However, it found that as women have joined men in the workplace there has been no real change to the gender divide at home, where they continue to bear the brunt of childcare responsibilities and housework.
In Employment, work patterns and unpaid work: an analysis of trends since the 1970s, Dr Susan Harkness, an economist from the University of Bristol, said, 'Some of the newly introduced policies aimed at improving work-life balance, such as paternity leave, will help redress current imbalances. But others, like the new rights of full-time carers to request flexible working conditions, are likely, in my view, to reinforce current gender divisions in housework, because carers are usually women.'
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