Lithuania's gender revolution: reversed and stalled

ENGrowing or high-level female employment raises an expectation that gender asymmetry in parenting should decrease over time. Some scholars suggest that the prevalence of the dual-earner family in contemporary society will transform gender relations not only in the public sphere but also in private. Consequently, societies will or are already moving towards a ‘new gender equilibrium’ (Espning-Andersen and Billari, 2015) or are experiencing the ‘second half of the gender revolution’ (Goldscheider, Bernhardt and Lappegård, 2015). One specific characteristic of this new gender regime is the more active involvement of men in childcare and housework. Against this backdrop, this chapter examines the cohort dynamics in gendered parenting practices and the division of housework, and identifies a set of related factors (individual, family and broader societal level). The chapter is based on the cross-sectional longitudinal dataset composed of the Family and Fertility Survey (1994), Generations and Gender Survey (2009) and Families and Inequalities (2019) datasets. The analytical sample includes individuals who, at the time of each survey, had children up to 15 years of age. The window of observation encompasses almost three decades and thus enables observation of the organisation of the household of different cohorts at the particular family life stage over time.Contrary to theoretical expectations, the findings of this study suggest that the gender revolution reversed and stalled in Lithuanian society over the three decades from 1990. The transition to neoliberal capitalism in Lithuania resulted in increased gender inequalities in the private sphere. Based on the three surveys, the study demonstrates that in the first decade of transition, the gender gap in childcare and housework increased and in the subsequent decades remained stable or even slightly increased. [Publisher annotation]