Less housework, more money

Don't wash up. Order a take-out for supper. And tell your partner to wash his own underpants, ladies, for all our sakes.

Working women who do the lion's share of the housework at home - which is most of us - are contributing to the gender pay gap according to research by the Institute for Social & Economic Research.

Research authors Mark Bryan and Almudena Sevilla Sanz say that in the short term a redistribution of the chores at home "would probably lead to a modest reduction in the gender wage gap". But in the longer term could give women access to better paid and more responsible careers.

A seven-hour reduction in the weekly housework carried out by women who live with men would increase their wages by an average of 1 per cent, which would narrow the gender pay gap by just over 5 per cent.

The research found that men do an average of four to five hours housework a week whether or not they live with a woman, single women do about seven hours but married or cohabiting women do more than 12 hours - which presumably means those extra few hours are tidying up and looking after men. Surprisingly the presence of kids made little difference to the hours of housework done.

All this extra day-to-day housework means that cohabiting women are more tired at work, have less job flexibility and are more likely to spend time at work organising domestic activities. Meanwhile men tend to do the sorts of chores that can wait until the weekend like gardening and DIY.

What is more, women are taking on the lion's share of the worry about the effect of the credit crunch on the household finances according to a survey by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. The Institute found that three out of 10 women were worried about their economic security, compared with two out of 10 men surveyed.

Bizarrely though, women - at least those in the US - are remaining pretty recession proof when it comes to job stats. From November through to April 300,000 women aged 20 or more gained new jobs compared 700,000 men who lost their jobs. The problem is many of the jobs the women are getting are lower paid, more menial jobs, than those lost by the men.

And women, not surprisingly, are fed up. In BusinessWeek a pollster for Senator John McCain is quoted as saying: "In focus groups they [women] talk about how 'I'm taking care of my parent, his parents, buying groceries, taking kids to the doctor.' These women are tired."

It is time we began to delegate more at home, so that we can tidy up at work.

Comments

[Alex]

Wow, this was such a pointless read.. I must commend you for wasting a good 3 minutes of my time..no no really, this was so pointless!!!

[nick brown]

Is it legal to write this sort of stuff in such a gender biased way?

Many of us would be much more interested in the content if the packaging wasn't quite so monochrome. Don't you think that men are fed up about women claiming squatting rights on family life too?

It just seems impossible to stop them throwing your washing in and then complaining they have to do it.

Drives me mad

[Carol Lewis]

The research studies quoted have shown there are clear differences between the sexes in attitudes towards household chores and financial security. That is fact, nothing to do with packaging, spin or editorial bias. I have added the links so that any of you who are interested may find out more about the research methods employed. Obviously research conclusions deal in averages and I accept that some women don't lift a finger while their partners run around cooking and doing the laundry.