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3 November 2026

19 Pages

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

College of International Management, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Beppu 874-8577, Japan
Societies2026, 16(11), 385;https://doi.org/10.3390/soc16110385
This article belongs to the Special Issue Gender Differences in the Labour Market and Household Behaviour
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Abstract

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.

1. Introduction

The expansion of remote work raises a broader question about household behavior: when paid work becomes less tied to the conventional workplace, does the allocation of unpaid work within couples also differ? This question is particularly relevant for full-time dual-earner couples, in which both spouses maintain substantial market-work commitments while childcare and housework may remain strongly divided by gender and relative economic position. Japan provides an informative setting. In 2021, among dual-income couples with children under age six, wives accounted for 77.4% of the spouses’ combined time spent on housework and related domestic activities [1], while flexible work arrangements, including telework, have been promoted as a means of combining employment with housework and childcare [1].
Within dual-earner couples, domestic allocation may reflect both spouses’ relative economic positions and persistent gender differences. Stronger labor-market opportunities may increase the opportunity cost of unpaid work [2,3], while gender norms and established household responsibilities may limit adjustment to relative economic resources [4,5]. Remote-work availability may further alter the constraints surrounding unpaid work, but its implications may differ between childcare and housework [6,7,8].
Despite growing evidence on remote work and unpaid domestic labor, less is known about whether remote-work availability is associated with within-couple differences linked to spouses’ relative economic positions, particularly among full-time dual-earner couples. This study examines whether relative-income differences in childcare and housework vary with remote-work availability (RWA), while accounting for persistent gender differences within couples.
The analysis uses the 2019–2021 Japan Household Panel Survey and Keio Household Panel Survey (JHPS/KHPS) and focuses on married couples in which both spouses work at least 35 h per week. Household-year fixed effects compare spouses within the same household-year while absorbing circumstances shared by both spouses. The outcomes are almost-daily childcare and housework involvement. Because remote-work availability and usage are not randomly assigned, the estimates are interpreted as conditional associations rather than causal effects.
The results show substantial within-couple gender differences in both childcare and housework. RWA does not significantly moderate the relative-income pattern in childcare. For housework, the higher-earner × RWA interaction appears in the main specifications but is sensitive to alternative specifications and should therefore be interpreted cautiously. By combining a within-couple design with separate measures of childcare, housework, and remote-work status, the study shows that the association between workplace flexibility and domestic allocation is limited and activity-specific rather than indicative of a broad restructuring of unpaid work.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Relative Income, Gender, and Domestic Labor

A large literature in economics conceptualizes domestic work as part of household time allocation. Becker’s [2] theory of time allocation and Gronau’s [3] model of home production distinguish market work, household production, and leisure, and imply that the market wage represents an opportunity cost of time spent in unpaid domestic work. From this perspective, spouses with higher market earnings or stronger labor-market opportunities may devote relatively less time to unpaid household production. This framework provides an economic rationale for expecting higher-earning spouses to report lower involvement in housework and childcare.
Related research likewise shows that market earnings and unpaid household production are jointly related: family responsibilities may affect labor-market investment and earnings, while stronger labor-market opportunities may raise the opportunity cost of domestic work [9,10,11,12,13]. These relationships reinforce the close connection between economic position and unpaid work without implying a single causal direction. Family responsibilities also remain closely linked to gender differences in labor-market outcomes [14,15,16].
Economic resources, however, do not mechanically determine the division of domestic labor. Gender norms may condition how couples respond to relative income. Bertrand et al. [4] show that wives who earn more than their husbands do not necessarily perform less housework, highlighting the role of gender identity in household production. Evidence from Japan points in a similar direction: Zhang [5] finds that a higher relative income for the wife is associated with a more equal division of housework, but that this relationship is weaker among couples with more traditional gender-role attitudes. Relative income may therefore reflect opportunity costs and bargaining resources while operating within gendered expectations about household responsibilities.
Evidence from Japan also indicates that household production responds to economic incentives. Muroga [17] finds that married women increased market work and reduced household-production time following an exogenous reduction in their tax burden. Together with evidence on relative income and housework sharing [5], this suggests that both economic incentives and gender norms are relevant to domestic labor allocation in Japan.
These considerations are particularly relevant for full-time dual-earner couples, where both spouses face substantial paid-work commitments. The present study therefore examines gender and relative economic position jointly and asks whether the association between relative income and childcare or housework involvement differs with remote-work availability.

