By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff reporter
Jeong Eun-young, a working woman in her early 30s, said her spouse shares the housework and it is natural in her house.
“We divided the household chores — I do the cooking and the laundry, while my husband cleans the house and takes out the garbage. We wash the dishes together after meals. Sometimes, whoever comes home first washes any leftover dishes,” she said. “Most of my friends work together and share household chores.”
However, she admitted that in older generations, men are still reluctant to do housework. “As more couples are joint bread-winners, I think both men and women should do housekeeping together as they both work outside,” Jeong said.
However, in reality, housekeeping is still the wife’s job in most cases.
A civic group, the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family (SFWF) said women of two-income couples work four hours and 47 minutes a day at the workplace on average, about an hour less than the five hours and 53 minutes of men, but female’s overall labor hours are longer when time spent on housekeeping is included.
Men of dual-income families do household chores for only 42 minutes per day, which is about one fifth of women’s three hours and 27 minutes, its survey showed.
Women who have preschool children spend four hours and five minutes at work and four hours and 42 minutes on chores in the home. Their office hours are shorter than that of men, but housework hours are about three hours longer.
However, some men claimed that it is unfair to judge men’s housework on simple statistics as men earn more money than women traditionally.
“I work full time and my wife works part time, thus our income is different. She does more housework because she spends more time at home,” a 38-year-old office worker Kim said.
Dual-income couples spend less time with their spouses, compared to families with a stay-at-home wife.
Son Moon-geum, a researcher at the foundation, said the long working hours might harm the emotional bond of the married couple. “The husband and wife should be more considerate to each other and try to keep up the intimacy,” Son said.