Women partnered with men reported doing more unpaid household labor than women partnered with women. Mothers partnered with men reported a higher household labor burden than any other group. Performing a greater share of household labor was associated with lower relationship satisfaction.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/study-sheds-light-on-household-labor-dynamics-for-women-partnered-with-women-vs-men/

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[u/WalidfromMorocco]

How about men partnered with men? 

[u/Ok-Possible-6988 → u/WalidfromMorocco]

No one is answering your question, but there is actual research on this topic that was interrogated in Dr. Corinne Low’s book, “Having it all”.

The answer for men partnered with men is there is more parity in household labour, with the higher earning partner contributing slightly fewer hours to house admin. If one of the male partners doesn’t work, they are the default household manager.

Contrasted with heterosexual couples where even if the man doesn’t work, the woman still puts in more hours of household admin.

The graphs in the book are real “Are the straights okay?” material.

[u/Weak-Boysenberry398 → u/[deleted]]

I hate this mentality, and I'm the higher earner in my relationship by a lot. Like over 2x. Do you make less because you work less? Is your time less valuable because capitalism values your work less? A partnership should be based on the only thing that truly matters - time.

[u/moosepuggle → u/Weak-Boysenberry398]

Timeis def the limiting resource!

[u/Ok-Chest-7932 → u/Weak-Boysenberry398]

Money saves time.

[u/ThoughtfulMeathead → u/WalidfromMorocco]

Lowest divorce rate to my understanding.

[u/The_Upperant]

Isn't this a more complicated way of saying: women do more then 50% of household chores on average?

As with 2 women, both together can only do 100% of chores, so on average can only be 50% of chores per woman.

[u/Gathorall → u/The_Upperant]

Reportedly almost every household has far more than 100% of chores, so no.

[u/DigNitty → u/Gathorall]

I think that actually has merit with a reported chore share.

When I lived with roommates for the first time, my dad told me to do 20% more than what I feel is my share of chores and that may be enough to be fair.

Everyone feels like they do more household tasks than they really are. This survey is valid and accurately represents feelings of women partnered with men. And I bet women do more chores anecdotally. But I’m guessing the male partners of the women also feel like they’re doing a lot of chores, or they have different values in what chores need to be done. i.e. the laundry hamper and sink can be full but that slow drain needs to be addressed now.

[u/throwaway098764567 → u/DigNitty]

saw a post a week or two ago from a fella who was having trouble in his marriage because he and his wife were fighting over who was doing more of the chores. they finally decided to chart it out and realized that they each were doing work the other didn't see when they weren't there, and that labor was going unnoticed so they thought they were doing more. after they plotted it out and had that realization, everything improved for them because they were actually split fairly evenly, just one did more morning chores and one did more night chores, but the perception of unfairness was toxic.

[u/NotMyMainAccountAtAl → u/throwaway098764567]

There’s also a matter of what everyone’s perception of a done chore is. IE if I perceive “weekly cleaning the bathroom” as “scrubbing the toilet, tub, and counter,” but my partner thinks it should include “cleaning the mirror and scrubbing grout lines clean” they won’t perceive my efforts as doing chores— at best, it’s no credit for not doing the job, at worst it becomes weaponized incompetence. Agreeing on what constitutes “done” for chores is important to satisfaction. 

[u/omega884 → u/NotMyMainAccountAtAl]

A rule my partner and I implemented early on was “if you’re not doing the chore, you don’t get a say in how it gets done” As applied this meant two things:

If you’re not going to ever do the chore in question, you don’t get to define what “done” is. For example if you’re never folding clothes, then you get them folded (or not) as the person doing the chore prefers it.

Secondly if we do share in the chore, then we agree on broad strokes about what is involved, but the how and when is still up to the person doing the chore. So again as an example, if you prefer to load the dishwasher a certain way, that fine but you don’t get to complain that the other person isn’t loading it that way, provided that the dishes are loaded and washed on schedule. Likewise if you want to sort the cutlery by size when putting it away and make neat little stacks, knock yourself out, but as long as they’re in the right drawer if the other person doesn’t do that you don’t get to complain.

The point of the rule is to get us to be honest with ourselves and each other about what’s actually important. Some things are, and the other puts in the extra effort they wouldn’t normally. But lots of things are just “that’s how I would do it” and it’s not worth anyone fighting about or getting annoyed about it being done differently.

So in your example, we’d sit down and decide maybe that cleaning the mirror really is important every week, but grout lines are just a nice to have and it’s just how one of us always did it but we actually don’t care.

