Relative Income, Remote-Work Availability, and the Gendered Division of Domestic Labor Among Full-Time Dual-Earner Couples in Japan

The expansion of remote work has increased flexibility over where paid work is performed, potentially creating new options for how dual-earner couples organize unpaid work. This study examines whether remote-work availability (RWA) is associated with within-couple differences in childcare and housework among full-time dual-earner couples in Japan, while considering both gender and spouses’ relative income positions. Using the 2019–2021 Japan Household Panel Survey/Keio Household Panel Survey, household-year fixed-effects models compare spouses within the same household-year. The clearest finding is a persistent gender difference: male spouses are substantially less likely than female spouses to report almost-daily involvement in both childcare and housework. RWA does not significantly moderate the relative-income difference in almost-daily childcare involvement. For housework, the main specifications provide some evidence that the relative-income difference is smaller when RWA is available, although this pattern is sensitive to alternative specifications and should be interpreted cautiously. Overall, the findings suggest that RWA is associated with limited and activity-specific differences in domestic task allocation rather than a broad restructuring of unpaid work within dual-earner couples.