it also explores how couples of different ages share unpaid work and concludes that the gender gap in unpaid work is widest in older couples it examines couples in which both partners do paid work and finds that in general they share unpaid work more equally than those where only one partner works on the whole though the chapter finds that women do more work paid and unpaid as men section looks at the factors that affect and shape the sharing of unpaid work and observes that with parenthood couples share paid and unpaid work the traditional way the same section also considers child care and finds that while mothers nurture young children the gap in parenting between fathers and mothers decreases once children start school indeed a high proportion of fathers time with their children is quality time