Wives typically spend more than three hours per day on weekday chores, but husbands only spend about 40 minutes, according to the survey. (image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Apr. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — A recent study has revealed a significant discrepancy between husbands and wives in the amount of time spent doing housework.
Wives typically spend more than three hours per day on weekday chores, but husbands only spend about 40 minutes, according to the survey.
The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs conducted the ‘2018 National Survey on Birth and Family Health and Welfare’ with the participation of 16,630 women aged between 15 and 49 with spouses, and examined the actual time spent on household chores.
The research team studied the time spent doing household chores, excluding child care, by dividing the week into weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
According to the results of the survey, wives spent an average of more than three hours a day doing housework regardless of whether it was a weekday or the weekend.
Specifically, the average time spent on chores for wives was 189.4 minutes on weekdays, 216.2 minutes on Saturdays and 214.7 minutes on Sundays.
On the other hand, the average time for husbands to do housework was 37.2 minutes on weekdays, 70.2 minutes on Saturdays and 74.1 minutes on Sundays.
When dividing the time spent doing chores by age, the average time spent on household chores for husbands was 54.6 minutes for those under 30 years of age, 47.8 minutes or those between 30 and 34, 39.8 minutes for those between 35 and 39, 34.9 minutes for those between 40 and 44, and 29.1 minutes for those between 45 and 49 years old.
This shows that the younger generation spent more time doing housework.
Except for those aged between 45 and 49, wives who were older, who had more children, and who were unemployed worked longer on weekdays doing house chores.
Unlike household chores, husbands were relatively active in childcare, including care for children, education, and play time with children.
The average child care time during weekdays was 286.7 minutes for wives and 71.9 minutes for husbands, which is still a significant gap, but in the case of weekends, child care hours for husbands increased sharply from the weekday to 200.9 minutes on Saturday and 219.1 minutes on Sunday.
Reflecting such results, 52 percent of married women considered that chores were not distributed equally between spouses, but 61.1 percent thought that child care responsibilities were evenly shared.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