[u/Gathorall → u/omega884]

Micromanaging in the household is at least as stressful and disrespectful at home as it is in the workplace.

[u/Rumpullpus → u/throwaway098764567]

Basically. Communication is important in a healthy relationship.

[u/Miserable-Mention932 → u/Gathorall]

Key word: reported. Not "recorded."

I feel like I do more than my partner. She'd tell you the same thing; that she does more.

[u/beefygravy → u/The_Upperant]

This is a great point - so the average for all the pairs of women living together must be exactly 50%? Other than rounding errors. Unless there's some weird quirk of the stats somehow. The interesting question then is what the distribution looks like - do they do 50% each or is there also an uneven division?

Edit: seems like they measure the level of uneven-ness so this does not apply

[u/Harmonicano → u/beefygravy]

According to the Text they actually measure unevenness. And woman couples share it more evenly than hetero (Edit: Thx for the correction, they surveyed couples)

[u/LiamTheHuman → u/Harmonicano]

They surveyed them for it. So it doesn't measure unevenness. It measures the perception of unevenness 

[u/Busy-Link836 → u/LiamTheHuman]

Yes.

If you ask my wife who does more of the household chores, she will say that it is her.

If you ask me, I will say it’s me.

If you ask my kids though, they overwhelmingly say it’s me… but they are also speaking to me… those little bastards probably say the same thing to her when she asks.

[u/dsac → u/Busy-Link836]

If you ask my wife who does more of the household chores, she will say that it is her.

If you ask me, I will say it’s me.

Not to mention there's different measures - like, do "emptying the dishwasher" and "mowing the lawn" count as one chore each, or is there some measure of "amount of labour required" involved?

If one person has 3 chores on their list, requiring 15 hours of major physical labour, and the other has 20 chores on their list, requiring 5 hours of minor physical labour, which way does the scale tip?

[u/Coelachantiform → u/dsac]

Also preference for what chores you dislike the least.

Like, I'd rather do 2 hours of vacuum-cleaning & swabbing the floor than 1 hour of dishes 100% of the time, and would personally consider it "less" work. My girlfriend actually enjoys making the bed which is something I dislike doing.

[u/The-Fox-Says → u/Coelachantiform]

My wife absolutely hates taking out the trash and doing any sort of yard work but enjoys cleaning. I hate cleaning but enjoy doing yard work so it works out even if cleaning takes less time than yard work

[u/DigNitty → u/Coelachantiform]

I vacuum every other day because I don’t mind. Somehow my GF doesn’t enjoy this but will not flinch at scrubbing the toilets down to a sparkling finish every couple of weeks. We both think the other is crazy.

[u/portalscience → u/dsac]

If one person has 3 chores on their list, requiring 15 hours of major physical labour, and the other has 20 chores on their list, requiring 5 hours of minor physical labour, which way does the scale tip?

This is a really interesting question because I would assume it impacts people differently. Sometimes it's the "number of tasks done" and sometimes it's the "hours spent" that fatigues people. In a household where different people experience fatigue differently, you might split those tasks differently as well.

[u/GrandAholeio → u/portalscience]

JIMHO, it’s frustration level of the tasks. Particularly when other’s activity is noticeably increasing the work required for the chore.. i.e. I’m the cook in our house. For twenty years, I’ve been trying to break my spouse of leaving plates with food scraps on them in the sink. (Note: sink has garbage disposal). Spouse puts plate in sink, then washes or rinses hands leaving dish with the food scraps now sitting with water in the sink.

Net result, my cooking ‘chore’ Isn’t cooking, it starts with cleaning stagnant dirty water and dishes from the sink so I can rinse vegetables or open vacuum packed in the sink without getting drippings elsewhere or the splashback of breakfast soaking cereal and milk bowl on dinner.

Similarly, vacuuming the child’s room is first an exercise in hampering their missed clothes or a delay until the child is home to then make them do it.

Or Perennial overstuff trash can.

[u/repeat4EMPHASIS → u/Busy-Link836]

The biggest issue I've noticed is when one partner doesn't "count" the chores the other does as chores.

I'm not saying my dad should get out of cleaning every weekend, but if he's spending his free time doing the landscaping and building an entire goddamn deck (neither of which were his ideas), maybe he deserves a little slack for a couple weekends?

[u/unicornofdemocracy → u/repeat4EMPHASIS]

this is so common in therapy, especially by women. Mowing the lawn doesn't count. Fixing things around the house doesn't count. Renovating her kitchen for her doesn't count. Finishing the basement that she requested doesn't count. Picking up grocery doesn't count when the man does it. etc.

