Abstract - While indicators like the employment participation rate or the hours usually worked of men and women are widely used as standard indicators in the field of gender statistics, the division of labour of couples less frequently taken into account. This is surprising as – especially when children are born – the division of labour of mothers and fathers are renegotiated at family level, often with the effect that women reduce their engagement in paid work to focus on unpaid care work. Against this background, informing policies to promote gender equality often particularly requires indicators on the division of labour of couples. Based on household surveys, such data are easily accessible. Still, the analysis requires a careful application of the internationally agreed concepts such as the employment status and the measurement of working time in order to avoid misinterpretations. Based on recent findings from Germany, the contribution presents approaches to develop suitable indicators and discusses the conceptual pitfalls.3
*Prepared by Thomas Körner. I am grateful to Matthias Keller, who provided the tabulations of the results from the Microcensus. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily coincide with the views of the Federal Statistical Office.
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