School-Years, Home Economics, and Men’s Housework: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Sweden

In this natural experiment, we study the effects of added years of school and different exposures to Home Economics (HE) on adult men's self-reported time spent on housework. Using data from the Swedish Level-of-Living Survey (LNU), we run difference-in-differences analyses and a cohort analysis. The first test the effect of the Swedish nine-year elementary school reform and its preceding assessment period, with more added years of HE that included teaching of practical housework. The second compares birth cohorts before and after an important curricular change, for the first time adding HE for boys, in Swedish schools 1955/56. The data confirm previous findings about Swedish men’s housework: a general increase over time, mainly driven by more time spent on foodwork (e.g., food shopping, cooking, after-meal clean-up). We also confirm that men’s housework participation is positively associated with their educational level. However, the overarching picture of the study is a null result, except for an effect on time spent on laundry. Thus, while it is clear from previous findings that men in Sweden have increased their time spent on routine housework, especially foodwork, it is difficult to pinpoint any particular policy effect from the statistical noise of reforms and cultural transformation. Our study design could, in theory, identify the causal effect of school reform, focusing both on educational duration and curricular content, yet the findings suggest no such specific effect, indicating instead that other social factors have driven this development.