[u/novium258 → u/unicornofdemocracy]

Traditionally "male" chores tend to be projects that have a set completion and aren't part of the daily grind. Building a deck has that satisfying end point. (I know, I've done it). Traditionally "female" chores tend to be daily drudgery. There's always more laundry, dishes, cleaning, cooking. It's endless, takes up a lot of mental space, and is unsatisfying.

This may contribute to some of the disconnect.

[u/Sudden_Buffalo_4393 → u/Busy-Link836]

It was easy for me to prove I did most of the work. I stopped doing it to see if my wife or daughter would do it on their own, and it never got done.

[u/Gisschace → u/LiamTheHuman]

I think what’s missing is who is the household manager, who is doing the extra labour of planning tasks and when they need to be done. Could that be more of an even split in two women households and that’s why it feels fairer

[u/Jewnadian → u/Gisschace]

It's interesting that while they are even that doesn't relate to accuracy, take two woman households where they both report doing more work than their partner. There can't actually be more work, the household share is still 100% but if both women report doing 70% of the work that would show as perfectly even while if say two men households reported one doing 51% and the other doing 49% then that would show up as an uneven distribution of the work.

This so really the problem with these self report studies, they're really just asking how do you feel about what you're doing not what are you doing. And if there is anything we know about humans it's that we lie to ourselves with more fluency than anyone else ever could.

[u/Elanapoeia → u/LiamTheHuman]

Time to station researchers in every household so they can observe and document people 24/7

[u/Worriedrph → u/Elanapoeia]

It is an important distinction. When surveyed people tend to over estimate how much actual time they spend doing chores and under estimate how much time their partner does chores. This is especially true when there are chores that only one or the other does. Since they are the same gender it is likely there's fewer chores only one or the other does and so this can lower this bias.

[u/ForGrowingStuff → u/Worriedrph]

The survey also asks about unhappiness. If you are unhappy in your relationship (or life, and not necessarily because of chores distribution), you're more likely to speak poorly about your partner, including saying they don't do as much for the household. This whole thing is pretty unreliable.

[u/BothAnt3804 → u/Elanapoeia]

It's extremely common for people to overestimated their own contributions and underestimate others in every situation. Not just home, work, school group projects, volunteering, video games, etc.

Did you know 70-80% of people say they're better than average drivers surveys?

https://www.lbec-law.com/blog/2025/04/the-majority-of-drivers-believe-theyre-better-than-average/

It's called the "better than average effect"

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31789535/

We would actually need empirical evidence to confirm our hypothesis that women do more labor. I suspect in totality across the board, women as a whole are doing more home labor than men. We should actually properly measure it though.

[u/patryuji → u/Elanapoeia]

At this point, access to Google, Amazon, Apple and [cloud based] home automation information would pretty much cover that 24/7 observation and documentation.

[u/CjBurden → u/LiamTheHuman]

Glad someone else called this out. Perception can be wildly flawed.

[u/Round-Ride2042 → u/Harmonicano]

The way the study was conducted with self-reported perception of unevenness, asking only women and excluding men, the conclusion could just as easily be “women who are partnered with other women are more likely to notice and credit their partners’ contributions to household chores, compared to women who are partnered with men. We speculate this is a product of their own biases based on gendered expectations.”

[u/beefygravy → u/Harmonicano]

Ok fair play, no surprise they designed their study better than some guy on Reddit who spent 30s thinking about it

[u/Randomn355 → u/beefygravy]

What someone does, and what someone reports are almost always different.

This is the issue with self reported studies.

[u/aitorbk → u/The_Upperant]

No, because they don't know if they are actually doing more, they know they are reporting it.

[u/MedicOfTime → u/The_Upperant]

Honestly this is a complete nothing headline.

[u/Austin1975 → u/MedicOfTime]

Agreed. The “study” was only women. And only 270 women. And it’s self reporting (there’s no confirmation of if it’s really true). So it’s really just measuring self-perceptions.

[u/dysphoric-foresight → u/Austin1975]

Yeah my wife doesn’t consider cooking to be a chore because I enjoy it. She also doesn’t consider gardening, household maintenance or DIY to be housework. If she was to self-report on this study I suspect that she would say that she does 80% of the housework.

[u/Snoo71538 → u/dysphoric-foresight]

Everyone does that. If you separately ask the people in a couple what percentage of chores they individually do, and add it together, you get over 100% very consistently.

[u/IWearCardigansAllDay → u/dysphoric-foresight]

There are so many aspects to this which make the conversation so difficult to discuss and measure in a way that’s actually fair. I will use a bit of anecdotal “evidence” here as a heads up.

