The poll found that 35 percent of participating mothers said they are doing more than their partner around the house. The number is a stark difference from the 3 percent of participating fathers who answered the same.
The poll also gave participants eight household chores and told them to answer whether they think they did that specific chore more than their partner. Around half of the mothers said they were completely or mainly responsible for providing their children’s transportation. A similar percentage, 57 percent, of mothers said they provide “all or most” of the emotional support to their children.
Another critical part of the poll measured how equal participants thought their relationship was when it came to chores. Many fathers, 49 percent, said that they and their partner equally attend to their children if they wake up at night. However, only 21 percent of mothers answered the same way. Twenty-four percent of fathers said that the majority of emotional support given to their children is handled by their mother.
The poll was conducted on 1,054 adults and was taken from October 7 to 11. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Americans without children are still more optimistic that they would share responsibilities equally with a partner compared with what parents report actually happens. That’s true even when factors such as the age of respondents are taken into account.
Majorities of both men and women who are not parents said that if they did have kids they’d share equally in things like providing transportation, changing diapers and attending to children waking up at night.
“When you look at time use data, women are more correct than men,” said Yana Gallen, assistant professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, who worked on the poll.
Life can also complicate the best-laid plans. Liana Price, 35, who has a 4-month-old baby who came as a “very much wanted surprise” during the height of the coronavirus pandemic when Price was undergoing chemotherapy treatments on her hands and had a pregnancy complication, said she stopped working in January as a result of everything going on.
“Things just kind of changed very drastically. And suddenly for us, we didn’t really have like a plan,” Price said.
While Price and her husband had planned to both work full time, with her taking maternity leave offered by her job as a registered nurse, instead she quit her job and they began to run through savings.
Still, she says she and her husband divide child care equally—including attending to night wakings.
“When I was breastfeeding, there was no point in him getting up in the middle of the night. But now that I’m formula feeding, we alternate nights,” she said. “However, during the day my husband does work from home. He travels, too. So when he travels, obviously everything is on me.”
Experts say one reason women report doing more house and child care work is not only because they actually do more—which is often true—but also because men are not always aware of all the work involved. That includes planning family activities and organizing appointments and even things like providing children with emotional support.
Much has been said about the effects of the pandemic on women, including many women who left or stepped back from the labor force to take care of their children or aging parents. The U.S. lost tens of millions of jobs when states began shuttering huge swaths of the economy after COVID-19 erupted.
But as the economy has quickly rebounded and employers have posted record-high job openings, many women have delayed a return to the workplace, willingly or otherwise.
In the spring of 2020, roughly 3.5 million mothers with school-age children either lost jobs, took leaves of absence or left the labor market altogether, according to an analysis by the Census Bureau. Many have not returned. A recent report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that one in three women over the past year had thought about leaving their jobs or “downshifting” their careers. Early in the pandemic, by contrast, the study’s authors said, just one in four women had considered leaving.
“But another thing that happened during the pandemic is a lot more jobs became remote and working from home became OK with a lot of jobs,” Gallen said. “So I think that actually really helps women in the workplace because a potentially big problem has been that, women don’t feel like they can take some of the higher-paying jobs available” that involve travel or long hours away from home.
“So this pandemic kind of moved forward a shift to more female friendly conditions and many jobs,” she said.
This includes schedule flexibility and, for jobs in which that’s possible, remote work. Women are more likely than men to say flexibility at work is important when thinking about whether or not to have a child, 74 percent versus 66 percent, according to the poll.
It’s not just the division of household responsibilities that having kids can throw into a loop. It’s been well documented that having children can hinder women’s careers, both when it comes to pay when compared with men (including men with children) and advancing to better jobs.
According to the poll, 47 percent of women say having a child is an obstacle for job security at their current or most recent job, compared with 36 percent of men. Americans under 30 were especially likely to say that, compared with older adults.
Amy Hill, who is 31 and lives in West Virginia, said she’s happy with her home division of labor, even though she does more than her husband. That’s because he works in the coal mines, doing 16-hour shifts away from home. Her work, while steady, is not full time—she does makeup for proms, weddings and other events.
“I think it helps not being around each other a whole lot because I miss him when he’s gone, you know?” she said. “As long as we’ve been together, he’s been working underground. And also, he doesn’t really fold the towels the way I want them to be folded.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
