicable.
a For Korea, 1–41 hours.
b For Korea, 41 hours or less.

55 hours to 90 hours in Korea and from 40 hours to 77 hours in the United States.
Roughly 40% of wives in Japan and the United States and around 23% of wives in
Korea were employed full-time, and they were the ones who bore the especiallyheavy burden of balancing employment and domestic responsibilities.
Husbands’ total workload also increased somewhat as their wives’
employment hours increased (left panel, Table 6). However, this happened only
when their wives had long hours in the labor market—more than 41 hours per
week in Japan and the United States and more than 48 hours in Korea. The levelof the association between husbands’ total workload and wives’ employment
hours is much weaker, compared to the strong positive relationship between
wives’ employment hours and their total workload.
4.2. Housework Hours of Couples and Other Household Members

We next look at differences in the time spent on housework by couples and otherhousehold members in the three countries. Tables 7–9 present the mean numberof hours spent per week on housework by different household members basedon couples’ employment hours and selected family characteristics in Japan, Korea,
and the United States, respectively. A comparison of the top rows of these threetables confirms that Japanese wives spent on average more than 13 times as muchtime as their husbands on household tasks. In Korea and the United States,

210

Noriko O. TSUYA, Larry L. BUMPASS, and Minja Kim CHOE

Table 7 Mean hours per week spent on housework by different household
members, by selected characteristics: Japan, 1994
Characteristics

Husbands
Hours (N)

Total
2.5
Wives’ work hours per week
0 (not working)
2.2
1–15
1.6
16–34
2.1
35–41
3.4
42–48
3.2
49 or more
3.1
Husbands’ work hours per week
Less than 35
3.1
35–41
3.0
42–48
2.6
49–59
2.3
60 or more
2.1
Age of youngest child
0–6
2.5
7–17
2.1
No child under age 18
2.7
Co-residence with parents
No
2.8
Yes—total
1.9With male parent only
2.4
With at least 1 female parent 1.9

Wives
Hours (N)Parents
Hours (N)Children
Hours (N)(1,786)33.5(1,799)

10.9

(560)

2.6

(1,393)

(709)
(138)
(292)
(224)
(232)
(176)

37.6
34.0
35.2
28.7
28.1
26.6

(720)
(138)
(294)
(227)
(230)
(175)

8.4
6.2
9.4
12.1
14.8
13.7

(189)
(32)
(82)
(77)
(109)
(67)

2.1
2.3
2.4
3.1
3.0
3.8

(564)
(105)
(236)
(165)
(176)
(135)

(148)
(285)
(533)
(465)
(347)

31.2
33.5
33.0
34.3
34.0

(149)
(291)
(535)
(464)
(349)

5.3
11.3
11.5
10.7
11.0

(26)
(86)
(185)
(149)
(112)

3.8
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.7

(97)
(219)
(400)
(388)
(283)

(120)
(590)
(1,071)

37.6
33.6
32.9

(119)
(590)
(1,086)

13.1
10.6
10.8

(45)
(214)
(300)

2.0
2.6
2.7

(117)
(571)
(705)

(1,211)
(575)
(61)
(514)

33.9
32.5
37.8
31.9

(1,216)
(583)
(62)
(521)

—
10.9
1.8
11.9

(0)
(560)
(59)
(501)

2.9
2.0
3.7
1.8

(911)
(482)
(50)
(432)

Note: The number of hours spent on housework was computed by adding the number of hours devoted
to cleaning house, doing laundry, cooking, cleaning up after meals, and grocery shopping.

although gender inequality in housework was considerably less than in Japan,
wives still spent around 4 times as much time as their husbands on housework.
The degree of parents’ contribution to housework was substantial in the two
Asian countries, and the contribution of Japanese parents was especially notable:
Japanese parents generally contributed more than four times as much time ashusbands to housework. “Other” household members in the United States (mostof whom were children) also made a substantial contribution to household tasks.
Turning to the relationship between employment hours and housework hours ofeach spouse, we can see that wives’ employment hours were inversely related totheir own housework hours in all three countries (second panel, Tables 7–9). Thissuggests that wives accommodate employment by cutting the time they spend on
housework. Husbands’ housework time, on the other hand, generally increased as
their wives’ employment hours increased in all three countries. Further, in the two
East Asian countries, there appears to have been a jump in the hours that husbands(and parents and even children) spent on housework when wives were employed“full-time” (defined as 35 or more hours per week in Japan and 42 or more hours

