The Value and True Cost of Housework

For centuries housework has been undervalued due to class and gender roles. Historically it was undervalued by the upper class as a servant’s job, and as the middle class rose women began to stay at home to look after children, no longer required to also work for their families survival. This led to the stereotype that a husband, the ‘man of the house’, had a ‘real job’ as the breadwinner and a wife stayed ‘at home’, suggesting they had no ‘real job’ as they didn’t receive money for their work.

If you have ever looked after a house, or children, you know that it takes a lot of work- paid or not — and the amount of hours required amount to a fulltime job. Women are not spending the day relaxing at home. Indeed, the International Labour Organization has reported that domestic work would represent nearly a tenth of the world’s entire economic output if it was paid at a fair rate.

Fortunately, times are changing, with increasing numbers of women having opportunities to participate fully in the workforce. Yet, still a majority of housework belongs to women — who are spending 40% more time on housework than men and being five times more likely to spend 20 hours a week on housework — even if both partners are in full time employment, leading to more leisure time for men and more stress and work for women. Moreover, 45% of female breadwinners do a majority of the household tasks, at an average of 7.5 hours a week that is a full working day, compared to 12% of men.

Furthermore, adding to the load, in an office women are also expected to ‘office housework’, spending extra time supporting colleagues emotionally, taking control of common social and admin responsibilities such as note taking or organizing activities on top of their workload. Yet women are not being rewarded for this emotional labor despite men being praised, and possibly promoted for it. Women can also be penalized for not going above their duty to help others, where a man faces no backlash due to the expectation and stereotype of a ‘nurturing’ woman.

This workload increases with children, where it is expected a woman will take maternity leave and potentially give up work. During COVID-19 UN Women found evidence that women bore the burden of an unpaid workload increase, having spent an average of three times as many hours on unpaid domestic than men and over 30 hours weekly on unpaid childcare.

If one partner enjoys housework, wants to stay at home with the kids, or household tasks have been divided up based on what makes sense for your routine and lives then that is wonderful. But, if you are a man who dates or is in a relationship with a woman, make changes or discuss household responsibilities. Remember that many households socialize their children differently depending on gender, maybe a man has never learned to cook (but his sister did), or it is expected for a woman to look after her in-laws.

Question who is doing the work in your household. Think about each room in your household- what chores need to be done on a daily, weekly or monthly basis in that room. Then think about who does each item of housework.

If it is you- is it always you? Did you and your household decide who would do that chore?

If it is not you- who is doing those chores? Do you ever think about why? Do you expect one member of the household to do it? Why? Did you ask them to do it when discussing the division of labor or did they do it naturally and you have never questioned it? What are you doing while they do those chores?

Think about how long each chore takes. If you were to pay someone else to do it, how much would you pay them per hour? If you were to hire a chef, cleaner or gardener- how much would it cost? All of this labor is being done for free if a member of your household is doing it. If we take the adage that time is money then how much time are they losing out on? How much does it eat into their free time?

Perhaps, if it is an option, it is more beneficial to outsource chores and pay someone to do certain tasks so you can have family time as a household (e.g. a deep monthly clean, or to tidy up your garden), or to reduce stress. When we pay for childcare, cleaning or to eat out it contributes to economic growth and the local economy. In our current idea of progress if we do not pay for something it has little value. Yet the hours women, and single parents of all genders, spend on unpaid housework and childcare is staggering- and we should value it.

Think about how you can help the women in your life, at home and in the office, gain time and reduce their stress by considering the true cost of housework- be it taking on more chores or dividing responsibilities sensibility- and valuing it appropriately.