Who earns, who cares, who texts: Pew maps how women’s roles shift across family life
A new Pew Research Center report finds women’s pay slips as caregiving begins, mothers stay in closer touch with grown kids and caring for an aging parent weighs more heavily on working women.
Ask a woman in her 50s what her week looks like and the answer usually includes someone else: a kid launching, a parent slowing down, a partner whose schedule sets the rhythm. A report released Oct. 22 by the Pew Research Center puts numbers to that arc.
The breadwinner model has changed. In 1972, husbands were the primary or sole earner in 85% of marriages between a man and a woman; by 2022, that share was 55%. Egalitarian marriages rose to 29%, and wives were the main earner in 16%. Even in egalitarian marriages, wives averaged 6.9 hours a week of caregiving and 4.6 hours of housework, versus 5.1 and 1.9 hours for husbands, who also had more weekly leisure time.
Parenting doesn’t stop at 18. Among parents of young adults ages 18 to 34, 59% helped them financially in the past year and 41% said their children rely on them for emotional support. Mothers are the steady line of contact: 81% text an adult child at least a few times a week, compared with 63% of fathers.
Then care turns the other direction. Among adults with a parent, spouse or partner 65 or older, 28% of women and 23% of men say they are that person’s caregiver. Among full-time working women helping an aging parent, 40% said it hurt their emotional well-being, compared with 22% of men, and 36% said it hurt their finances, versus 22% of men. Majorities of working caregivers also said caregiving improved their relationship with that parent.
The hours you give are a gift; they shouldn’t be an assumption.
Pew found that women’s pay relative to men’s tends to slip about five to 10 years into their careers, around when many begin taking on family care. In 2025, women earned 86% of what men did per hour.
The essayist’s takeaway: These numbers describe a life lived in relationship, where the texts, the check-ins and the Sunday calls to Mom are real work even when no one counts them. Name that work out loud with your partner, siblings and grown kids, and divide it on purpose. The hours you give are a gift; they shouldn’t be an assumption.