Gender, Employment, and Housework in Japan, South Korea, and the United States

211

Table 8 Mean hours per week spent on housework by different household
members, by selected characteristics: South Korea, 1994
Characteristics

Husbands
Hours (N)

Total
12.6
Wives’ work hours per week
0 (not working)
11.4
1–41
12.9
42–48
11.6
49–59
16.3
60 or more
19.0
Husbands’ work hours per week
Less than 42
17.3
42–48
11.2
49–59
10.8
60 or more
13.7
Age of youngest child
0–6
12.4
7–17
12.9
No child under age 18
12.2
Co-residence with parents
No
11.9
Yes
14.0

Wives
Hours (N)Parents
Hours (N)Children
Hours (N)(1,661)49.8(1,752)

16.2

(415)

4.2

(1,603)(1,103)
(67)
(142)
(128)
(106)

55.5
37.3
31.5
30.3
37.0

(1,182)
(68)
(142)
(134)
(104)

12.3
10.1
28.9
26.7
20.1

(248)
(20)
(46)
(42)
(30)

3.9
5.0
3.6
4.7
6.2

(949)
(49)
(109)
(89)
(86)

(172)
(407)
(596)
(346)

43.0
49.6
50.0
51.9

(177)
(428)
(633)
(357)

14.6
17.3
16.3
15.5

(50)
(106)
(152)
(80)

5.2
3.9
3.8
4.4

(131)
(341)
(501)
(293)

(330)
(564)
(748)

55.9
49.1
47.3

(334)
(599)
(796)

21.8
11.9
16.4

(83)
(158)
(167)

1.7
5.1
4.8

(290)
(508)
(562)

(1,250)
(338)

49.8
48.1

(1,319)
(347)

—
17.9

(0)
(295)

4.3
3.6

(1,035)(290)

Notes: Means are weighted; the number of cases is unweighted. The number of hours spent onhousework is the number of hours spent on “housework as a whole.”

in Korea). Yet, in all three countries, increases in the household task hours ofhusbands and other household members were not enough to compensate for thedecreases in wives’ housework hours resulting from increases in wives’
employment hours. Altogether, these findings suggest that the major adjustments tothe accelerating rise in the labor market activities of married women are made by
the women themselves, either by adding paid employment to domestic
responsibilities or by reducing the time spent in housework.
Husbands’ housework time decreased somewhat when their employment
hours went up, but the pattern was inconsistent and not as distinctive as it waswith respect to wives’ employment hours. Moreover, husbands’ employment
hours do not seem to have had a strong impact on the time that their wives andother household members spent on housework, except in Korea, where wives’housework hours increased as their husbands’ employment hours expanded. In
addition, when husbands did not work full-time (less than 35 hours per week inJapan and the United States, less than 42 hours in Korea), their housework hours
increased notably in Korea and the United States and wives’ hours decreased
substantially in Korea and Japan. Nonetheless, because only a small minority ofhusbands worked less than full-time in all three countries, the gender-balancing

212

Noriko O. TSUYA, Larry L. BUMPASS, and Minja Kim CHOE

Table 9 Mean hours per week spent on housework by different household
members, by selected characteristics: United States, 1987–1988
Characteristics

Husbands
Hours (N)

Total
7.8
Wives’ work hours per week
0 (not working)
6.1
1–15
6.7
16–34
7.8
35–41
8.8
42–48
9.8
49 or more
11.0
Husbands’ work hours per week
Less than 35
10.8
35–41
7.7
42–48
7.8
49–59
7.1
60 or more
5.9
Age of youngest child
0–4
8.7
5–17
7.2
No child under age 18
7.6
Co-residence with parents
No
7.8
Yes
6.9

Wives
Hours (N)All Others
Hours (N)Others <19
Hours (N)(3,143)32.4(3,435)7.0 (1,437)

5.2(1,307)

(961)
(172)
(489)
(1,053)
(203)
(167)

40.1
35.5
32.3
26.4
24.5
24.5

(1,110)(185)(517)(1,139)
(209)
(178)

7.4
5.5
6.4
7.2
6.8
9.6

(465)
(99)
(244)
(438)
(84)
(62)

