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New book from Aston University academic shows that Christmas tasks mostly fall on women

Dec 18, 2025

3 min

Dr Emily Christopher


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  • New book by Dr Emily Christopher shows differences in how household tasks are divided by men and women
  • Book highlights that women tend to buy the Christmas presents and send cards
  • Men often see women as being more thoughtful or having better knowledge of what people would like.


A new book from Aston University’s Dr Emily Christopher reveals that when it comes to sending Christmas cards and buying Christmas presents, women are still mostly doing the work as they are perceived to have better knowledge of what people would like.


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Dr Emily Christopher, a lecturer in sociology and policy at Aston School of Law and Social Sciences, has recently published her book Couples at Work: Negotiating Paid Employment, Housework and Childcare, which look at how household tasks are divided by men and women and the reasons behind these divisions.




The data for the book has been collated over an eight-year period with couples being interviewed twice to provide a robust set of results. It looks at how different sex parent couples combined paid work, housework and childcare.


The research revealed how gender norms continue to shape how certain daily household jobs are divided. Women were more likely than men to clean the house, especially bathrooms, wash clothes and put clothes away. Men still tend to do tasks like mowing the lawn and DIY but now are also more likely to do the cooking and the grocery shopping.


The research shows that the key to understanding how household tasks are divided lies in the meaning they hold for partners.


With the festive season upon us, the book reveals that woman are largely responsible for the Christmas present buying and sending cards with 100% of those taking part in the research saying that women mostly carried out these tasks. This also included buying for the male partner's relatives.


In instances where men had a 'helping' role in these tasks, this included being involved in the discussion or consulting on choice of presents, especially for children, with only a small minority buying presents for their own family.


The data revealed that where women didn't choose and buy presents for their partners family, they were still involved in reminding their partners that this needed to be done or advising on choice of gifts, showing that women were still taking on the mental load of planning for the festive season.


The book reveals that when men were questioned about why they didn't get involved in present buying, they drew on gender norms.


Women were often described, by the men, as being more thoughtful or having better knowledge of what people would like. Men often described how family members wouldn’t receive presents at all if it relied on them.


Although much of the gift giving and organising represented love and affection for the women, which many found enjoyable, many still saw it as work and expressed that they would like their partners' to be more involved.


Dr Christopher said: “This book takes an in-depth look at the way in which everyday roles around the household are divided between men and women.

“The research shows that over a period of eight years fathers increased their role in childcare tasks but this did not always extend to housework.

“The pandemic was an opportunity to change how couples share housework but women were still more likely to carry out tasks like cleaning, washing clothes and putting clothes away and overwhelmingly remained responsible for the mental orchestration of family work.”
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Dr Emily Christopher

Dr Emily Christopher

Lecturer in Sociology

Dr Christopher is a sociologist with an interest in the reproduction of gendered inequalities in paid work, housework and childcare.

Work Life BalanceHousework DivisionsChildcare DivisionsMasculinitiesChildcare Policy
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