Acceso usuarios
Haris Symeonidou
This article reports on research into the division of paid and unpaid work between men and women in the EU. The research was carried out in the framework of a relevant European Network initiated and coordinated by Tilburg University in which all the countries of the European Union have participated. However, fieldwork research was carried out in seven countries only. The theoretical framework adopted for the research was based on Bourdieu's Theory of Practice. Analysis of the data, which focused on couples with at least one child under the age of 7, shows that in these countries traditional gender roles still largely persist. Men continue to be the main breadwinners, while they spend on average about half the time women do on childcare and even less time on household chores. Moreover, a discrepancy is observed between men's positive attitudes towards sharing housework in theory and the non-division of housework in practice, while public policies have little or no effect on this situation.
