Maaike van der Vleuten

Together with my colleague Ylva Moberg, I was interviewed for the BBC about why same-sex couples divide their tasks more equal than different sex couples across a diverse range of countries. 

This paper studies how male and female same-sex couples across countries organize their paid and household labor. Using unique data compiled from multiple national surveys in 7 western countries (N = 723), we examined same-sex couples’ paid and household task allocation and evaluate descriptively how this is associated with countries’ gender egalitarianism. For paid labor, results indicate that female same-sex couples spend less time in total on paid employment than male same-sex couples, but both male and female same-sex couples divide their hours of paid employment equally. For household labor, we find that female couples divide their household tasks more equally than male couples. Moreover, more gender egalitarian countries appear to be correlated to increasing differences between male and female same-sex couples’ total time spent on the labor market and to decreasing differences in how equal they divide their household labor. These findings suggest that larger, society-wide, gender regimes might be an important avenue for future research when studying same-sex couples paid and unpaid labor.

Based on their abilities, more girls could choose careers in science. But they don't, even though failing to do so means missing out on lucrative and prestigious careers with a high level of job security. So why do these talented girls still not go for those study programmes and what can we do about it?