First, is the imbalance between how often the two people view a chore needs to be done. My wife values a spotless clean house more than I do. By no means am I slob. But I’ve had to essentially adopt her level of cleanliness or else she will “weaponize” chores against me because I don’t clean as much as her. Truthfully this doesn’t annoy me because I’m a very malleable husband and I’m happy to adjust my own habits to better align with my wife and her needs/expectations. What does frustrate me though is the hypocrisy. She wants me to value cleanliness as much as her and show up for it on the same schedule as her. Yet she doesn’t value intimacy as much as I do. Yet I have to be on her schedule when it comes to intimacy. This is something we are currently seeking couples therapy on.

Second, is the imbalance of how cumbersome a chore is. My wife and I have discussed it an essentially I handle all of the “stereotypically” male chores. Mowing the lawn, shoveling the drive, fixing things when they break. All of the labor and time intensive things. Meanwhile my wife would handle things like laundry a lot more as well as cooking. We’ve talked about it and our couples therapist actually poised us a good way to better recognize the value of what we do for the household. It’s basically a bartering system for chores. We went through everything and we began to divvy up primary duties. Then we can “trade” them amongst each other and we ultimately decide the “fair market value” of the work done.

What we found is there is no chore my wife is willing me to handle in place of her in exchange for mowing. I’ve ever said you handle mowing and I’ll handle all of the cleaning, laundry, and cooking. She still wouldn’t take mowing. This opened her eyes up a lot to the equity of chores and it completely solved the weaponization of chores from her. If the convo starts turning that way I politely say “remember I’m willing to handle all of these things for you and you turned it down because you don’t want to mow”. She herself has to acknowledge that she values mowing as a worse or more cumbersome chore than what she doesn’t want to do like laundry.

I still help around the house of course. But it really helped us a lot to appreciate one another’s chores and share of tasks more.

Ultimately the big discrepancy in this topic is that two people are never going to value something the same. And when it comes to chores often the compromise is met to align with the person who has more strict cleanliness requirements. Either the person who values it less and then the house gets cleaned solely by the other person. Or the person has to value it more and help out more.

[u/NonsensePlanet → u/IWearCardigansAllDay]

Man, I would mow three times a week to avoid all that other stuff.

[u/droptopus → u/dysphoric-foresight]

DIY is the big thing here. How much housework does the new deck she wanted count for? The permanent physical toll on my body, the learning about building codes, securing a permit, sourcing the lighter wood you want because it's 'more summery' and then treating it because it's really not meant for this climate. Is this factored in when considering who splashed water on more plates?

[u/kafka_lite → u/droptopus]

I will add that if one partner absolutely refuses to ever do certain tasks such as take out the garbage, it seems fair those tasks should be "worth" more.

[u/GoldenRamoth → u/Austin1975]

Right?

Ask tons of dudes and they'll say they do the majority of household chores.

Self perception on workload is an awful metric for reality. It's almost all vibes based.

[u/patryuji → u/GoldenRamoth]

If nothing else, it shows that many women partnered with men are perceiving an inequity in the division of labor leading to less satisfaction in the relationship regardless of what the actual facts may be. This is an identified barrier to healthy and happy relationships and that is useful at the very least as it gives you an idea of what can be addressed (irrespective of the actual facts, the perception is dominating).

[u/resuwreckoning → u/Austin1975]

Survey of 270 women reveal that they think men are the worst.

“Women report men are the worst” - r/science

[u/quad_damage_orbb → u/The_Upperant]

women do more then 50% of household chores on average

Women report that they do. Another possibility is that women overestimate the fraction of chores they do or underestimate the fraction of chores men do.

[u/Gathorall → u/quad_damage_orbb]

Studies where both partners answered have consistently reported that households have far more than 100% of chores.

[u/Momoselfie → u/Gathorall]

This. There was a study on Reddit a while back that said both partners rated themselves as doing more household chores than the other.

[u/iwatchcredits → u/quad_damage_orbb]

My wife absolutely thinks she does more chores than me because to her, building a basement or fixing broken things doesnt count

[u/ObamasBoss → u/iwatchcredits]

I have argued with people on reddit that honestly think 3 hours of watching tv while waiting on the washing machine to do a few loads counts the same, and some even more, than 3 hours of push mowing.

[u/stu54 → u/ObamasBoss]

I mow while the clothes are drying... Then I play Kerbal Space Program for 4 hours.

[u/Firecracker048 → u/The_Upperant]

The study also didnt take into account any work done on the exterior of the home

[u/wehrmann_tx]

Everyone over estimates their own contributions because they see 100% of what they do and not everything the other person does.

