Anything that a woman can do, a guy can do.

Via the NYT:

The trend began well before the crash, and appears to be driven by a variety of factors, including financial concerns, quality-of-life issues and a gradual erosion of gender stereotypes. An analysis of census data by The New York Times shows that from 2000 to 2010, occupations that are more than 70 percent female accounted for almost a third of all job growth for men, double the share of the previous decade.

That does not mean that men are displacing women — those same occupations accounted for almost two-thirds of women’s job growth. But in Texas, for example, the number of men who are registered nurses nearly doubled in that time period, rising to 22,532 from 12,709, and increasing the percentage of male nurses to 10.5 percent, from 8.4 percent. Men make up 23 percent of Texas public schoolteachers, but almost 28 percent of first-year teachers.

The shift includes low-wage jobs as well. Nationally, two-thirds more men were bank tellers, almost twice as many were receptionists and two-thirds more were waiting tables in 2010 than a decade earlier.

Even more striking is the type of men who are making the shift. From 1970 to 1990, according to a study by Mary Gatta, the senior scholar at Wider Opportunities for Women, and Patricia A. Roos, a sociologist at Rutgers, men who took so-called pink-collar jobs tended to be foreign-born non-English speakers with low education levels — men who, in other words, had few choices.

Now, though, the trend has spread among men of nearly all races and ages, more than a third of whom have a college degree. In fact, the shift is most pronounced among young, white, college-educated men

Shorter work days and flexibility vs creating wealth

Found via a link in a link in a link or so. Sometimes I wonder if I even should give credit. The first link was via Reddit though. Anyhow we are talking about what different things men and women want in the context of work:

The study found that while 5.6 percent of men would opt for fewer work hours, 10.1 percent of women would prefer less time spent in the office. The gap might reflect women’s disproportionate share of household responsibilities, the researchers say. Another explanation might be that women just feel they need to spend more time at home with their children.

The results, detailed in the April issue of the U.S. Department of Labor's Monthly Labor Review, have implications for understanding why women’s participation in the labor force, which had climbed in the early 1990s, has leveled off over the past five to 10 years, said the study’s lead author Lonnie Golden, a Penn State University economist.[...]

Golden analyzed data from the 2001 U.S. Current Population Survey, in which more than 57,000 individuals responded to supplemental questions involving work-hour preferences. The survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, produces monthly and annual-average estimates of the nation’s employment and unemployment.[...]

The findings related to women in the workplace point out a need for re-structuring of the workplace, Golden said. Economists and other labor researchers have debated whether women leave the workforce because they are happier at home or because the workplace is too rigid and prevents a balanced work-home life.

There was also this study:

Differences between women and men MBA entrepreneurs: exploring family flexibility and wealth creation as career motivators - Richard DeMartino, Robert Barbato - 2002

The purpose of this study was to compare male and female entrepreneurs with similar backgrounds; in particular, all received MBA degrees from a top-tier business school. [...]

Although the male and female entrepreneurs have similar backgrounds, demographics, and timing and age of their businesses, several differences were found. When asked about the career motivators that were most important, women entrepreneurs preferred a career that gave them flexibility and allowed them to balance their career with their family obligations. While these were the most important considerations for women entrepreneurs, they were among the
least important for male entrepreneurs. In contrast, the male entrepreneurs were most motivated by careers that would allow them to create wealth, while female entrepreneurs indicated that creating wealth and career advancement were the least important motivations. The differences between these two groups were large and meaningful. This confirms the findings of previous researchers (Geoffee and Scase, 1983; Scott, 1986; Kaplin, 1988, Buttner, 1993) who also found similar differences. This finding also contradicts the findings of previous research by Fischer et al. (1993), who found that women entrepreneurs were more motivated by financial considerations than male entrepreneurs.

These differences became even larger when the comparison was between married women and men entrepreneurs with dependent children. This helps to explain the findings of Caputo and Kolinsky (1998), who found that the presence of children increased the propensity of women to start their own businesses. The percentage difference between the two groups increases in every career motivator in this study with the largest increases occurring in the motivations to meet family obligations and have family friendly policies. Most of the increase in difference occurs, however, because of the effect of dependent children on women entrepreneurs. For the most part, married male entrepreneurs with dependent children do not differ from unmarried male entrepreneurs in terms of their career motivations.
Conversely, an alternative dynamic appears to emerge when comparing single women and men without dependents to married women and men without dependents. When this comparison is made, gender differences emerge in only one of the six variables tested, i.e., wealth creation. This finding reinforces the importance of dependent status on career
motivators for women entrepreneurs and confirms the research of Still and Timms (2000).

