New survey finds division of home chores is a major source of conflict for American couples
A new survey has found that about 72% of cohabitating couples disagree on how to split home chores fairly.
On average, the surveyed people felt they spend 2.6 more hours than their partner each month on doing chores around the house.
The survey was based on the responses of 2,000 U.S. adults who live totether with their spouse or partner. It was commissioned by home robotics company Roborock.
The goal was to examine how the division of chores around the house impacts a couple’s relationship health.
More home chores to do when everyone is working and schooling from home
Many couples have been struggling with dividing the cleaning chores due to the seemigless endless waves of lockdowns and quarantines.
The survey found, for example, that about 40% of couples say they argued more about household chores schedules than they did before work-from-home and home schooling became the norm.
Alomg those same lines, almost half of the sirveyed couples said that “a more balanced division” of home chores would lowrer the frequency of those arguments.
Always getting stuck with the most unpleasant cleaning chores
The survey also found about 20% of respondents saying they feel they’re “always getting stuck with the dirty work.”
Another common complaint was that one partner felt they were always having to finish their partner’s assigned tasks, along with their own.
In fact only 9% said they felt that their partner always completes their share of the cleaning chores.
Interestingly, 34% of respondents said they felt their significant other has at times “purposefully done chores poorly to avoid doing them in the future.”
Relationship salvation in the form of a weekly chores list
These survey results lend support to the idea that couples who make an active effort to share the house chores evenly will be likely to see the benefits in terms of a stronger and healthier relationship.
Something as simple as making a list of chores to do around the house, together with household chores schedules that everyone abides by, can make a big difference.
Extra: 6 tips on dividing the home chores fairly
It is not uncommon for couples to have a disagreement on who should be responsible for what chores around the house.
But with the six tips below, you can divide the home chores without any arguments.
- Create a list of all the tasks that need to be done around the house and assign them to each partner. This will help you see if there are any tasks that need to be done more often than others.
- Decide on a schedule for each partner and stick to it as much as possible. This will help you avoid last minute scrambles and ensure that one partner doesn’t do all of the work while the other one sits back and relaxes.
- Try doing some households chore together as a couple; this will encourage communication between partners and make both feel valued in their roles around the house.
- Determine which tasks can be delegated to an outside service (like a cleaning person) or shared with another household, such as lawn care or cleaning the common areas.
- Divide the tasks according to who is most likely to enjoy them or do them well, so that everyone has more enjoyable tasks and less frustrating ones.
- Decide on a time frame for completing each task, so that everyone can manage their time better and not feel overwhelmed with too many chores at one time
In a perfect world, we would all have the time to clean the house, do the laundry, and cook dinner every day.
But in reality, most of us have a lot of other things to take care of on top of our regular jobs.
It doesn’t matter if you’re living with roommates or just your significant other — everyone should contribute to keeping the house running smoothly.
Photos: by DepositPhotos and Pexels
Originally published at https://www.psychnewsdaily.com on February 3, 2022.