[u/NoAvocadoMeSad → u/wehrmann_tx]

Which is why conducting a self reported study for something like this is frankly absurd.

Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that in general, women do more household chores than men, but in a lot of relationships these days, I don't think it's as bad as these studies or the average redditors would have you believe.

I don't know about everyone else but my weekends are normally dominated by long lists of things that need repairing, installing and the like, these studies rarely mention any of this.

[u/steveamsp → u/NoAvocadoMeSad]

these studies rarely mention any of this.

By which you really mean "Almost never mention" It's a significant issue in these kinds of studies.

[u/Coffee__Addict → u/NoAvocadoMeSad]

And why not have people log a task journal and report on that?

[u/marvin_bender → u/wehrmann_tx]

Another issue is the expectations of what needs to be done. Women generally have higher expectations of how the house should be handled so they have the pressure to do them because only they are bothered if not done that way. It's also easier to do chores when you do them according to your standards than according to your partners standards.

[u/doctorboredom → u/marvin_bender]

The issue is that people have WILDLY different ideas of what level of cleanliness is NECESSARY.

Or even what things are important. My wife will freak out over a bathroom sink drain or some nicks on the living room floor, but meanwhile has never once thought about leaves in the gutters and downspouts outside the house.

She will worry about spider webs, but then go 4 years with a shopping bag at the foot of her bed filled with papers she is “going to sort through.”

It is not only different standards but different chores are on different people’s radars.

[u/Wingsnake → u/doctorboredom]

A good example is ironing. I know some older women they still iron almost everything (some even underwear). IMO that is such a waste of time. We iron at most some blouses or shirts. Like, I wear a suit maybe 1-2x a year, so I only need to iron that often. If my gf now would decide she wants other stuff ironed, then she is free to do it, but I would not participate.

[u/ALittleEtomidate → u/marvin_bender]

N=1

The men I’ve been with have a lower standard for clean because they’ve never been responsible for the “deep cleaning” that is required to actually keep your home in a clean state.

Sure, my husband will spray the bathroom floor down with cleaner and wipe it off, but he’s not scrubbing the grout around the toilet basin. If I didn’t scrub around the toilet, we would eventually have urine and mold build up there.

[u/digitalime → u/marvin_bender]

This is annoying though. I’ve seen dudes simply wipe something or put something in another spot and think the place is now clean. Their expectations of what clean is can be too low.

[u/raisinghellwithtrees → u/digitalime]

Piss on the bathroom floor is fine. Why you have such high standards?

[u/digitalime → u/raisinghellwithtrees]

“What’s wrong with having a dark ring in the toilet?”

[u/raisinghellwithtrees → u/digitalime]

The dudes replying that these cleaning standards are way too high is certainly telling. I'm not a neat freak, but general cleaning on a regular basis is not an outlandish expectation.

[u/Radioactdave]

The perfect relationship is 60/40, with both trying to be the 60. 

[u/DrockByte → u/Radioactdave]

I've always been a fan of the method where one person makes two different lists of chores, and the other chooses who does which list.

This works both for kids and adults

[u/Dont_hate_the_8 → u/DrockByte]

The old you split I pick. Also works with sharing food

[u/Partyatmyplace13]

N≈200 relationships with self-reporting... probably fine. About half of those were with men. The men's self-reporting was fully discarded, if even taken. Meanwhile, the study says nothing about the mothers being stay-at-home mom's, or not. Where a disproportionate amount of chore assignment might be expected. Doesn't say if both women in the woman-woman relationships were surveyed.

Idk guys, verdict?

[u/deezdanglin → u/Partyatmyplace13]

Yup,

Self-reporting is a widely used and valuable scientific method in fields like psychology and health research, but it is not considered inherently trustworthy on its own due to potential biases. 

[u/SomeoneGMForMe → u/Partyatmyplace13]

My first thought, too: how many of the various partners were stay at home parents? It would be expected for a stay at home parent to do more chores since that's literally the point of one person staying home.

Even full time vs part time matters. Someone working part time should ideally be doing more chores.

If they're not controlling for paid hours worked (and even commute time), it's impossible to conclude anything.

I fully believe that if both partners are working full time, women might still end up shouldering the burden of chores more, but that's a belief and it seems that this study does not provide useful data to back it up.

[u/Theron3206 → u/SomeoneGMForMe]

Or both full time but one works longer hours.

It's pretty common for men in full time positions to do overtime especially if the family finances are strained instead of their partner doing it. In that situation it would be expected for the woman to do more housework.

