Why don't husbands do more housework?

by Brian White (Subscribe to Brian White's posts)
Aug 31st 2007 3:45PM

It may come as no surprise to many that a recent study concluded with the fact that men perform less housework than women. When it came to married men, even less of them shared the housework load.

this study did not just encompass the U.S. -- 27 countries were involved here along with 17,000 women and men. Out of a total weekly amount of 21 housecleaning hours, men performed just over nine hours of it.

There was a pretty large distinction between married couples and men and women living together (but not married). In all, it was suggested that the division of household labor changed when marriage entered the picture. So married ladies -- does your man measure up to you when it comes to housework?

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Comments (3)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

smdryad 8-31-2007 @ 11:00PM

I think the men have this trick, they do a lousy job, then you have to do it over and you don't ask them to do it again. Has anyone else seen this? Or they just delay doing the job until you can't stand the filth and you clean it up. For some reason, they can tolerate more filth than we can. LOL. I have found a few tricks to make cleaning easier, since I have to do it all. http://www.squidoo.com/safecleaning

GJ 9-01-2007 @ 1:17PM

For me, I'm not sure that it changed when we got married. But it REALLY changed once we had kids (which may be a confounding factor in the study, as well as working vs stay-at-home moms). We never had a very equitable split of the housework, but then when kids came along, the amount of work increased exponentially, both the housework--because now we have more laundry, more dishes, more cleaning in general--and the child care--feeding, cleaning, interacting with them, doctor's appointments, researching preschools, etc. I would say the child care split is 80/20, at best. I know that my guy helps out more than many, but it's just not enough, and I'm completely overwhelmed. :(

Rollando 9-07-2007 @ 9:26AM

Believe if you wish, I for one do not do much housework because I do housework where I work. I am a janitor in a school's housekeeping department and work 3rd shift. My wife works 2nd shift. So, I have absolutely no enegy when I come home from work to do anything. Plus, psychologically, I find myself not able to do much due to the fact I do the same activity at work. That makes it mentally overwhelming.