Women do more housework than men, University of Alberta study finds
Posted January 13, 2025 2:59 pm.
Last Updated January 13, 2025 7:33 pm.
A new study at the University of Alberta says women are still doing the majority of housework years into their relationships, revealing an uneven gender divide that continues to linger.
“It’s not surprising at all,” said one Edmontonian CityNews spoke to.
Another says, “She does 70 and I do 30. I know how to clean and I know how to cook certain meals. I try to help out where my skillsets lie but there’s some places wherei have no skills at all.”
Researchers found the division of household labour remains imbalanced from young adulthood to middle age and even during child-rearing years, when men contribute less than normal.
According to the study, a large gap in housework contributions that already existed for women surveyed at age 25 stayed the same to middle age.
“Once these patterns are set early in the relationship, they tend to persist,” said lead author and relationship researcher Matthew Johnson.
“The surprising part over that 25 year time span, the gap didn’t really close. If anything, when the kids came into the picture the gap widened.”
Johnson points out to “gendered pattern” of housework in long-term relationships.
“If the relationship persist, they find some rhythm for better or worse and then once they figured that out, they those patterns tend to persist,” said Johnson.
The researchers looked at the trajectories of the couples’ contributions to cooking, kitchen cleaning, grocery shopping, housecleaning, laundry, and overall housework from ages 25 to 50 years.
The study also analyzed who was doing household chores at ages 25, 32, 43, and 50, while raising children.
The results showed there were no tasks where men did the most, or even where the work was equally shared.
“My mom definitely complains every now and then. I think it’ll be better to be even but at the current stage in society sure it could happen but I don’t see it happenening very soon,” said an Edmontonian CityNews spoke to.
CityNews also talked to Edmontonians who live in households where men do as many chores as women.
“Just the reaction to people finding out that my dad does that stuff the fact that they’re surprised makes me not surprised to find out in other holuseholds it’s not the same.”
When children were a factor in the couple’s lives, the study says men also contributed less than normal to doing the chores.
The study used data from the Edmonton Transition Study, which surveyed 260 women and 260 men from youth to middle age over 32 years starting in 1985.