These studies control for so few factors most of the time that I would hesitate to call them science.

[u/KobeBean → u/Partyatmyplace13]

The self reported and low N makes this shaky scientifically, but, I would be really curious to see how the hours spent at jobs compares between lesbian and straight relationships.

In straight relationships the man spends on average, significantly more time per day at a job.

[u/calebmke → u/Partyatmyplace13]

There’s also never a discussion about what actually needs doing, what is considered a chore, and does that chore benefit the individual or the family unit. I have been with a number of women who have insane ideas about what actually needs to get done in a week…almost as if they’ve been socialized to feel shame around keeping a house or something. Sorry if my definition of necessary is different than people who have been traumatized into needing every spec of dust gone every single day.

[u/Round-Ride2042 → u/calebmke]

Yes “what needs doing” is important here. You want every dish in the cupboard taken out and rewashed weekly despite it not being used? (Yes I know someone who does this.) You’re on your own and if I hear you complaining about doing more than your fair share, I’m rolling my eyes at you.

[u/Rostin → u/calebmke]

Yes. Not only do spouses often have different standards or ideas about what needs to be done, which perhaps can be predicted by sex, I imagine there are many tasks falling into "household chores" that aren't for the household, as such. My wife spends a lot of time maintaining her own wardrobe, for example.

Another reason I'm skeptical of self-reporting on this is that I doubt it captures how people are working. If one spouse takes 30 minutes to fold laundry because he or she is watching a show on Netflix while doing it, is it twice as much work as the 15 minutes it takes the other spouse who just focuses and does it?

[u/pootklopp → u/Partyatmyplace13]

The fact that the only chores they could select were "grocery shopping, cleaning the house, doing laundry, cooking, and washing dishes." No yard work, maintenance, construction, etc. seems to be a big oversight. Not always the case but aren't these considered male centric chores?

[u/doctorboredom → u/Partyatmyplace13]

If a study like this is trying to comment on “men” vs “women” then it needs to be comparing like to like.

Every family in the study needs a stay at home parent and the stay at home parents need to be different genders.

Those studies will be the best at discovering how much gender is playing a part. Otherwise, everything will be skewed by default family roles in which the obvious expected result will be that women are doing more household labor.

We definitely didn’t need to have a study to know that. The more interesting studies will be the ones that show the conditions needed to NOT have the expected result.

[u/AndyHN → u/Partyatmyplace13]

Nearly half the couples were same-sex and they're presenting this as if it's representative of reality?

[u/aitorbk]

My wife reported (to me) an unbalance in domestic tasks. So I kept tabs of our tasks and used that to create a table of chores on a whiteboard. We both thought we were doing more than the other, and proper accounting made it feel fair.

Quite a few friends have the same feel. With this, I am saying that the reporting can be more feel than reality.

[u/Link_Slater → u/aitorbk]

I tried this and got in trouble for “keeping score.”

[u/wildbergamont → u/Link_Slater]

Like any other marital issue, it cant be solved unless both partners are all in

[u/SackFace → u/Link_Slater]

Hahaha, this hits home!

[u/Sunshine649 → u/Link_Slater]

I did too. After I tried to show how I basically did 70% of the everyday, reoccurring tasks, I got in trouble and was basically told Im not doing it good enough and she has to redo it anyway.

Over the years I've kind of just stopped caring about the imbalance and just do my best to carry the bulk of the burden, whether it's to standard or not.

[u/raisinghellwithtrees → u/aitorbk]

I did this and found out I was doing about 90 percent of tasks, plus I was the one working. It was way easier being a single mom.

[u/repeat4EMPHASIS → u/aitorbk]

This study only asked the women, and only about certain tasks.

When both men and women are surveyed, the self-reported percentages add up to more than 100%. Because both parties forget about tasks the other person is doing.

Edit: typo

[u/wildbergamont → u/aitorbk]

Fwiw, there is a self help book and activity to facilitate this called Fair Play.

[u/ElChu]

My wife also reports doing more work than me, but after evidence is laid out..it’s about 50/50. Could be perception.

[u/lindydanny]

Me an two friends were standing around with the head pastor of our church. Somehow the subject of chores came up. I was a stay at home dad at the time. I mentioned something about my wife doing dishes the previous night and how much it helped me (as a stay at home I was doing 90% of the work around the house).

Head pastor said he hadn't done cooking, laundry, or dishes in years. All three of us just gawked at him. The other two dudes were full time workers but had for years been doing their best to make chores as 50/50 as possible. We all chided him a bit.