2.2. Flexible Work, Remote Work, and Household Time Allocation

Flexible-work arrangements may alter the household division of labor by changing the spatial and temporal constraints attached to paid employment. Remote work can reduce commuting requirements and change where paid work is performed, potentially affecting the feasibility and opportunity cost of engaging in unpaid domestic activities. Greater flexibility in work location may therefore influence how workers allocate time between paid employment and childcare or housework.
Pabilonia and Vernon [18] show that working from home is associated with changes in time allocation among full-time workers, including commuting, family time, and household production. In subsequent couple-level analysis, Pabilonia and Vernon [7] show that paid work, chores, and childcare are associated with the joint work-location arrangements of both partners. These findings suggest that the domestic implications of remote work may depend not only on an individual’s own work arrangement but also on that of the spouse.
The implications of remote work for gender equality in unpaid labor are nevertheless ambiguous. Greater presence at home may reduce the spatial and time costs of participating in routine domestic tasks, including for men, but flexible work may also reproduce existing gendered expectations if women disproportionately absorb additional caregiving and household responsibilities. Chung and van der Lippe [19] emphasize that these consequences depend on household, organizational, and national contexts. Carlson et al. [20] further show that the association between fathers’ remote work and childcare participation may depend on gender ideology, with stronger positive associations among fathers holding more egalitarian attitudes. More recently, Cao and Wang [21] show that the relationship between flexible-work arrangements and housework among dual-earner couples depends on the combination of gender ideologies held by both spouses. Evidence from the COVID-19 period documents persistent gender differences in paid and unpaid work across telecommuting arrangements [22,23,24].
Childcare and housework may also respond differently to workplace flexibility. Chung and Booker [6] show that associations between flexible-working arrangements and domestic labor differ across childcare and housework, while Gupta et al. [8] find that women’s paid-work hours are more strongly negatively associated with housework than with childcare. Childcare is often tied to children’s schedules and immediate care needs, whereas at least some housework can be postponed or reorganized around paid-work schedules. Remote work may therefore be associated differently with these two forms of unpaid activity.
Recent evidence from Japan also points to heterogeneous gendered responses to working from home. Inoue et al. [25] find that greater WFH increases men’s housework and family involvement, while Okubo [26] documents gender-specific reallocations of time under WFH, and Sakuragi et al. [27] report substantial gender differences in housework and childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic even after accounting for telecommuting frequency and other work-related characteristics. These studies primarily examine individual time allocation or gender differences in domestic work, whereas the present study asks more specifically whether relative-income differences within couples vary with remote-work availability.
Taken together, the literature suggests that remote work may relax constraints on domestic involvement without necessarily producing a more equal division of unpaid work. Its associations may depend on gender, spouses’ relative economic positions, the work arrangements of both partners, and whether the activity considered is childcare or housework. This motivates the present study’s within-couple analysis of gender and relative-income differences in domestic involvement and of whether the relative-income difference varies with remote-work availability. Supplementary analysis also considers remote-work availability jointly across spouses.

