I'm beavering away on the book I'm writing for working mothers. I'm writing the chapter that's devoted to the idea of ditching or delegating domestic tasks to free us up for more interesting things. I'm inviting working mums to tell me how they go for 'good enough' on the home front via a short survey (please do it anonymously or leave your name to go in the book) and have been reading up on academic studies of housework.
Psychologist Chloe Bird did a study of the amount of domestic labour performed by 1,256 men and women and its impact on depression levels. Men reported doing 42% of the housework and the women 68% (which doesn’t quite add-up of course and according to other researchers who’ve studied housework habits, that’s because men tend to over-report how much they do). Using clever statistical analyses Dr Bird determined the point at which people experience ‘psychological distress’ from inequity in the division of housework and concluded that: “inequity in the division of household labor has a greater impact on distress than does the amount of household labor.. on average women are performing household labor beyond the point of maximum psychological benefit, whereas men are not.”
Help with my survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7SGLSVP
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