Couples Who Share the Housework Are More Likely To Divorce, Study Finds

Telegraph ^ | February 1,2013 | Henry Samuel

[lbryce]

n what appears to be a slap in the face for gender equality, the report found the divorce rate among couples who shared housework equally was around 50 per cent higher than among those where the woman did most of the work.

“What we’ve seen is that sharing equal responsibility for work in the home doesn’t necessarily contribute to contentment,” said Thomas Hansen, co-author of the study entitled “Equality in the Home”.

The lack of correlation between equality at home and quality of life was surprising, the researcher said.

“One would think that break-ups would occur more often in families with less equality at home, but our statistics show the opposite,” he said.

The figures clearly show that “the more a man does in the home, the higher the divorce rate,” he went on.

The reasons, Mr Hansen said, lay only partially with the chores themselves.

“Maybe it’s sometimes seen as a good thing to have very clear roles with lots of clarity ... where one person is not stepping on the other’s toes,” he suggested.

“There could be less quarrels, since you can easily get into squabbles if both have the same roles and one has the feeling that the other is not pulling his or her own weight.”

But the deeper reasons for the higher divorce rate, he suggested, came from the values of “modern” couples rather than the chores they shared.

“Modern couples are just that, both in the way they divide up the chores and in their perception of marriage” as being less sacred, Mr Hansen said. “In these modern couples, women also have a high level of education and a well-paid job, which makes them less dependent on their spouse financially.

[Revolting cat!]

THIS JUST IN:

A study published today by a team of the scientists at the University of Camembert has conclusively determined that 60% of all university scientific studies reach patently false conclusions.

[GSP.FAN]

[AbolishCSEU]

Me: full time job and side jobs
Him: full time job and sporadic side jobs
Me: handles finances/ pays 95% of bills
Him: pays massive child support to ex wife
Me: Laundry
Him: remodeling/fixing
Me: helper for remodeling/fixing
Him: cooks 25% of the time
Me: gardening, canning, sewing, lawn mowing, weeding
Him: sweeps and washes windows 25% of the time
Me: household shopping/all other household chores
Him: beer shopping
Me: taxes, paralegal for previously enjoyed family issues, secretary
Me: general pet care
Him: holds pets while I clip their nails
Me: brings in wood for woodstove (only source of heat)
Him: cuts down trees
Both: split and stack trees
I get free car maintenance through his work

[Gene Eric]

ROFLOL - just heard a promo on a report that says less housework might be leading to fatter women.