Guilt over house chores affecting women’s health

Guiltabout not doing enough housework may be harming working women’s health,according to new analysis of data from the International Social SurveyProgramme.Over a two-year period, women in 24 countries were askedto rate the amount of household chores they do each day in terms oftheir perceived “fair share”. They also ranked their physical healthlevels.“Women who are not working a lot in the house are actuallyhaving poorer health than women who are working more household hours,”said Candice Thomas, the new paper’s co-author and an assistantprofessor of psychology at Saint Louis University. “How much you work athome is impacting health in a way we didn’t expect.”According tothe analysis, published in the academic journal Sex Roles: “Although theworst health was reported among women with higher work and householdhours ... the relationship between job work hours and physical health isstronger when women are not contributing to the household workload asintensively.”The authors suggest this link might be down to womenfeeling “guilt and empathy toward their spouses, as well as a transferof stress from their spouses”.According to Thomas, the researchshows it is “how women feel about the distribution [of housework] thatreally matters. And I think guilt is something that probably plays arole in it – that you’re not doing your fair share.”In the UK,averaging across all seven days of the week, women and men now spend anear-identical amount of time working when household chores are included(women: 7hr 10min per day; men: five minutes more). But men are paidfor almost 25% more of their work (5hr 14min of their daily average,compared to 3hr 26min for women). And men are also paid better, both inthe UK and across the world.This data comes from a new working paperby by Oxford University’s Centre for Time Use Research (CTUR): a genderanalysis of 75 national time-use surveys for people aged 20–59 from 24countries over the last 58 years.The study shows that women in theUK now spend an average of 2hr 12min per day doing household chores,compared to men’s contribution of 1hr 9min.“The convergence [betweenmen and women’s work time] is only partial, but change is happening,”said professor Jonathan Gershuny, head of the CTUR. “The public policyissue is how far the state is going to go to make sure this collectiveeffort on the part of women does not lead to the punishment of women interms of power and influence.”The unequal distribution of unpaidwork between men and women is one of the most important gender equalityissues in many countries, according to a 2017 OECD report which citesits impact on pay gaps and career progression. A recent analysis bythe Financial Times found women accounted for just a quarter of seniorstaff at 50 of the world’s biggest banks, insurers and asset managers – aproportion that has improved only slightly since 2014.The unequaldistribution of labour has also been found to have a wider economicimpact, with one recent study suggesting the US economy would improvesignificantly if men took on more of the housework.Across the 24countries included in the CTUR analysis, women are still typicallytaking on around 65% of the housework load, down from 85% in the 1960s –despite having increased their average paid working hours by as much as47% (UK), 115% (Denmark) and 215% (Holland) over broadly the sameperiod.While more women are in paid work than ever before, for manypeople the traditional, archaic ideas of what a man and women “should”do in the household linger on.“This guilt is linked to someexpectations of what women are ‘supposed’ to do, even if they don’tagree with it,” said Melissa Milkie, a sociologist specialising ingender at the University of Toronto. “Although women and men’s roles aremuch more similar than they used to be, the expectations lag to somedegree – we’re still stuck culturally. This may be true for men too, inthat they still have to be breadwinners.”At 31, Holly Marriott isthe founder and CEO of her own company, but still finds herselfconstantly grappling with a question of her identity: “Am I the powerfulperson running a business, or am I the person incapable of keeping myhouse clean?”Marriott lives with her partner in Norfolk, and becauseof work commitments feels she isn’t able to take on her share of thehousehold work. “It’s classic house pride: ‘I’m a woman – I should beable to keep a house clean.’ But I don’t have time to do that.”Thefeeling of guilt is something Marriott can’t seem to shake off – eventhough she is the higher earner in the household. “I feel like I shouldbe able to do more, even though I work long hours. I think it’s relatedto traditional roles: even though my role has changed and I’m workingflat-out, I feel that I need to keep things tidy. It’s the whole thingof taking an equal amount of weight. I don’t because I haven’t got timeto – and that bothers me.”According to Gershuny, society’s ingrainedideas are the very things that maintain inequality in the workplace.“It’s this notion of fairness within the household that generates thesocietal level of unfairness manifested by the wage gap. For example, ifyou are doing more of the childcare, that means you shouldn’t beworking at your job as well,” he said.“Women are still doing thedouble shift of a job and most of the housework, plus caringresponsibilities – and it leaves a lot of women knackered,” said FrancesO’Grady, the first female general secretary of the UK’s Trades UnionCongress.“This means women have less leisure time than men, andfewer opportunities to network. For example, it’s harder for women tohang on after work to build contacts if they want to go for promotion –all of these things that we know make a difference are much tougher forwomen.” - Guardian News & Media