Educational attainment and housework participation among Japanese, Taiwanese, and American women across adult life transitions

ABSTRACT We investigate the association between women’s educational levels and housework participation across cultural contexts and through different stages in the life-course. In testing the suggestion from previous research that women with higher levels of education spend less time on housework than do women with less education, we found that this argument holds true for single women in Japan, Taiwan, and the United States. Our results also indicate that for all American women and for single and married Taiwanese women without children, their numbers of years of education correlate inversely with their daily hours of domestic labour; however, this correlation does not exist for married Taiwanese women with children. Similarly, the educational levels of married Japanese women—with or without children—have no bearing on their housework participation.