European couples’ division of domestic labor: The role of work from home and gender

Despite the growing participation of women in the labor market, the division of housework and childcare within couples remains unequal, with women continuing to shoulder the larger share. The rise of working from home (WFH) during the COVID-19 pandemic has been seen as both an opportunity and a risk: it may promote gender equality by allowing women to balance paid and unpaid work better and encouraging men’s involvement in domestic tasks, but it may also reinforce inequality if women increase their share of unpaid labor while men focus more on paid work. The mixed findings in the literature may reflect differences in national contexts, as most studies rely on single-country analyses. This study examines how WFH is associated with the division of housework and childcare among dual-earner couples in nine European countries. It advances previous research in three ways. First, it looks at the post-pandemic period. Second, it focuses on couple-level WFH arrangements, capturing whether one, both, or neither partner works from home. Third, it considers both cross-national variation and individual gender role attitudes, recognizing that national and cultural contexts shape how WFH influences the division of labor. The analysis uses data from the second round of the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS-II), a cross-national representative study launched in 2020. The sample includes dual-earner couples aged 25–59 in Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK, Estonia, and Croatia. We apply linear regression analyses to each country separately and the pooled sample with country fixed effects, controlling for partners’ working conditions, education, age, and household composition. Preliminary results show that WFH is widespread: in 40% of couples, both partners work from home, in 19% only he does, in 18% only she does, and in 24% neither does. When only women WFH, childcare is divided less equally, while when only men WFH, it is shared more equally. Gender ideology matters primarily for housework: among traditional women working from home, the division is most unequal, whereas equality improves when both partners WFH and the man holds egalitarian views. Overall, WFH has the potential to foster a more equal division of housework and childcare, but traditional gender ideologies might hinder these outcomes.