Oddly, though the work type has changed, there’s only about 5 hours less a week of housework than there was in 1900. Heck that’s less then 45 minutes a day difference, even with everything you mentioned.
I agree the work is far less physically demanding, but modern standards dictate about the same amount of time burden, the difference lies mainly in that men have picked up 13 more of those hours a week, and that it’s more rare for only one adult to work outside the home.
Looking at the actual study, something suspicious is this, from Table 3:
1920s farmwives reported spending only 3.9 hours per week taking care of children and adults. That’s less than an hour a day. Does that really sound reasonable? A child can be ignored except for a brief, less than 1 hour period each day? My guess is that in the 1920s tthere was a lot of X+childcare. Like, making a meal while also keeping tabs on the children, maybe holding one on the hip if it was too young, or having them help out if they were old enough. Or, something similar while cleaning or mending clothing. This wouldn’t show up in extra hours of work done. But, it would make the work more challenging and less fun. It’s often fun to cook for people. It’s much less fun to cook for people while also wrangling multiple kids at the same time.
Another big difference between 1920 and 1965 is that time spent “Purchasing, management, travel, other” went way up. Purchasing, i.e. shopping, is clearly something that has to be done. But, it is also sometimes a leisure activity. If you just purely count it as housework, then mindlessly scrolling for things on amazon.com is a household chore.
The paper is really short on details. I’d like to see what the breakdown of tasks actually was. If “housework” includes things like reading a kid a bedtime story, scrolling for deals on amazon, and going to a kid’s soccer game, then sure I can imagine that “housework” hasn’t really gone down. But, I think the reality is that the true “work” part of housework really has gone down.
In Table 3, the only one that actually breaks down activity by time and compares different time periods, the latest date mentioned is 1965, 60 years ago. I think even by 1965 the amount of drudge work was down by a lot. But, I imagine that it has also gone down much, much more in 2025.
Oddly, though the work type has changed, there’s only about 5 hours less a week of housework than there was in 1900. Heck that’s less then 45 minutes a day difference, even with everything you mentioned.
I agree the work is far less physically demanding, but modern standards dictate about the same amount of time burden, the difference lies mainly in that men have picked up 13 more of those hours a week, and that it’s more rare for only one adult to work outside the home.
https://www.nber.org/digest/oct08/hours-spent-homemaking-have-changed-little-century?page=1&perPage=50
That seems extremely hard to believe to me.
Looking at the actual study, something suspicious is this, from Table 3:
1920s farmwives reported spending only 3.9 hours per week taking care of children and adults. That’s less than an hour a day. Does that really sound reasonable? A child can be ignored except for a brief, less than 1 hour period each day? My guess is that in the 1920s tthere was a lot of X+childcare. Like, making a meal while also keeping tabs on the children, maybe holding one on the hip if it was too young, or having them help out if they were old enough. Or, something similar while cleaning or mending clothing. This wouldn’t show up in extra hours of work done. But, it would make the work more challenging and less fun. It’s often fun to cook for people. It’s much less fun to cook for people while also wrangling multiple kids at the same time.
Another big difference between 1920 and 1965 is that time spent “Purchasing, management, travel, other” went way up. Purchasing, i.e. shopping, is clearly something that has to be done. But, it is also sometimes a leisure activity. If you just purely count it as housework, then mindlessly scrolling for things on amazon.com is a household chore.
The paper is really short on details. I’d like to see what the breakdown of tasks actually was. If “housework” includes things like reading a kid a bedtime story, scrolling for deals on amazon, and going to a kid’s soccer game, then sure I can imagine that “housework” hasn’t really gone down. But, I think the reality is that the true “work” part of housework really has gone down.
In Table 3, the only one that actually breaks down activity by time and compares different time periods, the latest date mentioned is 1965, 60 years ago. I think even by 1965 the amount of drudge work was down by a lot. But, I imagine that it has also gone down much, much more in 2025.