In summary, the findings of this study support previous research that women are using entrepreneurship as a career choice that provides them flexibility to manage family obligations. It provides a nuanced view of these differences when the motivations of men and women are compared by marital and dependent status. Overall, women differ from men by possessing a higher intensity of preference for family-related motivators. The most significant differences, however, emerged when comparing married women with dependents and married men with dependents. Comparisons between single and married men and women without dependents did not demonstrate statistically significant differences. It is important to underscore that the gender differences detected in this study, which compares MBA graduates, are similar to those reported in other studies. This is an important point, because some researchers suggest that previously reported differences could be a result of women having less business knowledge and education and lower potential for advancement. This study, however, concludes that these differences can also be explained by differences in career motivators. The study provides evidence in support of those studies that suggest that women entrepreneurs are more motivated by the need to balance work and family responsibilities.

Entrepreneurship as a career can offer a degree of flexibility and balance that some other careers do not offer. This study provides some clues as to why women-owned businesses now make up 40% of all businesses and why women continue to start businesses at twice the rate of men.

To highlight one sentence from the above study "Comparisons between single and married men and women without dependents did not demonstrate statistically significant differences". This, as well as the wage-gap for single childless women, teaches us an interesting lesson, when it comes to the wage gap as well as motivations behind it, we will find less blatant discrimination and more different life choices. So everyone who points out the 77c number is missing the mark. It those differences come from nature or nurture is a different question. I am sure the answer is both, to what degree is debatable. As for nurture, one thing I'd like to mention as well which often is forgotten in feminist discussion on this topic, it goes for both men and women. We raise men to be the provider and raise women to be the nurturer. Depending on the influence of nature (I always like to cite a women's experience during pregnancy / breast feeding, which gives women an edge when it comes to bonding, as an example) we might not be able to produce equal results (= no pay gap), we should however work hard to make both roles for everyone acceptable. Feminists did a good job in opening up the provider role for women, it is time we do something for men/fathers.

Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?

That is the question by the study with the same name: Competitive high ranking positions are largely occupied by men, and women remain scarce in engineering and sciences. Explanations for these occupational differences focus on discrimination and preferences for work hours and field of study. We examine if absent these factors gender differences in occupations may still occur. Specifically we explore whether women and men, on a leveled playing field, differ in their selection into competitive environments. Men and women in a laboratory experiment perform a real task under a non-competitive piece rate and a competitive tournament scheme. Although there are no gender differences in performance under either compensation, there is a substantial gender difference when participants subsequently choose the scheme they want to apply to their next performance. Twice as many men as women choose the tournament over the piece rate. This gender gap in tournament entry is not explained by performance either before or after the entry decision. Furthermore, while men are more optimistic about their relative performance, differences in beliefs only explain a small share of the gap in tournament entry. In a final task we assess the impact of non-tournament-specific factors, such as risk and feedback aversion, on the gender difference in compensation choice. We conclude that even controlling for these general factors, there is a large residual gender gap in tournament entry. - Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2007. "Do Women Shy Away from Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 122(3), pages 1067-1101, 08.

Citing the American Time Use Survey again

As seen on F&F:

As University of British Columbia Social Work professor Edward Kruk reports,

On average, mothers who work outside the home devote 11.1 hours to direct child care tasks per week; fathers devote 10.5 hours, a 51%/49% split of child care tasks. Although working longer hours outside the home than mothers, young fathers spend an average of 4.3 hours per day with their children, only 45 minutes less than mothers.

Those figures are taken from American time use surveys.

More about fathers via F&F

Some interesting facts about fathers as seen on F&F:

- [T]he Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey that shows that, when paid and unpaid work are added together, men and women do essentially identical amounts. Men do more paid work, women do more domestic work including childcare. No one’s the slave, no one’s the master, and no one has his feet up while the other toils.

- [T]he recent Families and Work Institute survey showing that fathers have far more work-family conflict than mothers do and have for about 30 years.

- 44% — The percentage of working dads who are sole financial providers, up from 2010, according to a careerbuilder.com survey. More than one in five work more than 50 hours a week, and one in five bring home work at least three days a week.

- Three hours — The average time working dads spend with their children every workday, according to a survey by the Families and Work Institute.

