Honey,I shrunk your housework!

ALLEN O'BRIEN / TNN / Sep 21, 2005, 20:40 IST

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Men are helping out with domestic chores like never before.

Men are helping out with domestic chores like never before.
Arecent study by the Institute for Social Research (ISR),says that today's men do 42% of household chores like washing dishes,cleaning the house,laundry,cooking,shopping and family paperwork.
The average weekly housework time of women fell from 30 hours in 1965 to 17.5 hours in 1995. For men,the figure has risen from 4.9 hours to 10 hours.
The Indian male does around 16 hours of housework a week,up from 1.2 hours in 1965. In a study of 265 married couples with kids,published this month in the Journal Of Marriage And Family,wives estimate that their husbands do 33% of the housework. Further research on the actual housework time of husbands shows that the figure is higher �� 39%.

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The changing roles of today's women has prompted men to go in for an image makeover. Realising that 'outside' work is shared,men have no problems sharing 'inside' work," analyses psychiatrist Samir Parikh.
The ISR survey shows that the total work time (market labour plus housework) is higher for women in countries with very high levels of income like Japan,the US and Sweden. However,in countries with lower levels of income,like Russia,Finland and Hungary,the work time of men is more.
"Cross--national comparisons of the gender gap in housework hours indicate how each country is becoming less gender egalitarian," says sociologist Arindam Sen of Delhi University.
So,will men increasingly do more housework? Difficult to say. As Sen says: "Research shows that most people rate routine housework as the least enjoyable use of their time."

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