Flexible Work Policies and the Division of Housework and Childcare in German Cohabiting Couples

Abstract Flexible working arrangements have become increasingly common and are considered a means to better reconcile paid and unpaid work. Therefore, the use of such measures can determine how couples divide their household and childcare tasks. While currently these tasks are dominantly female connotated, an increase in flexible work arrangements may contribute to a more gender-egalitarian distribution of unpaid work. However, empirical evidence on this association is mixed, and it remains unclear to what extent it differs by gender. Using a sample of 3244 individuals in the German Family Panel of 2018/2019 who were cohabiting with an opposite-sex partner and by applying linear regression models, we tested several hypotheses derived from economic, gender, and time-availability approaches. We separately addressed the division of housework and childcare tasks related to three flexible work measures, namely home-office, schedule flexibility, and working-time autonomy. Contrary to our hypotheses, no flexibility measure seemed to be related to a higher share of household tasks. Rather, any significant association we identified was fully explained through gender: Women took on a larger share of any household task, irrespective of their work flexibility. Only the share of childcare performed seemed to differ by the use of schedule flexibility, as well as by gender. Whereas mothers’ contributions to childcare were larger when they used flexibility, those of fathers were smaller. We conclude that flexible working arrangements do not contribute to a more gender-egalitarian division of unpaid work per se, but the (gendered) motivation to use such flexibility may be decisive.