Paternal Domestic Labor Redistribution
RCTClinical Trial
In traditional societies, caregiving and domestic tasks fall disproportionately on women, restricting their available hours for income-generating employment. Male family members rarely contribute to household chores due to social stigma and entrenched domestic roles.
Picture this
Imagine a two-person team where one person is solely responsible for cooking and cleaning while the other only works outside. When the first person takes on paid work, the second person steps in to handle basic household tasks so the home continues to function.
What the evidence says
Children whose mothers were assigned any job were 9 percentage points more likely to report that their fathers helped with cooking, cleaning, and childcare, representing a 16 percent relative increase over the 58 percent control group mean.
- Who was studied
- Male spouses across 1,670 households in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
- How
- Randomized controlled intervention measuring reported paternal household contribution rates 10 weeks post-intervention relative to a 420-household control group.
What to do
Incorporate household time-use tracking into female labor interventions to measure shifts in male caregiving and domestic task sharing.
From the source
"Children whose mothers were assigned to any job were also 9 percentage points more likely to report that their fathers ever helped with cooking, cleaning, and childcare, compared to 58 percent of fathers in the comparison group (a 16 percent increase)."
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