It’s unfair to expect men to do more unpaid work until something gives

Part one of the gender revolution saw women enter the public spheres of education, employment and politics. But governments and employers have failed to fully support the process by which men enter the private sphere and share the domestic load.

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What’s left? Mothers struggling with the mental and physical load and well-meaning fathers who know they need to lift their game at home but are still expected to work long hours in the office alongside some male colleagues who refer to parenting their children as ‘babysitting’.

In nations with vital social services, the inequities are shrinking. Scandinavian trio Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, as well as countries like Canada and New Zealand, provide various forms of universal childcare and socialised medical services that cover the cost of nurses to care for children and elders in their respective homes.

Sweden tops the EU’s Gender Equality Index, where 74 per cent of women do housework or cook for at least one hour every day compared to 56 per cent of men. The Swedish government also offers tax breaks for cleaners to shift gender-role norms. The state pays half of every housework bill, such as cleaning, laundry and ironing, which has been in place for 15 years.

Universal child care (including before and after-school care that isn’t means-tested), normalising flexible working arrangements for men, and fairly paying carers and educators are all evidence-based solutions.

Persistent inequities in the division of unpaid work won’t shift because of well-meaning blokes alone. My brothers now not only make their own beds but often make all the beds in their homes. But I’m holding the applause because individual progress is not a triumph against structural inequality.

Frustrated couples who turn on each other and argue about who folds most of the washing ought to turn to the government and demand they pick up the slack. Because they are the worst offender when it comes to ‘sharing the load’.

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