National Call For Men to Pull Their Weight

[Uiler]

A recent study in Australia has shown that men habitually shirk housework. The most startling result is that even when the men are "stay at home" husbands and their wives work fulltime, their wives still do substantially more housework then their husbands and in fact do *more* than a woman who has a husband working as well showing that there is a substantial cultural problem, not just a matter of men working more hours (OK, the less charitable of us might just call it laziness...). Stay at home mums get 24 minutes leisure time a day. Men get 3 times this amount so it's also not "well they mow the lawn". Also with the aging society, an increasing number of elderly parents are cared for by their kids. 90% of carers are female and most have jobs.

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1258&storyid=3323593

STOP dreaming about a stay-at-home husband girls – it will add two hours a week to your housework duties.

Women are doing 70 per cent of the housework and new research shows they still do more than their husband, even if he opts to stay at home and care for the children and she works full-time.

While unemployed men do more housework than blokes who work (10.6 hours a week) their wives do even more (16 hours a week).

And it's worse for those women who have a stay-at-home husband.

Women employed full-time with a stay-at-home husband do 16 hours housework a week, two hours more than a full-time working mum whose husband works full-time.

The shocking statistics are in a discussion paper to be launched by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward today, which shows working mothers get no leisure time.

While stay-at-home mums average just 24 minutes leisure time a day their husbands get an hour and 12 minutes.

The Sex Discimination Commissioner Pru Goward has called for this to change. The reason she says is for the future sustainability of our society. She points out that unpaid housework and the strains this places on women is one of the key factors limiting fertility rates in Australia. Also, the resentment amongst women about men not pulling their fair share cares family instability and marriage breakups.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Natio...ousework-Goward/2005/06/22/1119321778698.html

This is despite the fact women are joining the workforce in increasing numbers making up 44.8 per cent of the paid workforce today compared to 43.9 per cent in 2000.

The issue of unpaid work, which includes housework and caring for children and the elderly, is a key concern when it comes to increasing the numbers of paid workers, Ms Goward says.

"The federal government's made it clear that Australians have to work more," Ms Goward says.

"But we are not going to get more work out of Australia, we are not going to cope with the demands of a shrinking workforce and an ageing workforce if women don't work more.

"The other half of the equation is that we have to get men to do more in the home so that women are released from some of those obligations."

Men have "just got to get with the program" and get more involved in the unpaid work burden, she says.

"If they want their marriages to stay intact, if they don't want the nagging ... then do a bit more, ask your partner what she wants you to do and divide it up," she said.

"Men must start asking for family friendly positions to be made available to them and if they don't start objecting when they get relegated ... for daring to say 'my mother's got Alzheimer's and I must take her to regular doctors appointments', then we won't get any change."

The federal government had made some progress in addressing the work family balance but still had a long way to go, Ms Goward said.

"The family taxation arrangements discourage men and women from sharing the caring," she said.

"Taxation arrangements favour one full time worker and one full time parent, they don't favour the husband and the wife both doing three quarter jobs.

"So we've got to think about how we organise our welfare arrangements to encourage a greater sharing of paid work, but also unpaid work."

While she says the Howard government's workplace relations reforms could lead to greater flexibility in the workforce, it was important to look at how these changes could be made more family friendly.

"There needs to be some flexibility entitlements for workers ... (and) you're not going to get those things without some support in industrial legislation."

She also points out that more sharing of household and caring responsibilities might actually make men happier as an increasing number of men feel unhappiness about not being able to spend more time with their young children.

Ms Goward said unpaid work was the linchpin of the work and family debate.

And she wants changes to the Sex Discrimination Act to make it easier for men to use family-friendly work conditions.

Men who want to spend more time with their families are just as disadvantaged by the current imbalance in unpaid work, she said.

They are prevented from looking after sick kids and sharing the care of young children by a workplace culture that assumes that is woman's work.

Ms Goward wants boys to be taught cooking and cleaning skills at school and she said caring for elderly parents needed to be factored into family friendly workplace measures.

Women will also have to change their expectations. "Many women have distinctly modest expectations about the contribution their male partners can make to sharing the household and unpaid care responsibilities," she said.

This article sums it up. In an aging society where an increasing number of elderly parents have to be cared for and where we have to get more and more work out of fewer people, the current situation is unsustainable. Not only that but it causes a great deal of personal unhappiness for women (for obvious reasons) and men as they are not able to spend time with their children or parents. This is not just due to personal choices but also cultural pressures, a bad taxation system and lack of flexibility among employers.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...le-of-the-sexes/2005/06/21/1119321738097.html

More equal sharing of household chores and paid work would benefit not only men and women, but the economy too, says Pru Goward.