- 80% — The percentage of dads who report that they change diapers as often as or more often than their wives when they’re home, in an Ipsos poll for Pampers. Pearlman complains about dads who refuse or don’t even know how. (The women polled say they change diapers more often but don’t say their husbands shirk diaper duty altogether.)

- 36% — The percentage of young children who had 15 or more outings with their father in the previous month, according to the census. Another 24% had eight to 14 outings; 37% had one to seven outings. Only a sliver had none, for any number of reasons. (These can be just with dad or with both mom and dad.) Pearlman describes dads who never take their kids out.

- From a Pew Research study: “Almost all fathers who live with their children take an active role in their day-to-day lives through activities such as sharing meals, helping with homework and playing.”

More findings from the NSWC Study

I blogged about that before. Now F&F have some posts up with their analysis which is always worth reading it. Excerpts:

“Work-family conflict” is defined as how much each interferes with the other. The FWI compared mothers and fathers in dual-earner households in 1977 and 2008. The percentage of mothers reporting work-family conflict remained statistically the same (41% in 1977; 47% in 2008)over the 31 years while the percentage of fathers increased dramatically from 35% to 60%.

The authors sought to explain the change and the imbalance between mothers and fathers. What they found was what they call the “new male mystique.” That’s obviously a nod to Betty Friedan, but in this case the term means “traditional views about men’s role as breadwinners in combination with emerging gender role values that encourage men to participate in family life and a workplace that does not fully support these new roles have created pressure for men to, essentially, do it all in order to have it all.”

In other words, men still view themselves as primarily breadwinners, but have taken on the additional role of father as well. Those two things combined with employers who aren’t inclined to accommodate fathering activities make for conflict. How can a dad work and earn as much as he feels he needs to and still spend enough time with his kids?

[...]Increasing job demands, the blurring of boundaries between work and home life, declining job security and flat earnings have made it more challenging for men to live up to the new male mystique, thereby contributing to an increased probability of work-family conflict.

[...]Our data show that there is no statistically significant difference between men and women on these views—40% of men and 37% of women somewhat or strongly agree with traditional attitudes about gender role values.

[...]Fathers want to work fewer hours were asked in this study why they don’t reduce their work hours. We find:
• 47% say they need the money they earn by working long hours, whether or not their spouse earns more money than they do.
• 16% say they could not keep their jobs if they worked fewer hours.
• 14% say they need to work long hours to keep up with the demands of their job.

[..]So why is it that 60% of fathers but only 47% of mothers report significant levels of work-family conflict?

I think the answer is obvious - mothers work less than men when they work and are more likely than fathers to not do paid work. The authors are clear on their finding that it is specifically work, not family, that is the cause of work-family conflict. So it stands to reason that the parent who works less experiences less work-family conflict.

In fact, among fathers, those who work more have more conflict than those who work less, so it’s not surprising that the same is true of mothers.

Pretty interesting. The conclusion was spot on:

The lesson seems clear. We can try to wheedle employers into being more flexible, but that’s unlikely to make much of an impact on employer behavior. But what we can do, individual couple by individual couple, is to even out the work and the childcare between fathers and mothers. That way the work-family conflict will be evened out as well.

Dual-earner fathers report more work-life conflict than dual-earner mothers

It doesn't happen that often anymore, but sometimes I am really, really surprised at what some studies found. Case in question "The National Study of the Changing Workforce - 2008" (NSCW). The whole thing is worth reading a sort of TL;DR can be seen here.

Some factoids:
- 71% of mothers with children under 18 are working (kind of surprised me that there are that many)
- 79% of married employees are part of a dual-earner couple [...] women contributed 44% of the annual dual-earner family income
- "it’s better for all involved if the man earns the money and the woman takes care of the home and children” is something that 42% of men and 39% of women believe in
- 73% of respondents either strongly or somewhat agreed that “a mother who works outside the home can have just as good a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work,” (67% of men, 80% of women)
- “Men’s reported level of work-life conflict has risen significantly from 34% in 1977 to 45% in 2008, while women’s work-life conflict has increased less dramatically and not significantly: from 34% in 1977 to 39% in 2008.” And the level of conflict is even higher for dual-earner fathers, with 59% experiencing some or a lot of conflict in 2008, versus 45% of dual-earner mothers.
- Employed fathers are spending significantly more time with their children under 13 than they did in 1977.  Men are also:
•    Taking more responsibility for the care of the children (49% say they take more or equal share of care)
•    Doing more or an equal share of the cooking (56% of men)
•    Doing more or an equal share of the house cleaning (53% of men).

