Nicholas Gruen in Club Troppo has devoted his weekly column to the housework issue – why do women do more than men? I blogged about this when he first posted, and this new column is far more nuanced, and well written.
One thing he does do is find some research about how unhappy people actually are with their level of housework. This study shows that 32% of women and 8% of men think their partner could do more of the housework, and about the same for childcare. To me, that suggests that we haven’t reached a point where everyone is happy, but Nicholas Gruen prefers to report the statistic that only 14% of women (and 3% of men) are not very or not at all satisfied with the division of labour of housework in their house. I think there is a difference between accepting your lot, and being happy with it, that is implied in these different statistics.
I’d be very happy if the cats did more of their share of housework, particularly in removing the tumbleweeds of fur they leave floating around the house.