2.3. Policy Availability Versus Usage Experience

A further issue in the flexible-work literature is the distinction between policy availability and usage experience. The existence of a remote-work policy does not necessarily imply that workers use it, and reported usage reflects more than formal access alone. Kossek et al. [28] distinguish formal telecommuting policies, actual telecommuting practice, and workers’ perceived control over work boundaries, while Allen et al. [29] show that work–family outcomes vary with how flexibility is defined and measured. Formal access and realized use should therefore be treated as distinct dimensions of workplace flexibility.
Actual use of remote work may depend on job tasks, managerial expectations, workplace norms, career concerns, and household circumstances. Chung [30] shows that flexibility stigma may discourage workers from using flexible arrangements when such use is perceived as signaling lower commitment, while Leslie et al. [31] show that career consequences may depend on how managers interpret employees’ motives for using flexibility. van der Lippe and Lippényi [32] further show that the work–family implications of working from home depend on organizational context. Consequently, reported policy availability may capture broader job and workplace characteristics even when the arrangement is not used.
This distinction can be examined directly in the JHPS/KHPS because the survey differentiates between the availability of a remote-work system and reported experience of using it. I therefore distinguish among no remote-work policy, policy-only availability, and remote-work usage experience. This allows the analysis to examine whether associations with domestic involvement are concentrated in formal availability or reported usage experience. Because the usage measure records experience of remote work rather than its frequency, duration, or intensity, it should not be interpreted as a measure of current or regular working from home. Neither category is treated as a causal exposure.

3. Data, Variables, and Empirical Strategy

3.1. Data and Sample

This study uses the 2019–2021 waves of the Japan Household Panel Survey and Keio Household Panel Survey (JHPS/KHPS). The analysis focuses on married full-time dual-earner couples in which both spouses are currently employed and each reports working at least 35 h per week. This restriction yields 1749 household-year observations.
For the empirical analysis, each household-year is reshaped into two spouse-year observations, one for each spouse, yielding a base sample of 3498 spouse-years. The spouse-year is the unit of observation in the regression analysis. This structure preserves spouse-specific information on income, work arrangements, and domestic involvement. Household-year fixed effects absorb circumstances shared by both spouses in the same couple and survey year, so the estimated associations are based on within-household-year differences between spouses. Actual estimation samples are smaller where spouse-specific variables are missing.
The main analysis uses 2019–2021. Because the 2021 wave coincides with a period of government promotion of telework during the COVID-19 pandemic [33], supplementary analyses compare 2019–2020 with 2021. Additional robustness checks extend the sample through 2023. These comparisons are descriptive rather than causal estimates of pandemic effects.

3.2. Variables

The main outcomes are indicators for almost-daily involvement in childcare and housework. The survey records each activity using five frequency categories ranging from “almost every day” to “never”; the indicators equal one for “almost every day” and zero otherwise. The respondent- and spouse-section measures are mapped to each spouse according to the respondent’s gender. Almost-daily involvement is used as the main outcome because reported time is recorded in different units depending on activity frequency, making a continuous measure dependent on additional conversion assumptions. Frequency scores and daily-equivalent hours are therefore examined as robustness measures.
Relative income is measured using an indicator equal to one when an individual reports higher annual income than the spouse. Because the income questions refer to the previous calendar year, this measure represents the spouse’s relative income position in the year preceding the survey wave. Equal-income couples are excluded from specifications using this indicator. A continuous individual share of couple income is used as an alternative measure in robustness analyses.
The principal workplace-flexibility measure is remote-work availability (RWA). Individuals are classified as having no remote-work policy, policy-only availability, or reported usage experience. The binary RWA indicator equals one for either policy-only availability or usage experience and zero for no policy. The three-category measure is also used to distinguish formal availability from reported use. Reported usage indicates experience of remote work but does not measure its frequency, duration, or intensity.
Schedule-based flexibility (SBF) identifies flex-time arrangements, discretionary or deemed working-hour systems, and positions without formal time management; regular working hours and shift or variable schedules form the reference category. Additional specifications control for the availability or use of short-time work and hourly or half-day leave. The regressions also include an indicator for commuting 30 min or more and an indicator for the male spouse.