The last point has to be taken with a grain of salt as mothers report different values (67% / 70% / 73%). Why there is such a discrepancy? The report says the following:

Our previous studies have revealed that the gender that has traditionally been assumed by society to have primary responsibility for particular aspects of family work tends to see itself as doing more in those areas. 

The overall conclusion we draw from the trends reported in this section is quite profound. Whatever the precise objective degree of responsibility men are assuming for various aspects of family work, it has clearly become more socially acceptable for men to be and to say they are involved in child care, cooking and cleaning over the past three decades than it was in the past!

Certainly, some interesting statistics.

Women need to be asked to run. Often several times.

I won't even comment on that one, just read it. The context is an interview on feministing, the feminist in question is Stephanie Schriock the president of Emily's List (an Organisation dedicated to fund and elect pro-choice women candidates. I cite:

There are not enough women running for office! [...] Women don’t wake up like men do and decide to campaign. Women need to be asked to run. Often several times. So start asking them. Ask yourself, too, while you’re at it.

Men and women working - The American Time Use Survey

A warning, this post is all about numbers. If this is not your kind of thing, skip this one.

This is a recurring topic and a myth that is in the media every now and then. A woman's work is never done and while she has a career, she still has to do most of the housework while hubby does nothing more than sitting on the couch watching TV. Luckily, the Bureau of Labour Statistics has counted the amount of minutes, men and women work so we can see how fair men and women share their work.

About this Survey:

American Time Use Survey

Data collection for the ATUS began in January 2003. Sample cases for the survey are selected monthly and interviews are conducted continuously throughout the year. In 2008, approximately 12,700 individuals were interviewed. Estimates are released annually.

I drew all numbers from table 3. Using these columns.

House - Household Activities
Care1 - Caring for and helping household members
Care2 - Caring for and helping non-household members
Work - Work and work-related activities
Edu - Educational activities

A first look.

Time spent in primary activities (1) for the civilian population by age, sex, race, Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, marital status, and educational attainment, 2008 annual averages

Average hours per day spent in primary activities (2)  

                               House   Care1   Care2    Work     Edu     Sum  
Men, 15 years and over......    1.30     .36     .18    4.52     .30    6.66
Women, 15 years and over....    2.13     .70     .27    2.99     .52    6.61

Very obvious, the average man works more, while the average woman does more childcare and housework. In total not much of a difference (men working 3 minutes more).

A closer look.

                               House   Care1   Care2    Work     Edu     Sum 
Marital status and sex:
 Married, spouse present....    2.01     .76     .23    4.06     .10    7.16
  Men.......................    1.50     .55     .18    4.94     .06    7.23
  Women.....................    2.53     .97     .29    3.16     .15    7.10
 Other marital statuses.....    1.40     .27     .22    3.35     .90    6.14
  Men.......................    1.05     .12     .19    3.98     .88    6.22
  Women.....................    1.70     .41     .25    2.82     .91    6.09

Again we have a small difference with a little bit more workload for men. One could argue that I should have taken "Purchasing goods and services" into account which of course includes buying groceries for the family. While this is true I could argue that his also includes personal shoppings, nail, tanning and hair salons, which, taking a wild guess here, women spend more time with than men. But before we start bickering about numbers, even when we include them in total the difference is between 11-12 minutes this time with slightly more workload for women.

I have seen another take on this issue. Sometimes an analysis focuses on leisure time and we see men having more leisure time than women. This is true for this survey as well. Now we know there is not that much of a difference when it comes to the daily grind. So why do women have less leisure time? A look at the other columns:

Personal - Personal care activities
Shop - Purchasing goods and services
Eat - Eating and drinking
Org - Organisational, civic and religious activities
Tele - Telephon calls, mails and e-mails
Leisure - Leisure and sports

Average hours per day spent in primary activities (2)  

                          Personal   Eat  Shop   Org  Tele Other  Leisure   Sum
Men, 15 years and over......  9.22  1.28   .60   .30   .14   .17  5.52    17.23
Women, 15 years and over....  9.55  1.18   .92   .37   .28   .24  4.86    17.40

