Women bear brunt of housework after marriage, says study

DISCRIMINATION

A 40-year study into housework patterns before and after marriage by an American university has shown women still do the majority of the cleaning up.

Research from the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research (ISR) showed that marriage meant that the average American woman spent seven extra hours a week cleaning up the house, while tying the knot meant an hour less of housework for a man in the US.

ISR economist Frank Stafford said: "It's a well-known pattern. There's still a significant reallocation of labour that occurs at marriage - men tend to work more outside the home, while women take on more of the household labour.

"Certainly there are all kinds of individual differences here, but in general, this is what happens after marriage. And the situation gets worse for women when they have children," he added.

But, the panel found that in the last ten years both genders did more around the house after exchanging vows. The study also found that women were doing significantly less housework than in the past while men were beginning to make more of an effort.

In 1976, women did an average of 26 hours of housework a week, compared with about 17 hours in 2005 whereas men did about six hours of housework a week in 1976, compared with about 13 hours in 2005, according to the study's findings.

The study showed contrasting findings for men and women who are single though. While single men did more housework than married men, unmarried women did less housework than all other age groups for women. It also found that married women with three children did as much as 28 hours of housework a week while women in their 60s and 70s spent up to 21 hours tidying up the house.

For the study, researchers analysed data from time diaries and questionnaires asking both sexes to report how much time they had spent on basic housework such as cooking, cleaning and other basic work around the house.
source