Spousal age gap and identity and their impact on the allocation of housework

This study investigates how spousal age gaps influence the allocation of housework between husbands and wives. Further, we consider the identity formed as a result of respondents’ family backgrounds by exploring the effects of the age gaps between the respondents’ parents. We collected an individual-level panel dataset for 3 years through monthly surveys, covering the periods before and after marriage. All respondents were not married at the initial period when they participated in the survey, but got married during the study period. After controlling for individual- and time period-fixed effects, the key findings are as follows: (1) after marriage, relatively older women tend to become burdened with a larger amount of housework; (2) women with relatively older mothers tend to assume a larger allocation of the housework; and (3) these age gaps hardly affect the men’s allocation of housework, although men with a mother working full time at age 15 assume a larger allocation of housework.