5.1
3.9
4.8
5.4
5.7
7.9

(418)
(97)
(230)
(393)
(75)
(56)

(364)
(1,278)
(508)
(557)
(376)

31.8
32.7
32.0
31.2
34.2

(415)
(1,379)
(548)
(586)
(403)

9.4
6.4
8.1
6.5
6.6

(149)
(603)
(218)
(245)
(187)

5.8
4.9
5.2
5.0
5.4

(126)
(542)
(209)
(222)
(178)

(1,035)(1,000)(1,108)

37.1
32.4
28.7

(1,113)(1,100)(1,222)

5.6
7.7
6.9

(425)
(830)
(182)

3.6
6.1
3.2

(411)
(818)
(78)

(3,102)
(41)

32.4
30.5

(3,386)(49)

6.7 (1,397)
16.1
(40)

5.2
4.5

(1,284)(23)

Notes: Means are weighted; the number of cases is unweighted. The number of hours spent onhousework was computed by adding the number of hours devoted to cleaning house, laundry
and ironing, cooking, cleaning up after meals, and grocery shopping.

effects of husbands who were not employed full-time on overall domestic time
allocation remained small.
By contrast, and as expected, the presence of children of preschool and schoolages clearly affected the time that wives spent on housework (third panel, Tables
7–9). When they had preschool children at home, wives’ household task hours
increased significantly in all three countries. Though not as much, the presenceof school-age children also increased wives’ housework hours. Moreover, when
there were preschool children in the home, the average time that couples’
parents spent on housework increased as well in the two East Asian countries.
On the other hand, the presence of preschool children or school-age children did
not affect the time that husbands spent on housework, except in the UnitedStates, where husbands’ housework time was the highest when they hadpreschoolers at home. Altogether, these findings suggest that in Japan and Korea
it is the wife who responds to increases in the domestic needs created by
nonadult children at home, and that in both countries parents—not husbands—
help wives shoulder extra housework created by the presence of small children.

Gender, Employment, and Housework in Japan, South Korea, and the United States213

In the United States, husbands respond to the presence of small children at homethough wives are still primarily responsible for household tasks.
Co-residence with parents tended to reduce the housework hours of all otherhousehold members in all three countries, except for Korea, where husbands’
hours increased somewhat (bottom panel, Tables 7–9). What really contributed tohousehold task allocation in Japan (and probably in the other two countries)
seems to have been the presence of female parents rather than the presence ofmale parents. When couples were living only with male parents, though such an
incidence was rare, the time wives spent on housework increased substantially(bottom panel, Table 7).
4.3. Patterns Reflecting and Factors Influencing Husbands’ Share in
Housework

We next examine the patterns of and factors affecting the gender division ofhousehold labor as measured by husbands’ relative share in couples’ housework
time. Table 10 presents the proportion of husbands’ housework hours to the total
amount of time that couples jointly spent on housework.6 These percentages were
estimated by using the mean values of all the variables other than the variable
specified in each row heading, based on the coefficients estimated by the OLS
multiple regression model that included, as the covariates, employment hours ofeach spouse, age of youngest child, co-residence with parents, husbands’ annual
income, education of each spouse, husbands’ age, and respondents’ sex. The
percentages are shown only for those variables that had significant effects.
Wives’ employment hours affected husbands’ share in housework in all three
countries (first panel, Table 10). However, the nature of the relationship was
somewhat different among the countries. In Japan, husbands’ share inhousework increased significantly only when wives worked full-time in the labormarket (primarily because husbands’ housework hours increased only when
wives were employed full-time). In Korea and the United States, on the other
hand, husbands’ share in housework decreased dramatically in proportion to
wives’ housework hours because, as wives worked longer in the marketplace,
their housework hours decreased and husbands’ hours increased significantly.
The effects of husbands’ employment hours on their share in housework wereless systematic; nonetheless, two patterns were significant in all three countries.
First, the relationship between these two variables was generally linear andnegative, primarily because husbands’ housework time was reduced in

6

We also conducted multiple regression analyses of the number of hours that wives andhusbands spent on housework. Due to space limitations, the results are not shown here.

