THE CANADIAN PRESS -- OTTAWA - A new study says younger generations of women are less involved in unpaid housework than their predecessors, but they still carry much of the load.

The Statistics Canada study also says younger men still do more paid work than women, but the gap is narrowing.

The study compares young adulthoods of three generations: late baby boomers (born 1957 to 1966) when they were aged 20 to 29 in 1986, Generation X (1969 to 1978) who was in that age group in 1998, and Generation Y (1981 to 1990) who reached it in 2010.

It found that at ages 20 to 29, late baby-boom men did on average 1.4 hours more paid work per day than women, while among Generation Y, the difference had narrowed to 1.1 hours.

And StatsCan says that at ages 20-29, late baby-boom women did 1.2 hours more housework per day than men.

By the time Generation Y reached the same age group, the difference had narrowed to 0.4 hours -- due entirely, says StatsCan, to a decrease in the time women spent on housework.

Among dual-earner couples -- the dominant family form since the 1980s -- StatsCan says young adults are increasingly sharing economic and domestic responsibilities.

As women have increased their hours of paid work, the agency says men have steadily increased their share of household work.

It also found that members of Generation Y were more likely to be in school and at home with their parents at ages 20-29 than their counterparts in the two other generations.

At ages 20-29, 51 per cent of Generation Y lived at home with their parents, compared with 31 per cent of their counterparts in Generation X.

Generation Y also delayed living with a partner and having children. At ages 20-29, 19 per cent of Generation Y had children, compared with 29 per cent of the late baby boomers of the same ages in 1986.