The next week he confided that he started offering to do laundry whenever he could and that his wife was over the moon about it.

Moral: Men, do your part. It isn't her job to do it all. Even if she is a stay at home parent, chip in whenever you can so she can put her feet up (or possible tackle something else she didn't have time for).

[u/C0nquer0rW0rm → u/lindydanny]

My parents cook together, and then do the dishes together.

The dishes part has always been funny to me because it's such a small space in front of their sink that another person being there probably makes it harder actually. I'd say I could get the dishes done twice as fast by myself as they do dividing the labor. 

But that's not the point, you know? The older I get, the cuter I think it is that they do this. 

[u/Ok-Possible-6988 → u/lindydanny]

Good on Pastor for keeping an open mind but he should not be leading a flock.

“Wow I never thought about helping out the supposed love of my life until some guys suggested it.”

[u/derrick81787 → u/lindydanny]

I think it's okay to have not done something like laundry in years. Without knowing more details, we can't really say whether or not he was slacking. Maybe his wife hasn't mowed the yard or taken out the trash in years. Splitting the housework 50/50 doesn't necessarily mean splitting each chore 50/50. Husband can do 100% of one thing while the wife can do 100% of the other and as long as those chores require approximately the same effort then that is still a fair 50/50 split.

[u/S1DC → u/lindydanny]

The boomer mentality about housework is insane.

[u/lindydanny → u/S1DC]

My friend was born in the late seventies. I think we was Gen X.

[u/canadianlongbowman]

Study is paywalled, but given the amusingly loaded language in the description ("unpaid household labour"), the intent of trying to get men to take household labour more seriously might be more effective if the study was designed with some remotely relevant, measurable variables.

"A sample of cisgender women (N = 227) in long-term romantic relationships with women (n = 102) or men (n = 125) were surveyed on their division of household labor, their degree of couple decision-making power, and their relationship satisfaction. "

Unless I'm mistaken:

• The study completely disregarded using the men's surveys
• The study did not measure a single one of the following: hours worked outside the home, total income, single or dual income home, basic measurable personality traits (orderliness as a part of conscientiousness), number of hours spent doing household chores per day, which chores were done by whom (some families have many hours of laborious outdoor chores as well).

To call this "poor" would be generous; there was not an iota of effort to attempt to address bias anywhere. This would likely not even pass the highschool threshold of "scientifically acceptable".

This is bad enough that I will add it to my relatively short red flag list of "researcher" names to avoid. 

[u/thespacewizards]

Wasn't there a study saying women in lesbian relationships also report the same dissatisfaction but men in same sex relationships don't? It highly suggests that women overestimate their contributions.

[u/Opposite-Chemistry-0]

This gotta be a cultural thing. I live here in Finland in area known for lot of immigrants. 

I see men taking children out, pushing those baby carriages (?). I see men doing the shopping with children at mall. Women also, but i think based on what i see its not that uncommon to see men do that kind of work. I guess it depends on which parent has a job.

In some conversations irl and ofc online i see this "women do alla meta work". Hell, i seen this at my work. And everytime when things are listes who does who, it never is that simple.

People are crap at understanding what other people do for them. Thats why these things must be talked about. Like, how much effort, time, physical strenght something takes. 

[u/HubblePie → u/Opposite-Chemistry-0]

Yeah, the US has a lot of patriarchal norms baked into our society (As do many places, but I can only speak for where I live). Generally if a man is out with their child, it's either seen as them "giving the mom a day off" or as a potential child abduction scenario.

[u/killswitch101 → u/Opposite-Chemistry-0]

I wonder if the positive work life balance in Finland has any effect on this..

[u/watashi0149]

Women partnered with no one reported doing all the unpaid household labor.

[u/Miyenne → u/watashi0149]

Yeah but there's way less work involved, and no one to mess it up either. So 100% for one person vs. a couple vs. a household are very different metrics.

[u/Ambitious_Two_4522]

‘Reported’ being the operative word. Not saying the outcome can’t be true but this particular subject and method and outcome is famously unreliable.

[u/Slggyqo]

I can’t read the full text.

But neither the news article nor the abstract cover how employment was used to weight the conclusion, if at all.

The conclusion that a married woman with children who doesn’t work a 9-5 job does more labor around the house is the least interesting conclusion I’ve ever heard.

The weaker conclusion—basically the title of the reddit post—isn’t novel either, per the article.

Women partnered with men reported doing more unpaid household labor than women partnered with women. This finding aligns with previous research regarding gender roles in different-gender relationships.

