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By Jenni Fink
Senior Editor
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Being a working parent requires people to juggle both home and work life, but when it comes to who is shouldering the bulk of the responsibility for parenting and household chores, men and women see the division of labor very differently.
About half of two-parent households have both parents working full-time, meaning parents now share responsibility for caring for kids and the home more than when one parent stayed home. For many women, the burden of balancing home life with a career falls disproportionately on them, sparking conversations about how women are expected to navigate a 2026 career alongside expectations from an era when women could raise kids without also working.
A recent Pew Research survey found that 52 percent of full-time working parents think the mother does more of the day-to-day parenting tasks. Thirty-nine percent of working parents think that mom and dad share the load of parenting equally. When it comes to household chores, there’s a more even split, with 43 percent of full-time parents thinking the mom does more and 40 percent thinking moms and dads share the responsibility equally.
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However, the way that men and women see who’s doing more is different.
Who Does More Parenting?
Moms disproportionately think they take on the bulk of the parenting.
- Moms: 63 percent of working moms say they do more parenting, compared with just 30 percent who say duties are split evenly. Seven percent of moms think dads do more.
- Dads: 41 percent of dads say moms do more day‑to‑day parenting, while 47 percent say responsibilities are shared equally. Thirteen percent of dads think they do more of the day-to-day parenting duties
Who Takes Care of the House?
The gap between the responsibilities fathers think they’re taking on and what moms think they’re taking on is greater when it comes to the household chores.
- Moms: 63 percent of working moms say they carry most of it. Only 8 percent of moms think the dads do more.
- Dads: Only 25 percent of dads think moms do more housework—the same amount as the 25 percent of dads who think dads do more of the household chores.
- Differences on “equal” split: Half of dads say chores are shared equally, versus just 29 percent of moms—highlighting a major perception gap in household labor.
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Dads May Actually Want More Parenting Responsibility
With the perceived division of labor differing greatly between the sexes, satisfaction with how the duties are divided depends significantly on whether you ask working moms or working dads.
In terms of parenting duties, a vast majority of dads, at 90 percent, are satisfied with how they break up the duties, including 55 percent of dads being extremely satisfied.
A majority of moms are also satisfied, at 71 percent, but only 36 percent of moms are extremely satisfied.
That satisfaction drops for both sexes when it comes to household chores. Eighty-two percent of dads are satisfied with the division of household chores, with 49 percent being extremely satisfied. Sixty-four percent of women are satisfied, with 26 percent of those women being extremely satisfied.
More men and women are dissatisfied with the division of household chores, with 36 percent of women not satisfied and 18 percent of men not satisfied.
It’s possible that working dads actually would prefer to share more of the parenting duties. Of the dads who share the tasks equally with their partner, 71 percent say they’re satisfied with the arrangement. But, only 45 percent of dads who say their partner does more are satisfied.
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