3.3. Empirical Strategy

The main models are linear probability models estimated at the spouse-year level with household-year fixed effects. The fixed effects absorb circumstances shared by both spouses within a household-year, so identification comes from within-household-year differences between spouses. Standard errors are clustered at the household level to account for dependence between spouses and repeated observations across waves.
The baseline models relate domestic involvement to higher-earner status, gender, and commuting time. Subsequent specifications add RWA and its interaction with higher-earner status, followed by SBF and its corresponding interaction and the additional workplace-support measures. A supplementary specification replaces binary RWA with the three-category measure and estimates interactions for policy-only availability and reported usage, using no remote-work policy as the reference category. The interaction terms test whether the conditional association between relative-income position and domestic involvement differs across workplace-flexibility arrangements.
Because remote-work availability and usage are not randomly assigned and may reflect spouse-specific job characteristics, workplace environments, and occupational sorting, the estimates are interpreted as conditional associations rather than causal effects. Robustness and supplementary analyses examine alternative relative-income and domestic-work measures, self-completed questionnaires, the presence and age of listed children, additional spouse-specific age and job controls, alternative sample periods, conditional logit models, and couple-level RWA configurations.
Generative artificial intelligence was used during the preparation of this study. ChatGPT (OpenAI; multiple model versions, https://chatgpt.com/) was used for language editing, drafting assistance, coding and debugging suggestions, and assistance in reviewing the clarity and consistency of statistical interpretation. All analyses were performed and verified by the author, who reviewed and edited all AI-assisted outputs.

4. Results

4.1. Sample and Descriptive Patterns

Table 1 summarizes the construction of the analytical sample. The final sample contains 1749 full-time dual-earner household-years, corresponding to 3498 spouse-year observations. The regressions use spouse-years as the unit of observation and compare spouses within the same household-year using household-year fixed effects. Regression sample sizes vary across specifications because of missing information on the variables included in each model.
Table 1. Sample construction.
Descriptively, almost-daily childcare involvement is reported by 18.0% of male spouses and 34.0% of female spouses, while the corresponding figures for housework are 42.1% and 94.2%. Relative-income position is also strongly associated with gender: among spouse-year observations for which higher- or lower-earner status can be identified, 82.6% of male spouses and 17.4% of female spouses are classified as the higher-earning spouse. This strong overlap between gender and relative-income position should be kept in mind when interpreting the regression results below.

4.2. Almost-Daily Childcare Involvement

Table 2 shows the results from household-year fixed-effects models of almost-daily childcare involvement, beginning with the baseline specification and then sequentially adding RWA, SBF, and other workplace-support measures. In the baseline specification, the higher-earning-spouse coefficient is −0.053 and statistically significant at the 5% level, indicating a 5.3-percentage-point lower probability of almost-daily childcare involvement relative to the lower-earning spouse, conditional on the included covariates and household-year fixed effects. The male-spouse coefficient is −0.141 and statistically significant at the 1% level, indicating a substantial within-couple gender difference in childcare involvement.
Table 2. Almost-daily childcare involvement.
Columns (2)–(4) examine whether the relative-income association differs with workplace flexibility. The higher-earner × RWA interaction is small and statistically insignificant throughout, ranging from 0.025 to 0.044, and remains statistically insignificant in the full specification (0.028). The higher-earner × SBF interaction and the additional workplace-support indicators are also statistically insignificant. These estimates provide little evidence that the within-couple relative-income difference in almost-daily childcare involvement systematically varies with remote-work availability or the other flexible measures considered here.
By contrast, the male-spouse coefficient remains negative and statistically significant across all four specifications (−0.122 to −0.141), indicating a robust within-couple gender difference in almost-daily childcare involvement. The negative higher-earner association is evident in the simpler specifications but becomes less precisely estimated as additional workplace controls are introduced.