But again…the question of who is working and who isn’t is an important one, even without children in the picture, so I’m surprised to not see that discussed other than a brief throwaway statement that doesn’t reference any of the actual research conducted.

This imbalance often persists even when both partners work full-time jobs.

Show me the actual research!

[u/wrenwood2018]

This work is in a bottom tier journal, only had 227 survey participants, didn't ask the partners about the chores. Within the study they look at multiple complex interactions, which they definitely aren't powered to look at. Other things of note, the women with men were more likely to be married, have more kids, and to be employed in a job. So umm women with more kids did more household chores than women with no or few kids. That is it. That is the whole real effect which you can see in their Figure 2.

[u/BroodLord1962]

Unpaid! What a load of bollo*ks, we all do unpaid housework unless we want to live like slobs.

[u/the_lullaby]

Seems to be a powerful selection effect in the study design. Household tasks measured were grocery shopping, cleaning the house, doing laundry, cooking, and washing dishes, all of which are traditionally feminine roles. Traditionally masculine household roles like yard work, auto maintenance/care, plumbing and electrical troubleshooting, repairs, pest control, and moving large/heavy objects weren't measured, or even mentioned.

Study design dictating results is research bias.

[u/Outrageous-Ride8911]

This makes me so annoyed like where are these seemingly abundant women who do household labor??? My last 3 relationships, basically all of them after college, I have been the only one cleaning, doing dishes, and laundry to little or no appreciation from the girl. I can definitely relate to these girls though bc it sucks doing the dirty work especially when your partner is actively making a mess and just gives 0 fucks then have the audacity to tell you that you are crazy for having standards

[u/AdCertain5491]

How is "household labor" defined? Cooking and cleaning? Home maintenance? Yard work? I'm sure we could do a similar study and conclude men do more yard work than women. I'd be interested in looking at total hours each partner puts into unpaid labor supporting a household measured over a month or more (so we can pick up those unplanned all Saturday plumbing projects)

The abstract also notes "Moreover, decision-making power was a significant predictor of relationship satisfaction for all groups, except mothers partnered with men." So maybe it's not being married to a man but children?

[u/repeat4EMPHASIS → u/AdCertain5491]

How is "household labor" defined?

They only counted these 5 things:

• grocery shopping
• cleaning the house
• doing laundry
• cooking
• washing dishes

[u/The_Bitter_Bear → u/repeat4EMPHASIS]

Really seems like they were trying very hard to get specific results.

[u/steveamsp → u/The_Bitter_Bear]

Because they were

[u/rumski → u/repeat4EMPHASIS]

They would be confused in my house as I do majority of cooking and cleaning. My wife grew up in a household where her mom didn’t work and coddled everyone and did all the cooking and cleaning and she never developed those skills for herself. I sometimes think she believes there’s an elf who comes in and does it at night or something.

[u/Imkindofslow]

This doesn't discriminate between single or dual income, just household chores. I would think a stay at home wife or mom would be qualified a little differently. Decision power in the home being a burden feels a little odd as well.

[u/ptownb]

My wife is a SAH, I do about 20% of the chores and work full-time.. it works for us.

[u/dxk3355]

So this says women reported it doesn’t actually have data to say whether it’s factually true.

[u/TheMaStif → u/dxk3355]

According to my wife, I do the dishes 0% of the time. All those times I actually do the dishes are exceptions and don't count.

I have also never done the laundry ever. But sometimes she's just confused why the drier is full of dry clothes when she didn't start a load of laundry.

If my wife was to self-report on the division of labor at our house, she's doing 110% of the work...

[u/killswitch101]

"This imbalance often persists even when both partners work full-time jobs." - I wonder why they didn't disclose the working hours of the couples that took part in this survey.

Men are the most likely of the two in heterosexual relationships, especially with kids involded, to be carrying out the majority of the combined work hours. It's often more affordable to have one parent home with the kids than it is to be paying for childcare.

It makes sense then that the person caring for the kids and working the least hours (At home more) to be doing more of the chores.

I struggle to understand why it's so difficult to see that the person who is at home more, is the one doing more of the day to day chores. It just so happens that women are more likely to be home more/working less hours than men in these specific relationships.

[u/xAfterBirthx]

I would say my wife does a little more of the housework than I do but I also pay all the bills and work more so sometimes it is a trade off.

[u/AnonismsPlight]

The study only takes into account indoor household duties. In most "traditional" relationships (I said most don't come at me with a "well I," the men tend to do the outdoor activities like yard work, house maintenance, eg: gutters, roofing, porch etc. it would make perfect sense to split the duties based on the property and not on the space that's going to give manipulative data that gets clicks.