Gender and Family in Transition: Care, Bargaining and the Unfinished Gender Revolution

Abstract

The relationship between gender and family is being renegotiated in most societies, but the direction and pace of change are uneven. This article examines four dimensions of that renegotiation: the allocation of unpaid care work, women's economic position, the transformation of household structure, and the link between domestic equality and fertility intentions. It reports a comparative secondary analysis of the 2025 and 2026 Gender Snapshot reports, recent national statistical releases for Italy, Morocco and Singapore, and five recent studies of housework division and fertility intentions published between 2024 and 2026. Four findings emerge. First, unpaid care remains the most unequal element of family life: women perform about two and a half times as much unpaid domestic and care work as men globally, and more than four times as much in Northern Africa and Western Asia. Second, economic convergence has stalled short of parity: 63.9 per cent of women aged 25-54 are in the labour force against 92.0 per cent of men, and women hold 30.5 per cent of managerial positions. Third, household structure has diversified rather than declined, with single-person and single-parent households growing while couples with children have fallen sharply. Fourth, the link between domestic equality and fertility intentions is conditional on gender, task type and employment rather than uniform. The article argues that the gender revolution is not stalled for lack of changed attitudes but because the institutions that would redistribute care - services, leave and working-time regulation - have not kept pace with changed expectations.