4.3. Almost-Daily Housework Involvement

Table 3 shows the corresponding results for almost-daily housework involvement using the same sequence of specifications. In the baseline specification, the higher-earning-spouse coefficient is −0.063 and is not statistically significant at the 5% level, whereas the male-spouse coefficient is −0.469 (p < 0.001), indicating a substantial within-couple gender difference.
Table 3. Almost-daily housework involvement.
Columns (2)–(4) examine whether the relative-income association differs with workplace flexibility. The higher-earner × RWA interaction is positive and statistically significant across all three specifications. However, because the main RWA coefficient is negative, the interaction should not be interpreted as indicating that RWA increases housework involvement among higher-earning spouses. In the full specification, the RWA coefficient for lower-earning spouses is −0.199 (p = 0.038), while the implied association for higher-earning spouses is approximately zero (−0.199 + 0.220 = 0.021).1 Thus, the negative RWA coefficient and the positive interaction approximately offset each other for higher-earning spouses. By contrast, the higher-earner × SBF interaction and the other workplace-flexibility indicators are statistically insignificant.
The male-spouse coefficient remains large, negative, and statistically significant across all specifications (−0.436 to −0.469), showing a persistent within-couple gender difference in housework involvement. Although the higher-earner × RWA interaction is statistically significant in the main specifications, it is not robust to alternative specifications: it becomes statistically insignificant when the RWA association is allowed to differ by gender and is also statistically insignificant after adding detailed spouse-specific job controls. Accordingly, the interaction should not be interpreted as a distinct relative-income pattern independent of gender or as causal evidence of housework reallocation.

4.4. Robustness and Supplementary Analyses

Several robustness and supplementary analyses assess the sensitivity of the main findings to alternative measures, controls, samples, estimation methods, and sources of heterogeneity.
Appendix A Table A1, Table A2 and Table A3 examine alternative measures of relative income and domestic involvement. The higher-earner × RWA interaction remains statistically insignificant for childcare, whereas the positive housework interaction is reproduced using the income-share, frequency, and daily-equivalent-hour measures. Where remote-work status is distinguished, the housework pattern is evident for policy-only availability but not for reported usage. The daily-equivalent measures should be interpreted cautiously because their construction requires assumptions about reported frequency and time units.
Appendix A Table A4 adds detailed spouse-specific age and job controls, under which the housework interaction becomes statistically insignificant. Appendix A Table A5 shows broadly similar associations across alternative sample periods, with no significant differences in the higher-earner × RWA association or gender gaps between the 2019–2020 and 2021 survey waves. Appendix A Table A6 reports conditional logit estimates; the gender differences remain evident, whereas the remote-work interaction terms are statistically insignificant. Two additional sample-validity checks—restricting the childcare sample to household-years with an identified child and restricting the analysis to self-completed questionnaires—yield qualitatively similar results.
Appendix A Table A7 examines couple-level RWA configurations. Relative-income differences do not vary significantly across configurations, and the childcare gender gap also shows little variation. The housework gender gap varies in the separate gender specification but not in the joint model that simultaneously allows gender and relative-income differences to vary. Appendix A Table A8 likewise shows no significant child-age differences in the higher-earner × RWA association for either outcome, although the childcare gender gap is smaller when the youngest listed child is aged 0–5 than when aged 6–17.
Finally, Appendix A Table A9 provides a supplementary decomposition of RWA into policy-only availability and reported usage experience. The higher-earner interaction is statistically significant for policy-only availability but not for reported usage experience. However, direct tests show that the two interaction coefficients do not differ significantly from each other. Given that reported usage does not measure the frequency or intensity of remote work, this decomposition should be interpreted cautiously.
Overall, the robustness analyses reinforce the null finding for childcare but qualify the housework result. The positive higher-earner × RWA interaction for housework appears under several alternative measures but is specification-sensitive and should therefore be interpreted cautiously.

