Patrick Ishizuka, Washington University St Louis, “The Stalled Gender Housework Revolution in the United States”
March 11, 2026 @ 12:00 pm - 1:15 pm PDT
Biography: Patrick Ishizuka is a sociologist and demographer who uses quantitative and experimental methods to understand gender and socioeconomic inequality in the workplace and in family life. His recent projects examine trends in gender housework inequality, the shifting economic foundations of marriage among cohabiting couples, and parenting attitudes toward adolescents who transgress norms relating to gender expression, identity, and sexuality. His research has been published in Demography, Social Forces, and Social Science Research and has been featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Ishizuka’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Mathematica Policy Research, and Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences.
The Stalled Gender Housework Revolution in the United States
Abstract: Prior studies have documented a declining but persistent gender gap in housework since the 1960s, with women’s housework time declining more than men’s has increased. Yet gender scholars differ in their assessment of these trends and their significance for understanding the extent and pace of gendered change in families. Using individual-level longitudinal data from the 1976–2019 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this study aims to address a theoretical impasse on the status of the gender revolution by asking whether housework has become fundamentally degendered over time. Using two novel indicators of degendering, I argue that gendered identities, cultural frames, and gender performance remain far more important in determining gender housework inequality than differences in men’s and women’s observed characteristics.
