Can you spreadsheet your way to equal parenting? With Corinne Low

Corinne Low says American Time Use Survey data show that household labor remains unequally divided even though many people do not recognize the disparity. She recommends tracking actual care work—including less visible tasks such as scheduling appointments and responding to children at night—to compare practice with a couple’s intended division.

Low argues that fathers’ increased childcare relative to their own fathers has not closed the gender gap, in part because mothers’ parenting time has also risen. She attributes the broader rise in parenting time to greater awareness of early-childhood development and competitive pressure around elite college admissions and scarce knowledge-economy jobs.

Low says earning power often shapes the division of care in same-sex couples, but in heterosexual couples with a female breadwinner, women still do more childcare and housework; even when women earn four times as much, men do about as little housework as in male-breadwinner households. She also says women continue to do more childcare when they earn more, which can mean a household forgoes income if a higher-earning woman takes on more care instead of paid work.