5. Discussion

This study examines within-couple differences in almost-daily childcare and housework among full-time dual-earner couples in Japan. The most consistent finding is a substantial gender gap in both activities. RWA does not significantly moderate the relative-income pattern in childcare, while the corresponding housework interaction appears in the main specifications but is sensitive to alternative controls and estimators. Overall, the results indicate a limited and non-uniform association between RWA and domestic allocation rather than a broad restructuring of unpaid work.
The persistent gender differences are notable because both spouses in the sample work full time. Where negative higher-earner associations appear, they are broadly consistent with an opportunity-cost interpretation in which the spouse with the stronger market-income position faces a higher cost of time devoted to household production. However, substantial gender differences remain after accounting for relative income and other observed spouse-specific characteristics, suggesting that relative economic position alone does not characterize the division of unpaid work. Gendered expectations and established household responsibilities may also matter, although these mechanisms are not directly measured.
The contrast between childcare and housework may partly reflect differences in temporal constraints. Childcare often involves time-specific and less postponable responsibilities, whereas many routine housework tasks can be more readily rescheduled around paid work [8]. This may help to explain why RWA does not significantly moderate the relative-income pattern in childcare while a housework interaction appears in some specifications. For housework, the interaction remains evident after accounting for other workplace flexibility measures but becomes statistically insignificant with detailed spouse-specific job controls and under conditional logit estimation. It should therefore be interpreted as a specification-sensitive conditional association rather than evidence of a causal effect of RWA.
A supplementary decomposition distinguishes policy-only availability from reported usage experience. Although the higher-earner interaction is statistically significant only for policy-only availability, the two interaction coefficients do not differ significantly from each other (Appendix A Table A9). Because reported usage does not measure the frequency or intensity of remote work and may itself depend on workplace norms and flexibility stigma, while policy availability may capture broader job and organizational conditions [28,30,32], this decomposition should be interpreted cautiously.
The findings provide little basis for expecting formal RWA alone to substantially alter the gendered allocation of domestic work. In particular, the absence of a clear moderation pattern for childcare suggests that remote work should not be viewed as a substitute for childcare provision or leave arrangements.
Several limitations should be noted. The estimates identify conditional within-couple associations rather than causal effects, and spouse-specific job characteristics, workplace norms, preferences, and other unobserved factors may remain relevant. The data also lack consistently available spouse-specific measures of gender-role attitudes and do not examine heterogeneity by shared housing conditions. RWA does not measure the frequency or intensity of remote work, while the main outcomes capture almost-daily involvement rather than the amount, timing, or quality of unpaid work. Information on children’s co-residence and dependency status is limited, and some questionnaire sections permit proxy completion, although related sample restrictions yield similar conclusions. Finally, the focus on full-time dual-earner couples in Japan during 2019–2021 limits generalizability. Future research could address these limitations using richer measures of work arrangements, household conditions, and unpaid work, as well as longitudinal changes in workplace flexibility.

6. Conclusions

This study examined how relative income, gender, and remote-work availability are associated with childcare and housework involvement among full-time dual-earner couples in Japan. The results show persistent within-couple gender differences in both activities. RWA does not significantly moderate the relative-income pattern in childcare, while the corresponding housework interaction appears in the main specifications but is sensitive to alternative specifications and should therefore be interpreted cautiously. Overall, the findings suggest that remote-work availability is associated with limited and non-uniform differences in the domestic allocation of work within couples, rather than a broad restructuring of childcare and housework.

Funding

This research was funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, grant number 25K23155.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

The data used for this analysis, the Japan Household Panel Survey (JHPS/KHPS), were provided by the Panel Data Research Center, Institute for Economic Studies, Keio University. The data are available to eligible researchers for nonprofit and academic purposes subject to application and approval through the Center’s Data Management System.

Acknowledgments

During the preparation of this manuscript, the author used ChatGPT (OpenAI; multiple model versions) for language editing and drafting assistance, coding and debugging suggestions, and assistance in reviewing the interpretation and presentation of statistical results. The author reviewed and edited all outputs and takes full responsibility for the content of this publication.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares no conflicts of interest.

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used in this manuscript:
JHPSJapan Household Panel Survey
KHPSKeio Household Panel Survey
RWARemote-Work Availability
SBFSchedule-Based Flexibility

Appendix A

Table A1. Alternative relative-income measure: own income share.
Table A2. Alternative outcomes: frequency scores and daily-equivalent hours.
Table A3. Alternative housework outcomes by remote-work category.
Table A4. Additional spouse-specific age and job controls.
Table A5. Survey-period sensitivity analyses.
Table A6. Conditional logit models.
Table A7. Couple-level remote-work availability and within-couple relative-income and gender gaps.
Table A8. Heterogeneity by age of the youngest listed child.
Table A9. Remote-work policy availability versus usage experience.

Note

1
A linear-combination test confirms that the implied RWA association for higher-earning spouses is statistically insignificant (0.021, p = 0.820).

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