Marital status and sex:
 Married, spouse present....  9.11  1.32   .82   .40   .16   .21  4.81    16.83
  Men.......................  8.92  1.39   .65   .38   .10   .17  5.17    16.78
  Women.....................  9.31  1.26   .99   .43   .22   .25  4.44    16.90
 Other marital statuses.....  9.71  1.12   .71   .26   .27   .19  5.60    17.86
  Men.......................  9.61  1.15   .54   .20   .18   .16  5.96    17.80
  Women.....................  9.81  1.10   .85   .31   .35   .22  5.30    17.94

Time differences here between 7 and 10 minutes. Also we can see that difference in leisure time is not a result of unfair distribution of work. Interestingly the above confirms many stereotypes. Men spend more time eating and doing sports and other leisure activities, while women take more time for personal care, shopping, chatting with others as well as religious and civic activities. Of course one can again argue that shopping doesn't belong in there as grocery shopping can be considered housework, but then again, the difference is just a few minutes.

In conclusion we can say, besides the myths, men and women in the USA are able to share their workload fairly. While of course there will be male couch potatoes and overworked wifes (as well as the other way round), this is not true for the average couple.

Men vs Women.....who works more?

Another mesh up of interesting articles for all those who heard the myth as well that women work far more than men. But what does the data say?

Quote:

Couch Entitlement Surprise—men do just as much work as women do. By Joel Waldfogel Everyone from economists and sociologists to Oprah knows that women work more than men. Their longer combined hours, at the home and at the office, stop men from taking afternoon naps on the couch and cause fights that end with men spending nights on the couch. And yet according to new study, those longer hours are a myth, because it's just not true that women carry a heavier load. Three economists, Michael Burda of Humboldt University in Berlin, Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas, and Philippe Weil of the Free University of Brussels have analyzed data from surveys in 25 countries that ask people how they spend their time. Some of the countries are rich, like the United States and Germany, some are poor, like Benin and Madagascar, and some are in the middle, like Hungary, Mexico, and Slovenia. The people surveyed were asked to fill in diaries indicating how they spend each segment of their day. The 24 hours we all have each day can be divided into four broad activities: "market work" that is, work for pay, typically outside the house; "homework," including housework and child care; "tertiary time," including sleep, eating, and other biological necessities that people can do only for themselves; and the time left over, which is leisure. Leisure is not essential to survival, but we like it. Throughout the world, men spend more time on market work, while women spend more time on homework. In the United States and other rich countries, men average 5.2 hours of market work a day and 2.7 hours of homework each day, while women average 3.4 hours of market work and 4.5 hours of homework per day. Adding these up, men work an average of 7.9 hours per day, while women work an average of—drum roll, please—7.9 hours per day. This is the first major finding of the new study. Whatever you may have heard on The View, when these economists accounted for market work and homework, men and women spent about the same amount of time each day working. The averages sound low because they include weekends and are based on a sample of adults that included stay-at-home parents as well as working ones, and other adults. In Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands, men actually work more than women, although the differences are small. In Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and the United Kingdom, women work slightly more, though less than 5 percent. Among rich countries, the largest differences emerge in Italy, where women work eight hours while men work only 6.5, and in France, where women work 7.2 hours and men 6.6. A couple of caveats to all this newfound equality. First, many knowledgeable people believe that women work more. In a survey by the authors of this study, 54 percent of economists and 62 percent of economics students thought that women work more than men, as did more than 70 percent of sociologists. And while the gender equal-work phenomenon has been noted before, "it has been swamped by claims in widely circulated sociological studies … that women's total work significantly exceeds men's," as the authors put it. Although men in many rich countries do not work less than women, they do enjoy about 20 to 30 minutes more leisure per day (over an hour more in Italy) because they spend less time on sleep and other biological necessities. Men spend almost all of this additional leisure time watching television. While men and women spend about the same time working in rich countries, women do work more than men in poor countries. And the gap widens as countries get poorer. While in the United States, which has a per capita GNP of roughly $33,000, there is no difference between the amount of male and female work, in Benin, Madagascar, and South Africa, which have a per capita income of less than $10,000, women work one to two hours more per day than men. So, what explains the difference in the time that men and women spend working in richer vs. poorer countries? It's not a matter of women leveraging their greater earnings in places where they can earn more than men. Alas, there are no such places, and women do not reap greater market rewards in the countries where women work the most relative to men. The authors of the new study instead think that a social norm explains men and women in rich countries pitch in to the same degree. For both men and women, number of hours of combined market work and homework varies among different regions in the United States. But the male-female work gap remains small everywhere in the country, and in this the authors see evidence of a general equality norm. For example, while people in the South work an average of 7.7 hours per day in and out of the home, and people in the East work eight hours (a daily difference of 20 minutes), the difference between the amount of time that men and women work, again in and out of the home, is only two minutes in the East and 10 minutes in the South. Similar patterns hold when you divide the data by level of education. The most educated quarter of the American population works a combined 8.7 hours, while the lowest educated quarter works 6.3 hours—a difference of more than two hours per day. But when you compare men and women in each education bracket, the difference in their total work is no more than 20 minutes. Many women with demanding careers tell me that it is women working full-time in the market, not women overall, who work more than comparable men. This study cannot settle that question because it does not report work time separately for people with and without market jobs. But if women with careers work more than men, while women overall work the same amount as men, then women without market jobs must work less than men. Men can use that argument to hit the couch in the afternoon. Or to end up there at night.

