SmartUp Fact Sheet: Digital Care Gap at Home – Digital Housekeeping & Gender

Digital housekeeping—the management of smart technologies at home—is not gender-neutral. In different-sex households, men often assume the role of “tech experts,” controlling devices and systems related to energy, security, and entertainment. These tasks are closely tied to traditionally male-coded domains, reinforcing existing gender roles. Meanwhile, women are more likely to take a backseat in digital decision-making, often due to limited financial autonomy, time constraints, lower digital confidence, or lack of access to training. This digital care gap highlights how gender inequalities are reproduced in the digitalized home, calling for greater awareness and more inclusive approaches to digital skills and responsibilities. This Fact Sheet is part of the SMARTUP Project: Smart(ening up the modern) home – Redesigning power dynamics through domestic space digitalisation. The German, Czech, and Polish consortiums for this CHANSE project are funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research [grant number: 01UX2209], the Czech Academy of Sciences [grant number: 796], and the National Science Centre in Poland [grant number: 2021/03/Y/HS6/00250], respectively.