Spouses’ division of household labour in urban areas of Iran

ABSTRACT In developing countries, women are 3.5 times more likely than men to participate in unpaid work. As a traditionally patriarchal society, strict gender roles existed in Iran but there is no empirical evidence to show whether profound socio-economic and demographic changes in the society have altered these deep-rooted stratified gender roles. This paper uses data from the 2014–2015 Time Use Survey, conducted in the urban areas of Iran, to describe the spouses’ division of household labour and determine the correlates of this division. The correlates are selected based on the relative resources and time availability approaches. The results suggest that wives are five times more likely than husbands to participate in the household labour, which is wider than the average gender gap observed in developing countries. The findings provide partial support for the relative resources and time availability approaches, with wives’ experience being more consistent with these approaches. The existing profound gender gap in the division of household labour and its correlates suggests that in urban areas of Iran gender roles are defined beyond socio-economic and demographic attributes, at least on the individual level.