214

Noriko O. TSUYA, Larry L. BUMPASS, and Minja Kim CHOE

Table 10 Estimated percentage of husbands’ share of housework, by selectedcharacteristics: Japan, 1994; South Korea, 1994; and the UnitedStates, 1987–1988
Characteristics
Total
Wives’ work hours
Not working
Part-timea
Full-timeb
Husbands’ work hours
Less than full-timec
35–41
42–48
49–59
60 or more
Age of youngest child
Preschool aged
School agee
No child under age 18
Co-residence with parents
Yes
No
Wives’ education
Less than high school
High schoolSome college or equivalentf
4-year college or higher
Husbands’ education
Less than high school
High schoolSome college or equivalentf
4-year college or higher
Husbands’ age
25
35
45
55

Japan

Korea

U.S.

7.7

18.0

20.8

5.4
5.3
11.8

14.7
21.2
27.7

14.7
19.1
26.1

11.1
8.7
8.2
6.4
6.2

25.6
NA
17.7
17.3
16.3

29.6
20.6
20.6
18.7
16.2

7.2
6.7
8.7

16.2
17.6
19.2

20.0
19.4
22.7

6.0
8.5

—
—

—
—

—
—
—
—

—
—
—
—

19.3
18.6
21.2
24.8

—
—
—
—

—
—
—
—

17.8
18.6
22.4
23.1

—
—
—
—

—
—
—
—

23.6
21.7
19.8
17.9

Notes: Only the covariates having statistically significant effects are shown. Percentages were estimatedusing the mean values of all variables other than the variable specified in the row heading. The
coefficients were estimated by the OLS multiple regression model, whose covariates included
employment hours of each spouse, age of youngest child, co-residence with parents, husbands’
annual income, education of each spouse, husbands’ age, and respondents’ sex.
a For Japan and the United States, 1–34 hours; for Korea, 1–41 hours.
b For Japan and the United States, 35 or more hours; for Korea, 42 or more hours.
c For Japan and the United States, 0–34 hours; for Korea, 0–41 hours.
d For Japan and Korea, ages 0–6; for the United States, ages 0–4.
e For Japan and Korea, ages 7–17; for the United States, ages 5–17.
f For Japan, consists of graduates of junior college, advanced professional school, and professional
training school.

Gender, Employment, and Housework in Japan, South Korea, and the United States

215

accordance with their employment hours. Second, among a small proportion of
couples where the husband worked less than full-time in the labor market, theirshare in housework increased markedly because wives’ housework time was
reduced significantly and husbands’ time also increased somewhat.
Altogether, these findings demonstrate the importance of time availability on
the gender division of household labor in all three countries, though the effect isclearly stronger in the United States and Korea than in Japan. The findings also
show distinctive intercountry differences in the patterns of husbands’ responses
to wives’ employment in terms of their contributions to household tasks.
Whereas Japanese husbands respond only when their wives are employed fulltime (and therefore have a rigid work schedule), American and Korean husbands
increase their contributions to housework in accordance with their wives’
employment situation.
Compared to those who do not have children under age 18 at home, husbands
who have preschool children have a significantly lower share in housework in all
three countries. This is due primarily to the fact that, though both husbands andwives do substantially more housework when they have small children, wives’housework hours increase much more than their husbands’. The presence ofschool-age children also reduces husbands’ share in housework in all three
countries (and the negative effect is especially notable in Japan and the UnitedStates). This is because when couples have school-age children, wives’housework time increases but husbands’ housework tends to decrease.
Co-residence with parents substantially reduces husbands’ share of housework
in Japan. This is due primarily to the fact that, when parents—especially a female
parent—live in the same household, husbands’ housework hours decrease much
more steeply than do the wives’ hours. This, in turn, suggests that husbands arelikely to benefit more from intergenerational co-residence than their wives
in terms of household task allocation in the Japanese home. Though the effectof co-residence with parents is also negative in the other two countries, the effectis insignificant.
Lastly, whereas major socioeconomic and demographic factors such as
education and age do not significantly influence the gender division ofhousehold tasks in the two East Asian countries, these factors have notableeffects in the United States. As shown in Table 10 above, college education ofeach spouse significantly increases husbands’ share of housework. This is a resultof both the strikingly shorter hours that college-educated wives spend on
housework and the significantly longer hours that college-educated husbands
contribute to housework. In sum, U.S. higher education pushes the genderdivision of household labor in a more egalitarian direction, suggesting the strongsocialization effect of higher education in molding gender role attitudes. Further,

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the age of American husbands is associated inversely with their share ofhousework, i.e., older husbands do a much smaller amount of housework than
younger husbands. This suggests a substantial cohort change in gender-typed
behavior in the postwar American society.