- from here

Quote:

New Survey Confirms Men Do Fair Share of Household Work By Glenn Sacks Men are doing at least as much household work as women, according to a new survey conducted by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR), the world's largest academic survey and research organization. The recently released study shows that women do an average of 27 hours of housework a week, compared to 16 hours a week for men. Balanced against this, however, is the study's less-publicized finding that the average man spends 14 hours a week more on the job than the average woman. Thus men's overall contribution to the household is actually slightly higher than women's. In fact, studies conducted by the ISR and others have found that rough equality between the workloads shouldered by men and women has existed for at least four decades. Gender issues author Warren Farrell says that these findings belie the misconception that our era is that of "the second shift woman and the shiftless man." As Farrell notes, negative references to men and housework litter our popular culture. "The Myth of Male Housework: For Women, Toil Looms From Sun to Sun" wrote one major publication, over a cartoon depicting a woman juggling (and struggling) with a baby, a roasted turkey, and a house pet, while her husband watches TV and "juggles" his beer and his potato chips. Other major publications have highlighted women's burdens under headlines such as "For Women, Having It All May Mean Doing It All," and "The Trouble with Men," with one even commenting, "A woman's work is never done, a man is drunk from sun to sun." According to Farrell, the idea of the "second shift woman and the shiftless man" was brought into vogue in part by UC Berkeley professor Arlie Hochschild's best-selling 1989 book The Second Shift. In it she wrote (and much of the media uncritically repeated) that "women work an extra month of 24 hour days each year." But Hochschild's research and conclusions were deeply flawed. For the most part she compared the housework burdens of full-time employed males with those of part-time employed females, portraying men working 50 hour weeks as lazy and selfish for not doing as much housework as their wives who were working a 20 hour week. Hochschild also claimed that men did no more housework in the late 1980s than in the pre-feminist era, but, with one minor exception, she used data on male housework from studies done in the pre-feminist era, rendering it worthless. In addition, the book also defined "housework" to include chores usually done by women, ignoring most of the household tasks generally done by men. The "second shift" myth also stems from the idea that today both husband and wife work what is presumed to be a 40 hour week, but when both go home at five, the woman does housework and the man does little. Gloria Steinem, in fact, says that in today's economy men have one job, but women have two. In reality, while some couples' economic lives conform to the 40-40 model, the average full-time employed man works eight hours a week more than the full-time employed woman, women are four times as likely as men to work part-time, and women are much more likely than men to be full-time homemakers. Housework burdens naturally reflect this. Feminists correctly note that, as a general rule, both men and women list housework as one of their least enjoyable tasks and, since women do more housework than men, this shifts the advantage to men. However, while people may not enjoy cooking or folding the laundry in and of themselves, they are usually much happier at home and in casual dress (and perhaps talking on the phone or watching TV while they work), than they are in a supervised and regimented work environment. Also, while housework may seem like drudgery compared to middle-class white collar jobs, it doesn't when compared to blue collar or "pink collar" work. In addition, both the ISR survey and The Second Shift count only hours worked, without noting the special contributions of men who do dangerous and physically demanding work. Of the 25 most dangerous jobs listed by the US Department of Labor, men comprise at least 90% of the labor force in all of them. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, nearly 50 American workers are injured every minute of the 40-hour work week, and every day 17 die--16 of them male. Despite the withering criticism men have endured, it is clear that men are doing their fair share in the home, and have been since before the feminist era.

