Dishing up the housework

Women are still doing the lion’s share of household tasks, regardless of the number of hours they spend in the paid workforce.

This is a major finding of a 10-year research project undertaken by University of Queensland sociologist Associate Professor Janeen Baxter.

Dr Baxter’s work, funded by the Australian Research Council, UQ and Australian National University (ANU), has explored the area of gender equity, particularly when it comes to division of labour within the household.

“So far I’ve found that in terms of housework it’s pretty clear that men don’t do it and that women do about 70 percent of the work,” Dr Baxter said.

But she says one of the main problems in achieving a more equitable distribution is that women don’t find it a problem.

“Both men and women say that such a distribution of the housework is fair and women have their reasons for this,” Dr Baxter said.

These reasons include:
* women having higher standards;
* a perception that the male partner doesn’t have as much time to do housework, regardless of if they are both in full-time work;
* the chore is one which she thinks is important and he doesn’t; and
* the male partner is in full-time work while the female is at home.

Women not in the paid workforce complete at least 18 hours of housework a week, including cooking, cleaning, gardening (and mowing), washing and house maintenance. This doesn’t include the number of hours involved with the care of young children. Women in full-timework do about 14 hours of housework a week.

Men do just six hours a week, and this figure doesn’t change, even if the man is unemployed or retired.

Dr Baxter said getting men to make a greater contribution to household tasks was an uphill battle.

“I don’t think we’re ever going to get to a situation where men are going to do more,” she said.

Dr Baxter advocates the use of outside help to help women lighten the load – prepared meals, hiring a house cleaner and getting someone in to mow the lawn are ways to lighten the household burden.

And the argument that women should be satisfied with being full-time homebodies gets short shrift.

“Women have always been in the workforce,” Dr Baxter said. “It’s a myth to think women have just moved into paid work.”

Media: For further information contact Dr Baxter (telephone 07 3365 2871) or Beth O’Brien in the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (telephone 07 3365 8820).