A family-owned cleaning company has revealed that a third (32%) of men admit they’ve never changed the bed sheets at home, with men from the USA the worst offenders when it comes to not helping with housework.
The survey of Australian, British and American men and women also revealed that more than half (53%) of men have performed a chore badly on purpose and a quarter (26%) feel they don’t get enough praise for completing household tasks.
In addition, the majority (67%) of parents with teenagers state their kids believe they should be paid for helping with chores. In response, the Australian-based company has created a free downloadable certificate and reward chart for adults & teens.
A family-owned cleaning company has revealed a third (32%) of men admit to never changing the bed sheets at home, and more than half (53%) have performed a chore badly on purpose.
The research spanned three continents, where 1,000 men and women from the USA, Australia and the UK were surveyed by Maid2Match on their household’s cleaning habits.
The results revealed that the majority of households still adopt a traditional setup when it comes to housework, with two thirds of women (66%) stating that they do the majority of or all household chores.
When the results were broken down geographically, it was revealed that less than a fifth of American men (18%) help with household chores on a daily basis, followed by a quarter (26%) of Australian men and two fifths (39%) of British men.
On average, married men will spend thirty-five minutes a week completing household chores, whereas married women spend two and a half hours. In comparison, single men spend an hour and twenty minutes and single women spend an hour and fifty minutes, indicating that when married, men do less chores and women do more. Unsurprisingly married women with children spend the longest time out of all the groups cleaning.
In addition, it was revealed that more than half (53%) of men have performed a chore badly on purpose and a quarter (26%) feel like they do not get enough praise for completing household tasks.
In response to the results, the cleaning service has developed a downloadable congratulatory certificate and reward chart, so households can give it to a member of the family when they’ve helped with the chores. The certificate can be downloaded here: https://www.maid2match.com.au/men-household-chores-statistics/
Lockdown in each country appears to have had an impact on household chores as well, with the majority (80%) of women stating they have spent more time cleaning over the past three months, compared to just a fifth (19%) of men.
A third (31%) of respondents with children say that their kids regularly help with housework, and the majority (72%) incentivise their children with money. According to parents, teenagers do far less housework than ever before, with two thirds (67%) stating their teenage children believe they should be paid for helping with chores. On average UK parents pay their children $5 a week to do housework, American parents pay $8.50 a week and Australian parents pay $8.75*.
Toby Schulz, CEO and co-founder of Maid2Match said,
“We were quite surprised at how traditional the majority of families and couples still are with how they designate cleaning responsibilities. We have a significant number of male cleaners working for us, but it appears that outside of the cleaning industry, the duty of chores still falls mainly on the woman’s shoulders.
“Considering how much society has evolved over the last seventy years, where just as many women work full-time as do men, it seems unfair that they are still the ones who are picking up the dirty socks or vacuuming the house at the weekend. Obviously many households outsource cleaning now, and based on what some of our customers are telling us, for them it comes down to not wanting to regularly argue about who does what chores! But maybe our cleaning certificate will act as a fun tongue in cheek way for women to address the imbalance they are evidently still experiencing at home!”
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
*In Australian dollars
Methodology
Respondents were told to consider the following household chores when answering: ironing, washing up, vacuuming, dusting, general cleaning (bathrooms and kitchens), polishing, laundry, garbage, mopping
6,000 members of the public were surveyed in total, 1,000 men and 1,000 women from Australia, the UK and the USA.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
