Saturday, April 05, 2008

Exactly how much housework does a husband create?

That was the title of the scientific article, summarised from detailed time-diaries for a project at the University of Michigan, and the first paragraph answers:
It creates an extra seven hours a week of housework for women
But a wife saves men from about an hour of housework a week

Not true here. It's also worth seeing this earlier study from the same source, and only a few months old:
Married Men Really Do Do Less Housework Than Live-in Boyfriends

Yet the summary of data presented for the recent study actually seems to suggest a completely different conclusion. Larry Moran draws the same conclusion that I saw from the data:
The average married man does eight more hours of housework than the average single man.

So the original headline, like many others, was misleading. Actually other factors like age of responder and number of dependents are the relevant variables.

But eight more hours of housework per week? I don't keep a time diary, but I wonder if it applies to me?

1 comment:

Hey Skipper said...

I also happened to blog about this.

IMHO, the their choice of activities to exclude from "core" housework was so disingenuous as to verge on dishonesty.