Researchers at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s Business School have questioned the so-called ‘tradwife’ phenomenon.
A tradwife is a modern-day housewife who embraces traditional gender roles, typically focusing on homemaking, childcare and supporting her husband, often while sharing her idealised lifestyle on social media. The movement has gained significant traction across social platforms, with influencers amassing millions of followers by vividly portraying traditional domestic lifestyles.
However, researchers argue that any glamorisation of domesticated roles for women is less a genuine embrace of tradition and more a plea from younger generations, reflecting what they describe as the impossible balance demanded by modern work and family life.
The researchers analysed responses from multiple years of the British Social Attitudes Survey, covering 1984 to 2022, with each year including between roughly 1,700 and 6,700 participants and the Genders and Generation Survey with close to 8000 participants. The report found no evidence of younger women turning back to traditional gender roles. Instead, they continue to hold more progressive attitudes than previous generations, with many expecting fathers to share responsibility for care and domestic work.
A survey of 1,000 young women aged between 18-34 found that what attracts them to tradwife content is less the male-breadwinner female-caregiver model and more the aesthetic of simplicity, leisure and escape from the pressures of increasingly demanding yet insecure work. The authors highlight that high childcare costs and intensive parenting norms have also put pressures on parents, especially mothers to balance work with family life. In other words, the popularity of tradwife content reflects growing frustration with a labour market that demands ‘ideal workers’ without accommodating family life.
Google searches for “tradwife” have been increasing across Europe, North America and beyond over the past five years. The phenomenon and its popularity have risen so much that the Cambridge English Dictionary has officially included tradwife as one of the new words in the English language for 2025. But the study suggests it reflects exhaustion with today’s work/life pressures, not nostalgia for a bygone era.
Only a minority of men and women supported traditional gender roles in 2022. For example, around 10% of women and men across all age groups agreed that a man’s role is to earn money while a woman’s role is to look after the home and family. Similarly, over 60% agreed that both men and women should contribute to household income, rising to 70-80% of agreeing among young men and women.
The full report, Tradwife: Between Myths and Realities, is available from the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s Business School.
