Women in heterosexual relationships who did more dishes than their partners reported:
- Lower relationship satisfaction,
- more relationship conflict,
- and worse and less sex.
Dr Dan Carlson, who led the study, thinks it is because dishwashing is a thankless task, unlike cooking which attracts praise. Also, it is yucky.
Men improving, but...
Men are picking up some of the slack in the household chores department, research has found. Between 1999 and 2006 the couples who shared dishwashing duty rose from 16% to 29%.
Per week, men now do 4 hours of housework compared with two in 1965. Still way off a perfect score for men, but an improving trend.
The study's authors write:
"Contrary to arguments of a stalled gender revolution, the authors find that contemporary couples more often share all routine tasks (other than shopping) than couples in the past, with the greatest change in dishwashing and laundry.Of course, men will argue that their share is done in other areas, like lawn mowing, car cleaning and DIY. However, men still avoid the least desirable jobs, like cleaning the toilet and the laundry. Naturally, this can create resentment - especially when other couples are seen to share out the work more equally.
The equal sharing of housework is more positively related to sexual intimacy and relationship satisfaction among more recent cohorts and more negatively related to marital discord."
The study was published in the journal Socius (Carlson et al., 2018).
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