5. Discussion
This study has revealed that family factors such as the presence and age ofchildren and co-residence with or nearness to parents strongly influence wives’
employment status and hours but have little systematic effect on husbands’
employment patterns in Japan, Korea, and the United States. Thus, despite themarked differences in familial cultural backgrounds, married women’s
employment is bounded by their family situations in a way that men’s is not in
all three countries. Despite rapid increases in married women’s employment inJapan and the United States, and despite the overwhelming preference for wives
to work in all three countries (Choe, Bumpass, and Tsuya 2000), traditional
gender role assignments of breadwinning primarily to husbands and housework
to wives are still prevalent, affecting wives’ employment patterns.
Our findings also provide evidence that market factors heavily structure wives’
employment opportunities. In particular, the low level of wives’ employment
with long work hours in Korea may reflect the particularly limited options thatmarried women have in the labor market. In Korea, married women seem tohave only two options: work for long hours or not at all. This, in turn,demonstrates the limitations that the market and society impose on women’sability to reconcile employment and family responsibilities.
This study also shows that wives shoulder the lion’s share of housework in all
three countries, but that when housework and employment hours are consideredjointly, the mean total workload of husband and wife becomes very similar andthe gender inequality in housework alone almost disappears. However, thisgender equity covers wide differentials in the total workload of wives by theirown employment hours. Wives’ total workload increases dramatically as theiremployment hours increase in all three countries, clearly indicating the “double
burden” of unpaid housework for full-time employed wives.
Moreover, the findings reveal the overall importance of the time availability ofeach spouse for housework measured by employment hours in determining thegender division of labor at home in the three countries. Family factors such aspresence and age of children and co-residence with parents also influence thegender division of labor at home. In all three countries the presence of nonadultchildren reduces husbands’ share in housework though the effect is most notable

Gender, Employment, and Housework in Japan, South Korea, and the United States217

in the United States. Co-residence with parents tends to decrease husbands’ sharein housework though the effect is significant only in Japan, suggesting thatJapanese husbands are more likely to benefit from co-residence with parents
than their wives and other household members.
Whereas the underlying mechanism determining the gender division ofhousehold labor was relatively simple in Japan and Korea, it was more
complicated in the United States. In Japan, this division was determinedprimarily by time availability of both spouses as well as by family situations. In
Korea, the pattern of the gender division of household labor was based almost
solely on employment hours. In the United States, however, in addition to time
availability and household structure, education of both spouses and husbands’
age also mattered.
Finally, our findings offer important social and policy implications for moreequal gender relations in the Japanese home. Given the finite nature of time, abetter understanding of how wives (and husbands) reconcile employment andhousework is essential for improving the quality of family life. Wives’ full-time
employment tends to increase husbands’ time and share of housework. Given
the rapid increases in full-time employment of married women in recent decades,
the acute gender inequality persisting in Japanese homes may (and should) be
lessened. Nonetheless, though husbands do more housework when there is astrong need created by wives’ long employment hours, increases in husbands’
contribution are likely to be much less than the time that wives themselves cut indoing housework. In Japan today, the slack seems to be picked up by coresiding parents, but multigenerational co-residence has been, and is expected tocontinue, declining (Atoh 1988; Tsuya 1990).
Hence, social policy may have an important role to play in alleviating married
women’s difficulties in balancing their work and family responsibilities. Labor
market and employment policies need to be more family friendly by recognizingthat increasing wives’ employment and strong preferences for work outside thehome even among mothers of small children are part of a broader family change
seen not only in Japan but also in other industrialized societies.
In accordance with changes in married women’s employment, family policy
also needs to be revised or newly formulated, especially to help full-time
employed wives with children who are shouldering the double burden of
economic and domestic obligations. One viable option may be to make childcare services more flexible and widely available not only to small children but
also to school-age children. The provision of services becomes more flexible byextending operating hours and giving women/couples more freedom in the
choice of child-care facilities. Employers can also help by providing child-careservices near or at the workplace. Furthermore, the absolute scarcity of child-care

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services for school-age children needs to be remedied. Because the family is thefundamental unit of society on which the future depends, Japanese society as awhole has to make a serious effort to ensure that gender relations at homebecome more egalitarian.

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