- from here

Quote:

The report, released Thursday by the Council on Contemporary Families, summarizes several recent studies on family dynamics. One found that men's contribution to housework had doubled over the past four decades; another found they tripled the time spent on child care over that span. "More couples are sharing family tasks than ever before, and the movement toward sharing has been especially significant for full-time dual-earner couples," the report says. "Men and women may not be fully equal yet, but the rules of the game have been profoundly and irreversibly changed." _In the U.S., time-use diary studies show that since the '60s, men's contribution to housework doubled from about 15 percent to more than 30 percent of the total. Over the same period, the average working mother reduced her weekly housework load by two hours. _Between 1965 and 2003, men tripled the amount of time they spent on child care. During the same period, women also increased the time spent with their children, suggesting mutual interest in a more hands-on approach to child-raising. Sullivan and Coltrane predict men's contributions will increase further as more women take jobs.

- from here

Quote:

Women aspire to be housewives - without any of the housework Mothers are rejecting equality in the workplace and prefer the idea of becoming full-time housewives - but not ones who actually do housework. This is the overall conclusion of research among 2,100 British adults that says women are happy to abandon the workplace but not if it means spending all day at home cooking, cleaning and looking after children. Instead they want to play the "role" of housewife with a little help from, for instance, a nanny, and someone who does the ironing. And unlike Kylie Minogue, they don't want to do any dusting either. The report, by Marian Salzman, chief strategic officer of Euro RSCG Worldwide, the world's fifth largest advertising agency, describes these women as princess-style "domestic divas" who effectively exploit their husbands. "Today, 'women's lib' means wanting to be liberated from the intense pressures of the modern-day working mum," she said. "And what we're seeing is a serious gender divide regarding women in the workplace. This time around, it is the women who want to stay at home and the men who want to keep them in the offices and factories." [...] Yesterday she said 69 per cent of women thought it perfectly acceptable for females to be housewives and not to earn a salary. In contrast, only 48 per cent of men felt that women should remain outside paid employment. Her research suggested that the motivation to spend more time at home was "self-centred" for some women. "There are many women who choose to stay home out of concern for their children's quality of life," she said. "But there are plenty of others who are paying lip service to being the 2004 version of the perfect mum. "In reality they are domestic divas who want the flawless kids, courtesy of the nanny; a spotless home, thanks to a cleaning service; and a reputation for being a fabulously put-together homemaker. "These are the women who are becoming a target of disdain and rage on the part of spouses who didn't expect to be shouldering the financial burden single-handedly." She said she was not talking about mothers with very young children but those whose offspring were older and in full-time education. "My two closest friends are stay-at-home women and I have no idea what they do all day. One of them has a daughter at university and a second daughter at high school." Jill Kirby, the chairman of the family group at the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, said: "It's very clear that women who have the choice between working and being at home with their children still want to prioritise their home life and life with their children." She denied claims that women who wanted to be at home were often lazy, with their reliance on paid help. "We can't create a world where people just do what they want," she said, "but women do need fulfilment." [...] But Miss Salzman said the reality was that women with older children were increasingly becoming self-indulgent. "They look at the realities of paid work - the stress, the politics, the pressure, the dress code - and they say that it would mean less 'me' time. "And we are not just talking about women who earn lots of money. Women who earn £27,500, or £55,000, or more than £55,000 did not want to work, and men are feeling a great deal of financial pressure. "Women think: 'What's mine is mine, and what's his is mine.' "

- from here

And another myth goes down...

When men do better it is because of discrimination - when women do, it is superiority

A good article:

