The work volumes are the same, the consituent elements vary.

From 'Lazy' Dads II: The Reckoning by Robert VerBruggen.  A data based analysis of work performed by couples under different familial structures.  

Back in 2019, I wrote a provocative piece for this blog called “The Myth of the ‘Lazy’ Father.” I drew attention to something that had irked me, as a husband and father, for a long time: Repeatedly, researchers had shown that for married couples with kids in the modern U.S.,1 total work time was pretty equitable between spouses when paid work and home work were combined—indeed, if anything, dads work a little more. And yet, the narrative always ran in the other direction, focusing on the particular types of work where moms shouldered more of the burden, such as child care, and ignoring the possibility that couples’ division of labor might simply reflect the varying preferences of men and women.

Digging deeper into the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), I showed that total work time was remarkably equal even among couples where both worked or both worked full-time (contrary to notions of a “second shift” for working moms); that breadwinners tended to work more than stay-at-home parents; and, in a finding indeed embarrassing to men, that stay-at-home moms worked way more than stay-at-home dads.

Now with more data available, he has extended the analysis with broadly the same finding.  The constituent elements of work in his analysis are employment, housework, shopping and care.  For all the column inches in thousands of newspapers and magazines over the years, men and women work the same amount, just doing different things.  

Click to enlarge.

Talk about much ado about nothing.  

The thought passes through my mind from Samuel Johnson.

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

Looking at the constituent elements, there is a distinct risk variance between employment and shopping, housework, and care.  Men account for more than 90% of the workplace deaths in a year.  Given the truism of Johnson's logic, it is clear that there interesting complexities behind the divvying up of work activities.