A discussion paper to be published by the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner today says population growth, workforce participation and productivity - the three Ps the Treasurer says are essential for economic growth - would be enhanced if men and women spread the responsibility for paid work and housework and caring for children and the elderly.

But to do this there need to be changes in the law, society and workplace culture.

The balance between work and family is an issue close to the Government, with the Prime Minister, John Howard, calling it a "barbecue stopper".

The paper, Striking the Balance: Women, men, work and family, is designed to stimulate debate and prompt written submissions to the inquiry on Paid Work and Family Responsibilities being conducted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. It should have weight as Ms Goward has influenced the government policy before.
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It says: "Future economic prosperity relies on families in Australia being able to combine paid work with family responsibilities efficiently and sustainably."

At the same time, the question of how to value unpaid care work, and how to distribute it fairly between families, government and employers, is a core issue.

The current arrangement, where women do most of the housework and child care, and men are primary breadwinners works against "the principles of a democratic and just society", the paper says. And even though the arrangement appears to be the result of private choices, freely made, the level of disquiet and exhaustion in Australian families showed the opposite is true.

"Choices are never made in a vacuum," it says. They are influenced by government laws and policies, employer practices, and community attitudes. Under current tax policies, for example, there is "no incentive for both parents to work part time and share the care of their children more equally".

The paper says women are often reluctant to acknowledge the inequity of current arrangements. "Domestic harmony may be seen as a trade-off for ignoring unfair arrangements."

The unequal division of labour threatens health, family relationships, workforce participation rates, women's retirement income, fertility rates and the nation's productivity. The ramifications of not changing the status quo are said to be considerable.

As long as women are expected to care for children and ageing relatives, they cannot participate equally with men in the workplace, and will be on a "downward economic spiral", vulnerable to poverty in old age or in the event of a divorce.

Men are also disadvantaged as they are denied time to invest in close relationships with their partners and children.

The paper says these issues will become more important as the population ages. Men and women will be expected to stay longer in the workforce, yet take more responsibility for ageing relatives. To meet these conflicting objectives men will have to care for the elderly more, particularly as women's superannuation will be compromised by time off work caring for children.

The 56.6 per cent workforce participation rate of women is moderate by the standards of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. But the 40.8 per cent rate of women over 55 is low. Yet this is the same group the Government believes should be working more.

The discussion paper says options for change include laws that give parents the right to request part-time work, and better government support for families with two part-time incomes.

While the report often suggests conclusions, Ms Goward said final recommendations would be released early next year after input from the public.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

Wow, guess my wife needs to read this to see what most men are like so I can get out of some work.

 

[h4ppy]

I think that its just that most men don't care if the antiques are dusty and thus don't do anything about. I remember reading an article where they proved that with science.

 

[BasketCase]

I say the modern-day human male is simply the product of millions of years of evolution.

If such a gigantic number of males don't give a damn about the carpets being vacuumed or the TV set dusted or the dishes put away after the dishwasher is done, it must be because this behavior has survival value. Of course, I can't think of any possible survival value this behavior could actually have, but hey, don't mess with science.

Additionally, the fact that male reticence about housework is so widespread, leads to the hypothesis that a strong majority of women chose mates with anti-housework genes.

There's one very simple reason why men act like pigs all the time: it's because women refuse to mate with tidy, polite, neatly-dressed nerds. It's all your fault, ladies. Deal with it.

(Twenty points for excellent cynicism, minus fifty for bad taste )

 

[SeleucusNicator]

I'm curious as to what the actual impact of housework is to the fertility of the human female. You'd certainly assume that the amount of housework done before the past few years was more than what you see now, and yet fertility rates have dropped rather than increased.

I'd be more inclined to believe that the drop in fertility stems from other sources.

 

[stratego]

Could it be that men work faster?

When I clean the toilet, I just pour in bleach and flush it twice. My mom takes much longer.

 

[Knowze Gungk]

Pfft. Women just have unnaturally absurd definitions of what is & isn't clean. They're also notoriously single minded on how things should be cleaned, take the toilet for example. Women always complain that men never clean the toilet, which is untrue, we men are constantly cleanining the toilet bowl, squirting the unsightly stains with the greatest toilet cleaning agent known to man, urine (That's right! Did you think we actually enjoy drinking all this beer?). But can you explain this to women? Hell no! They just resort to nonsense, stringing random words together with toilet, like toilet brush and toilet duck. What's next? Toilet barbeque!?

Ignore this article, women are mad I tells ya, mad!