Bruce Leppien of Ann Arbor was married for 64 years before his wife, Irene, died last July.
According to a new University of Michigan study, Leppien created about 23,296 hours of extra housework for his wife in those six plus decades.
That's more than 2.5 years of cleaning.
"OK," Leppien said with a chuckle. "It's probably true. ... What are we going to do about it?"
The U-M study concludes that having a husband creates an extra seven hours a week of housework for women. For men, it's the opposite - a wife saves her husband about an hour of housework a week, the study says.
In 1976, U.S. women did an average of 26 hours of housework a week, compared to 17 hours in 2005. Men did about six hours of housework a week in 1976, compared with about 13 hours in 2005.
The findings of the national study on housework trends was based on time diaries where researchers looked at a 10-year span of data from the study, which has been ongoing since 1968 at the U-M Institute for Social Research.
The seven extra hours of work emerged by comparing the amount of housework done by single women to that of married women.
But Frank Stafford, an economist with the Institute for Social Research, said the findings shined some light on older stereotypes about who does the housework and how much.
Men are doing more than twice as much housework as 20 years ago - but still fall short of women's workload, which has dropped, the study says.
In 1976, U.S. women did an average of 26 hours of housework a week, compared to 17 hours in 2005. Men did about six hours of housework a week in 1976, compared with about 13 hours in 2005.
http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/04/husbands_add_seven_hours_to_w...
Hi, Red. Sounds like something that should be on ToledoTalk. I was in the process of writing something on NATO and then decided that nobody would be interested in reading that here either. So I deleted it. SIGH!
yeah, pete, i wouldn't have read about nato. :)
on this study i was wondering how much children pay a role in the extra work. i know i get sick of stepping on toys and telling my kids to put them away, but then again, i'm a neat freak.
and make it easier on her - thanks LR !
chuck,
i'm glad to hear you say, "when I get me of wife, I'll keep this info in mind and make it easier on her." instead of saying, "i saw this study, and now that we are married, i just added an extra 7 hours of cleaning each week, now go get me a beer before you start the laundry." :)
growing up, my dad did absolutely nothing around the house, and that's what it was like when he grew up. the difference between the two generations is my mom cleaned the house and his mom refused to clean. my dad's parents house was pretty nasty as you could imagine. i remember one night their house was broken into and when the cops came they commented on how much the thieves trashed the house. my mom was amused hearing this.
with my husband and i, he helps out around the house, but i do most of the work being a stay at home mom. i don't mind it, but then again, i'm a neat freak and i like my house clean. i'm thankful he helps out, and he's learned quickly that i will have more time to spend with him if he helps out around the house. :)
You SHOULD read about NATO and other such things. Your future and that of your kids depends on knowing what we're doing in the world... it's not all about toys anymore.
thanks dad
LOL :^)
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"Oh, Bother!" Said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.
I wonder how they selected the control groups to do this study. Even in 1976, my husband (and father, brothers, etc.) never helped a bit with housework (even when I worked), and he (they) still don't do a lick of work around the house. It never bothered me because he made more money & worked more & longer hours than I do/did. And even now, he says that he's never cleaned a toilet & won't ever clean a toilet - says he'd hire it out if I wasn't here to do it (but he won't let me hire it out). I do think more men help now than in past decades, mostly because of how they were raised - what they saw their fathers & mothers do.
I don't think my husband adds 7 hours a week in extra housework though - but he does add far more than 7 hours a week in food preparation that I wouldnt be doing if he wasn't here. He's old school, expects a good dinner every night.
All the guys I work with (including myself) help around the house in some way because their wives all work too. My job's the kitchen - budget, shopping, cooking, dishes, floors, all of it. My wife cleans the house and does laundry. We share the outside stuff.
By brother does the bathrooms and his family's laundry while his wife cleans and cooks. Both of us are in our mid (ok late) 40's, and we grew up with a father who did nothing and a mother that did everything AND worked. Somehow when we married our own wives that just didnt make sense, and looking at the men I work with it's the same way at their houses.
billy, I am impressed with you & your brothers. I hope your wives appreciate you all.
My husband is a stay-at-home dad. (Also a part time student, but primarily a full time dad. And still searching for paid employment, of course, but in this market I'm not holding my breath any time soon. Sigh.)
I probably still do more housework than him. lol. Don't get me wrong - he does great on the everyday stuff. (keeps the laundry done, takes great care of the kids, etc.)
But as far as the regular cleaning type stuff - cleaning the bathroom, dusting, mopping floors, etc. Yeah, he doesn't really do that. Its not that he *wouldn't* do it...being a guy, I think it just doesn't occur to him. If I were to actually point it out and tell him that he needs to clean the bathroom that day, I'm sure he'd do it. Must be a male genetic thing where perhaps you just don't notice those things though.
Guess I can't really complain though. He is great with our kids - makes games out of them learning their alphabet, how to read basic words, arithmetic, etc. They are thriving with him. So, if the exchange for that is that I spend my Saturday mornings catching up on the bathrooms and dusting, I figure I'm still doing pretty good. (And the kids are at an age where dusting is still a fun activity they can "help" mommy with.)
don't know of any households, at least where both parents work, where the husband doesn't help with something around the house, including the 'traditional' wife chores.
When the mom is a stay-at-home, then we see more situations where she does the laundry, cleaning, making beds, etc., (inside work) while dad does the lawn, schrubs, gutter-cleaning, etc .(outside work).
My wife and I both work, so I help with laundry and cleaning, and she enjoys doing some of the outside stuff. Except for gutter-cleaning. She hates that.. Of course so do I, but somebody has to do it, LOL.
You said: Except for gutter-cleaning. She hates that.. Of course so do I, but somebody has to do it, LOL.
Somebody has to do it, does not have to be you. I've slept with my window washer & gutter cleaner since 1975 but he'll accept cash from you. :) Look in the yellow pages under Window Cleaning. That would be Don's Window Cleaning. Call for a free estimate.
so my contribution to this thread would throw things askew.
So it's 20/80 on the inside and 70/30 on the outside in this household.
I do the 80%