And they needed a study to find this out?
If you sometimes feel like the division of labour in your household isn’t entirely even, trust us, you are not alone.
According to a recent report released by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Irish women do about 20 hours of housework per week on average.
Curious how much the average man does? Seven. That’s right. Seven.
In other words, a whopping 14 hours less housework per week than us ladies.
Are you surprised? I bet not so much.
The report, Caring and Unpaid Work in Ireland, shows that Ireland has the third-highest rate of ‘unpaid work’ in Europe for both women and men. And, embarrassingly enough, the giant gender gap puts Ireland ‘very far down the league table within the EU28’.
In a forward to the large-scale study, Chief Commissioner of Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, Emily Logan, writes how the study ‘makes clear that over half of those carrying out unpaid care work are juggling these responsibilities with employment.’
“Women are overrepresented in the cohort of employees who avail of reduced hours in order to facilitate care and unpaid work,” Logan writes.
“While we have seen advances in recent years, including increased participation by women in the workplace, we have yet to see adequate supports for caring and unpaid work. Nor, crucially, have we yet seen adequate measures to reconfigure the gendered nature of care work, and to create the conditions to encourage men to take on more such work.”
Division of labour in the home
We all know having kids comes with a ton of extra housework, and this study shows us how true this is.
Having young children (pre-school age) added as much as 11 hours (yikes) to the time women in Ireland spend on housework per week. However, having children this age-group only added an extra 6.5 hours for men.
Go figure.
Oh, and it’s not just kids causing us to have extra housework, it seems.
According to the study, for us women, it seems having a partner, regardless of whether or not this person is employed or unemployed, further increases the time we spend on housework every week.
I mean; it’s good news for all the single ladies, though, no?
But seriously guys – it’s 2021. How is it so that the majority of childcare and housework responsibilities fall on women’s shoulders – despite most of us also being in paid employment outside the home?
Time for a change. And about bloody time, too.
