What’s my problem? It’s all the house work!

Written By Rachel Sykes
rachel sykes pink logo

Rachel C. Sykes
I Work with Stressed Out Professional Women

Licensed in Massachusetts & New Hampshire
Rachel C. Sykes, LMHC, LLC
Rachel@rachelcsykes.com

It’s the housework

Are you and your partner having a tough time balancing childcare, working, and household chores? Are you exhausted and growing resentful of your partner? Do you wonder how things got this bad? Have you looked at the distribution of work between you? Not by money earned but by time spent.

hand in pink rubber glove holding yellow bottle of cleaning solution

household

chores

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

Did you know…

  • Women do significantly more unpaid labor—Twenty six percent more than men, according to an 18-year study in Australia.  Much of this unpaid work consists of household chores. (1)

  • According to this same study, women spend 108% more time than men performing household chores (1). Perhaps not surprisingly, cooking and cleaning are the biggies. In this study, “household chores” do not include child care or care of an adult (elder or disabled family member, for example).

  • According to the UN, women perform more than two and a half times the unpaid household and caring work than men globally. (2)

  • An increase in time performing household chores is associated with worsening mental health for both men and women. (1) 

So…

If performing more household chores is related to worsening mental health, perhaps changing the overall distribution of responsibilities within your household should be considered. This might require some real consideration of your beliefs about gender norms and expectations and may require some harsh truths about the consistency of your beliefs and actions. If you are interested in addressing gender-based inequality in the household, I suggest that you consider making changes to the existing division of labor so that less pleasant tasks are shared more equitably.

About the research

In a study recently published by Jennifer Ervin, Yamna Taouk, Belinda Hewitt, Tania King at Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, researchers found that both men and women experienced worse mental health as the time spent performing household tasks increased.  Interestingly, this study showed that men who performed outdoor work and women who performed childcare tended to experience better mental health.  Women who cared for adults (elders, disabled adults) also experienced poorer mental health.

This study was conducted in Australia over 18 years 37K study participants, and included a wide range of household structures (couples with no children, couples with children, lone person, lone parent with children, etc.), across socioeconomic groups and education levels.

Contact me

References

(1) Ervin, Jennifer et al, The association between unpaid labour and mental health in working-age adults in Australia from 2002 to 2020: a longitudinal population-based cohort study.  The Lancet Public Health, Volume 8, Issue 4, e276 - e285.  https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(23)00030-0/fulltext

(2) United Nations. Redistribute unpaid work. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/csw61/redistribute-unpaid-work; Women at Work, Trends 2016, International Labour Organization; Women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work, Report of the Secretary-General, E/CN.6/2017/3, December 2016;

Rachel Sykes
Next

It’s hard to take: When a loved one is grieving