"Even in relationships where both parents work full time more often than not the majority of the mental and physical burden of running the house tends to fall onto the woman."
This is of course anecdotal, but I find many people (of all genders) like to complain when people don’t do it the way they want, and when they can’t micro manage, they get upset. If you just want it done then delegate. If you want it done YOUR way then YOU have to do it.
For example my wife always makes it sound like finding shoes for the kids is the same as planning a trip to the moon. If I say I’m going to get them shoes she says I can’t be trusted. I don’t care, the kids don’t care, but boy does it stress her out every time their feet grow.
Any source for US or other developed countries? And of course the dual income is important too.
Of course in developing nations or other scenarios with stay at home women will see them doing more unpaid work. I'd imagine it's similar for a brief time in developed countries when women leave the workforce to have children too.
At least in my experience it seems division of overall labor is generally equal for the relationships I have seen.
Anecdotally, I have a fairly progressive friend circle and I still think, between talking to different halves of a given hetero couple, it seems like the man tends to exaggerate how much he does around the house, how much childcare he does, how self-motivated he is to do so, etc. When asked, these men will enthusiastically agree that the split should be even when both partners are working, but walking the walk is understandably tougher. These patterns don't disappear within a generation, unfortunately. If I only spoke to the men, I'd have the same impression you do.
So, for link number one... I guess we have to define if we are measuring work by hours or by tasks completed. It's possible that some of those men are cooking as many meals but that they spend less time doing it. Secondly, and more importantly, that article is about only a single area. I want to see overall breakdown of all the work/chores. The article hints at women working fewer paid hours. That's an area that should be more thoroughly investigated, as whoever is working fewer hours at a job is more likely to be doing more chores to contribute equally.
For the second article, it seems to be self-reported perceptions and not actual measurements. Again, it only deals with limited categories. Of course if we are looking at chores that are traditionally "women's work", some of that bias may carry over. Likewise, handyman work, appliance repair, mechanic work, paperwork, yard work, etc that are traditionally "men's work" are likely to still have more men than women saying they spend more time on that.
The third article is more what I was looking for. It's still perception based but it takes into account a wider array of tasks. It also shows how working status and income play a role. It also backs up my theory that the bias extends the other way on the traditional "men's work" portions.
So we aren't going to see that grey line hit 100% in every category, and for good reason. Specialization of labor leads to efficiency. So task assignment or self-assignemnt will go to the person who is more interested in or better at that task. I would have liked to see an overall category to see how close the overall chore and work breakdown would be to 50/50. That's really the meat of the issue - equally contributing, even if the underlying tasks are divied up. Otherwise, we can cherry pick tasks like mechanic work or dishes to fit whatever narrative we want.
I'd love to see the data on this.