Balancing work and family life is a challenge for both partners. Women today are increasingly better educated and mostly remain active in the labour market even after they have children. Fathers are increasingly involved in bringing up their children.
4.1 Employment models in couple households
The model in which the father is employed full-time and the mother part-time is the most frequently chosen one in family households, followed by the model with the father in full-time employment and the mother economically inactive. However, compared to the past, less women reduce their working hours or give up (temporarily) their job when they have children.
As the children grow older, a decline is seen in the number of households with mothers who are economically inactive and an increase in households with mothers with a higher worktime percentage (part-time at 50-89% or full-time). Mothers living alone with their children are not only more likely to be employed than mothers with a partner, but they also tend to have a higher work-time percentage.
Although their share has increased since 1992 because fathers work on a part-time basis slightly more often than in the past, only a minority of parents with their youngest child under 13 years old live according the model in which both partners work part-time. This practice is more commonplace in German-speaking Switzerland. In contrast, the model with both parents working full-time is more common in French-speaking Switzerland.
4.2 Sharing of domestic work
In the majority of cases, the domestic work is carried out mainly by the woman. Both partners participate in domestic work most often when they are under 65 and have no children. In families with young children domestic work is carried out slightly more often by both partners than in families with older children. In addition to age, a tertiary education and the employment models of “both partners working full-time” and “both partners working part-time” are other factors that favour the shared division of domestic work.
4.3 Total workload
Although professional and family roles are unequally divided in our society, the total amount of hours worked by men and women is by and large the same in comparable family situations. Compared with 2010, women spend 1.3 hours more on paid work and men 1.7 hours more on domestic and family work.
4.4 Contribution to household earnings
The individual contributions made by the woman and the man to the household’s earnings are the result of the different activity rate and remuneration of each partner. The imbalance varies in severity depending on the family situation. In couples without children the woman provides a greater part of the total earnings than in couples with children.
In almost one out of five couples, the woman earns no income. Among couples without children, three out of ten women contribute at least half of the income derived from work. This share is around one in ten when one or more children are present in the household.