This paper formally models and analyzes the heterogenous impact of an exogenous unemployment shock on men and women’s time spent in housework. Using household fixed effects models, I find that married women spend 6.4 additional hours on housework when they become unemployed while married men only spend an additional 3.4 hours on housework. This gendered impact also appears among singles, although they have a smaller response to their unemployment shock compared to their married counterparts. The presence of children greatly amplifies the gender gap in housework hours and may lead more working women to voluntarily reduce their market work to assume domestic responsibility. Finally, I find some evidence that more generous unemployment insurance may offset this increase in housework hours for wives, albeit quite minimally. These overall results indicate that gender norms associated with housework and childcare greatly influence the unequal distribution of housework and highlight the challenges to women’s future work hours and re-employment.
