We’re Not There Yet. But We’re Not Where We Were.

The gap is still very real.

Current U.S. data show that women continue to spend more time on housework and childcare than men, including women who also work outside the home. In 2024, 87% of women and 74% of men participated in household activities on an average day, and women who did them spent more time doing them. Among adults with children under six, women averaged about three hours a day of primary childcare compared with two hours for men.

The global picture tells a similar story. UN Women has reported that women perform about 2.5 times as much unpaid household and care work as men.

This is a real issue, experienced across cultures and countries, and continued efforts to address that imbalance matter.

But something else is also true, and it often gets lost in the conversation.

Men are doing more at home than men did in previous generations.

In Equal Partners, Kate Mangino describes a progression from what she calls the “King of the Castle,” to the “Hands-On Husband,” and finally to the “Equal Partner.”

The King of the Castle sees his primary responsibility as financial provision. Once he brings home the paycheck, the home and children largely belong to his wife’s domain.

The Hands-On Husband is different. He cooks, changes diapers, picks up children, folds laundry, and is willing to help. Compared with the role many men occupied in previous generations, that represents real progress.

And there is evidence to support that generational shift. Research comparing Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials found that fathers’ housework increased with each successive cohort. More recent data also show fathers spending more time on childcare and on household tasks historically associated with women than they did two decades ago.

Gen Z is still young enough that we have less long-term behavioral data about how they will divide labor within established households, but their attitudes toward shared parenting look very similar to Millennials. Large majorities believe childcare should be shared between mothers and fathers.

That makes Mangino’s description of the Hands-On Husband especially recognizable. He represents movement away from the King of the Castle model that was much more culturally accepted in previous generations.

He is more involved, more present, and more willing to participate.

But he may still be operating as a helper to his partner rather than sharing full ownership of the household.

The helper stage is not the destination, but it is still progress.

And according to Mangino’s framework, there is another step: the Equal Partner.

The Equal Partner does not simply wait to be asked. He shares in noticing what needs to happen, planning for it, and taking ownership of the work itself.

There are, of course, arguments that equal partnership asks too much of men. One common belief is that a man’s natural role is to provide and that his responsibilities inside the home should be limited to traditionally masculine work, like mowing the lawn, repairing things, or handling maintenance.

But there is an interesting problem with that argument.

Women have already expanded far beyond the roles historically assigned to them.

Women entered the workforce in large numbers. They increasingly participate in financial decision-making and contribute substantial portions of household income. In nearly half of opposite-sex marriages in the United States, wives now earn roughly as much as or more than their husbands.

Traditional roles have changed on both sides.

Women expanded their role economically. Men expanded their role domestically.

Both shifts represent real progress.

And neither shift has produced complete equality inside the home.

Greater financial contribution from women has not been accompanied by an equivalent redistribution of domestic labor. Even in marriages where husbands and wives earn roughly the same amount, wives still spend more time on caregiving and housework. Pew found that wives in these marriages averaged about 6.9 hours a week on caregiving compared with five hours for husbands, and about 4.6 hours on housework compared with two hours for husbands.

So the story is not that equality has arrived.

The story is that something has changed.

Women expanded their participation in what was once considered the man’s domain, and men have expanded their participation in what was once considered the woman’s domain. The transition is unfinished, but it is a transition nonetheless.

So why does acknowledging that progress sometimes feel uncomfortable?

Do we worry that recognizing improvement means praising men for doing things they should already be doing?

Do we worry that giving men credit for progress somehow lets them off the hook from going further?

Does acknowledging movement feel too much like saying the remaining inequality no longer matters?

But is it possible to acknowledge that something has gotten better without pretending that it is good enough?

I think it is.

Progress should be noticed because noticing change helps us understand what is actually working. It gives us something to examine and build upon rather than only identifying what remains wrong.

If the data show that each generation of men is becoming more involved in family life, there are useful questions worth asking:

• What helped?
• What changed culturally?
• What changed in our expectations of fatherhood and manhood?
• What allowed some men to move from provider to helper?
• What helps a helper move toward shared ownership?
• How do we raise the next generation to move even further?

• Women still carry more unpaid labor in many households.
• And men’s participation at home has changed substantially over time.

Neither statement cancels the other.

So what is the goal?

I think Mangino’s idea of the Equal Partner can be aspirational for many couples. The Equal Partner does not simply wait to be asked. He shares in noticing what needs to happen, planning for it, and taking ownership of the work itself.

That does not mean every household needs to divide every responsibility equally. I don’t think that is realistic or even desirable for every couple. Families differ in schedules, abilities, resources, preferences, and the roles that work best for them.

But there is value in recognizing that greater shared ownership is possible.

There is also value in recognizing that we are already seeing movement toward it.

We shouldn’t let the plot of progress get lost in the gender wars.

Recognizing progress is not the same as declaring that we have reached equality. It simply means being willing to notice movement when it happens.

If we want healthier and more equitable homes, maybe we need to be just as curious about what is improving and how we can build on it as we are about what is still wrong.

The movement toward equal partnership is meaningful. It is possible. And even if many households have not completed that shift, we should not overlook how far the story has already moved.