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World coming to an end: Women disproportionately affected! Inequalities in income and household chores disappear when you account for a few relevant facts. So why all the feminist clamour? Grant Brown - August 15, 2008 A female colleague liked to tell the following joke: Q: Why are women so poor at judging distances? A: Because all of our lives we have been told that this [holding her index finger and thumb 1½ inches apart] is six inches. That’s okay; men have a sense of humour. We can laugh at ourselves. But by the same token, many men wonder why women have such a poor grasp of equality. I think it’s because all of their mollycoddled lives women have been told they have been oppressed. They are so used to being put on a pedestal and complimented and sheltered from harm or disappointment, that they have no idea what life in the real world is like for most men. I say this only half-jokingly. Feminism is the theory that men and women are equal in every respect--except for those in which women are superior. The trick is to interpret every social indicator as though it demonstrates arbitrary male privilege or genuine female superiority. Fortunately, a little bit of ignorance is all it takes to accomplish this feat.   For example, when studies show that girls perform less well than boys at advanced math, it is due to systemic discrimination in favour of boys; but when the same studies show that boys’ under-performance in the language arts is four times as great as that of girls in math, well that is due to girls’ innate superiority. Government bureaucracies whose role it is to promulgate these attitudes have been entrenched for a generation now, so it comes as second nature to most people these days. Two favourite analyses in this vein that the public is treated to every year illustrate this mentality perfectly. One relates to the “gender wage gap;” the other to the division of household labour. I will briefly critique the standard shortcomings of these types of analyses presently; first, I wish to show how they illustrate the theme of my joke. Studies of the gender wage gap show year after year that full-time employed women earn on average only 70 to 75 cents for every dollar earned by full-time employed men. The conclusion we are inevitably invited to accept is that men discriminate against women in employment and we need stronger laws to improve wages in female-dominated sectors of the economy. Studies of the division of household labour show year after year that women spend on average an hour or two per week more than men doing household chores. The conclusion we are inevitably invited to accept is that lazy men are not pulling their weight in the home. Admittedly, when you add up time spent on work both inside and outside the home, the gender differences in time spent on work disappear. Thus there is no significant difference in the amount of discretionary or “leisure” time enjoyed by men and women. But somehow we are left with the impression that self-sacrificing women are getting a raw deal. Of course, an equally valid interpretation of these studies would conclude that lazy women are sitting at home watching soap operas and eating bon-bons while pushing around a feather duster or rocking a cradle, instead of getting out and pulling their weight in the paid workforce. That’s just silly, of course; but why isn’t the ubiquitous feminist spin seen as equally silly? Surely any fair-minded person would realize with a moment’s thought that there is no useful artillery in these studies for the battle of the sexes. All they demonstrate is that the traditional division of labour between men and women persists to a degree in our society. Women continue to be more likely to stay at home and look after the children for a period of time; and men continue to be more likely to intensify their efforts in paid employment after marriage and especially after having children. As long as women choose older men who are higher on their career earnings path, this will be the most rational way to divide their labour. In fact, this is precisely what the studies show, when looked at carefully. It has been said that the gender wage gap is not a measure of discrimination; it is a measure of ignorance. The more you know about the determinants of income, the smaller the gender wage gap becomes, to the point of insignificance. Controlling only for crude time factors--number of hours worked per week, weeks worked per year, and years worked in a career--will account for all but about five or ten percentage points in the gender wage gap in most occupations. Willingness to travel, and to relocate for a promotion, are also important. So is field of work, educational qualifications, and--importantly--risk of injury or death. About 95 per cent of occupational deaths in Canada occur to men; even if that isn’t an employment opportunity you want to see equalized, at least concede men a risk premium for the kind of work that makes that statistic a reality. Another way to illustrate that there is nothing insidious about the gender wage gap is to remove from the analysis the effects of marriage and children by comparing the earnings of single men to single women. There you will find no differences, or even differences favouring women--in large part because women are now entering most professional schools at higher rates than men. Even though women now outnumber men in those entering many professions--law, medicine, veterinary, ophthalmology, etc.--it will take a generation for attrition to equalize their numbers and their earning differentials due to age and experience. (Meanwhile, what is being done to reinvigorate boys to pursue these professions in school in numbers equal to girls? Sadly, nothing.) Studies on the division of household labour are also subject to a number of criticisms. For one thing, they tend to ignore chores that are characteristically done by men, such as family transportation and home repairs. This is especially true of jobs that are required only periodically, such as shingling the roof, putting up a deck or fence, or changing the timing belt for the car. Methodologies that focus on relatively short time-frames--“In the past week, how much time did you spend on each of the following activities?”--will miss a lot of the major household maintenance jobs that men do. More philosophically: Women get credit for time spent making dinner; but if a man puts in overtime or gets a bonus and uses the earned income to take the family out for dinner and a movie, does he get credit for the time saved on these household chores? If men do half of the housework that they consider to be necessary, and women put in extra time to bring the place up to what they consider to be ideal, should women get credit for the extra time they choose to spend on housework? How do you account for hobbies that also benefit the home: quilting, gardening, car restoration, woodworking, etc.? Classifying something as “personal interest” or “household chore” is often a subjective matter. Equality is an elusive concept, but men and women will get along a lot better when women cease to be encouraged to tout every tendentious social indicator as a sign of their oppression. The “poor me syndrome” wears thin after a while. To cite the title of Cathy Young’s very helpful book on the gender wars, “Ceasefire!”

- from here

Very well put and really nothing more to add.