What Is Not Named, Does Not Exist: Determinants of Gender Inequality in Unpaid Household Work

Abstract

Household unpaid work (TNRH, for its initials in Spanish) has historically been delegated to women, and its contribution to economic development is not wellrecognized. The objective of this research is to explore the mitigating and aggravating factors of gender inequality in unpaid work, considering its interaction with three main axes: women’s education level, women paid work status, and spatial status (rural and urban). For this purpose, we use panel data from the Mexican Family and Life Survey (MxFLS 2002, 2005-2006, and 2009-2012) and two-way fixed effect regressions (TWFE). The findings indicate that urbanization implies mechanisms for the progress of gender roles in terms of the redistribution in the allocation of unpaid work between genders; although this is not enough to counteract the systematic burden of unpaid work for women, mainly aggravated by the presence of children at home. This inequality in household unpaid work persists even for higher levels of education, clearly manifesting itself in a double workday for women with paid jobs.