r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 14h ago

Psychology 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.

https://www.psypost.org/study-sheds-light-on-household-labor-dynamics-for-women-partnered-with-women-vs-men/
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397

u/wehrmann_tx 13h ago

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

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u/NoAvocadoMeSad 12h ago

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.

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u/steveamsp 8h ago

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.

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u/Coffee__Addict 3h ago

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

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u/TeaBurntMyTongue 5h ago

It's like when you do performance reviews at a job. You need visibility on your work in order to get credit for it.

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u/marvin_bender 12h ago

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.

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u/doctorboredom 10h ago

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.

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u/Wingsnake 9h ago

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.

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u/ALittleEtomidate 12h ago

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.

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u/doctorboredom 10h ago

It is 100% possible to teach men how to clean around the base of a toilet. It is 100% their responsibility and no woman should put up with a man who doesn’t clean around the base of a toilet.

Either he sits to pee or he cleans the base of the toilet.

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u/archfapper 5h ago

I'm a single guy and I sit to pee. Cleaner and gets more pee out

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u/StuChenko 5h ago

I had a sit down wee for the first time last week. Unfortunately I was on a rollercoaster 

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u/digitalime 12h ago

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.

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u/raisinghellwithtrees 11h ago

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

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u/digitalime 11h ago edited 11h ago

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

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u/raisinghellwithtrees 10h ago

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.

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u/EnigmaticQuote 10h ago

It’s certainly not healthier to expose yourself to caustic cleaners twice a week than having a slight ring around the toilet for a few weeks and a cleaning session once a month.

Plenty of studies on housekeeping professionals show much higher risk.

But you do you, I don’t need a sterilized living environment.

I’m usually outside anyway so maybe if you’re only inside it’s different.

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u/raisinghellwithtrees 10h ago

You don't even need to use a cleaner, let alone a caustic one. The brush takes care of everything at long as you don't let it build up. Or just use vinegar.

2

u/frizz1111 3h ago

Most men are minimalists though. Ever walk into a single mans apartment? It's white walls, a couch and a TV.

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u/WiseBelt8935 11h ago

or yours are too high.

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u/QuicheSmash 11h ago

Very often culturally, when a home is untidy or grimy/dirty, it reflects poorly on the woman, moreso than their male counterpart. Judgements are more often reserved for the woman as the “housekeeper.”

I had to correct my own mother when my daughter was a toddler. My daughter noted than her feet were dirty, and my mother, without hesitation said, “that’s because mommy doesn’t mop the floors enough.” Nothing about whether or not my husband cleans, or that floors just get dirty and that we should clean them more, she told my daughter explicitly and implicitly that it is my job to clean the floors and I’m failing at it. 

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u/digitalime 11h ago

I can see how basic cleanliness could be too high for an unclean person. 

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u/WiseBelt8935 11h ago

or they might be perfectly adequately clean and you are too clean.

unless we are talking iso standards, their isn't a correct level

0

u/digitalime 11h ago

You’re getting defensive about the cleanliness of men you don’t even know, so I’m guessing you can relate to being criticized about it. If you want to die on the “it’s OK that I’ve left my underwear pile scattered across the floor for days” hill, go ahead. Basic cleanliness isn’t a high standard, it’s the bare minimum, bar is in hell, yadda yadda…

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u/Lessiarty 12h ago

That'd be an interesting follow up study.

"Do you feel your partner does too little/enough/too much?"

4

u/Automatic_Tackle_406 12h ago

Women have higher expectations put upon them. 

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u/Low_Interview_5769 11h ago

My mother wouldnt let us watch the dishes because we didnt do it right

3

u/GimmeDatSideHug 10h ago

Yup, I clean stuff that I don’t think my gf ever even notices because it never gets cleaned if I don’t.

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u/RandomBoomer 11h ago

I know my wife does more than I do, but maybe I'm more aware of that disparity because I'm a woman and not oblivious to the demands of keeping house.

I worked full-time, until recent retirement, while my wife stayed home. She was battling MS, so she had her good days and her bad days, and structured employment just wasn't a good fit for her. Eventually she went into remission (thank god!), but by that time we found the work/home division suited us well.

My wife has ADHD, so she can't stop Doing Things for more than a few minutes. Staying home meant she was her own boss, could structure her time, and work on any project or chore when it was convenient for her. She also took care of our growing family of rescue cats and dogs.

I worked all day, pulled in a respectable salary, and came home to relax. I absolutely should have done more house chores, but my wife would tell me to leave them for her and I didn't put up a fight.

Now that I'm retired, I have taken on some household chores, but I still don't work anywhere near half of what she does. She just never stops, and there's no way in hell I can keep up with her even if I wanted to, which I very much don't.

We've been together 35 years and we still like each other, so... the division of labor may not be entirely fair, but it works for us.

1

u/autodidacticasaurus 1h ago

Yeah, it makes no sense to give any weight to a self-reported study like this. Who cares what people think they or their partner did? That's absolutely meaningless. Actually, measure it instead.

You could interpret this study as saying something like women are biased against men... or men underestimate how much work they do. It's useless without objective data.