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“Housework or whatever, don’t hold everything by yourself”
Today’s story teller is a natural-life specialist, Noriko Sakou.
The topic is housewives’ attitudes to their housework.
According to a consumer goods company’s survey, Japanese housewives spend four and a half hours to complete daily housework on the average.
The company, Procter & Gamble (P&G) conducted a survey on twenties to fifties married women who have children in America, England, Sweden and China as well as Japan.
Four and a half hours is surprising because if we take seven hours of sleep, work eight hours, and spend one hour for commuting, the rest is eight-hour.
It means we have to spare more than a half of the eight-hour to complete housework.
The result told that Japanese women spend the longest time for housework hands-down.
The second longest time was Swedish women’s two-hour and forty minutes.
The shortest time was Chinese women’s “less than two-hour”.
It doesn’t mean that Japanese women are clumsy but it is about how much housework they do.
According to Sako, 90% of the Japanese subjects do laundries everyday, while 60% of other countries’ subjects do so.
And the countries that more than 50% of the subjects clean house everyday are only Japan and China.
While there are many Chinese subjects answered “family members and I clean,” most of Japanese subjects’ answered “only I clean.”
It may be connecting to the result that more than 60% of Japanese subjects answered “housework is my duty.”
This percentage topped too.
Sako’s word,
“There are not so few housewives who are not good at and hate housework like me. But if they feel ‘it is a duty that I have to do’, it must be painful. They need to think out solution like allotting a portion of housework to each family member.”
The NIKKEI Oct/14/2009 by Noriko Sako (a natural-life specialist)
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My mum spends from 2pm (or whenever she arrives from work) till 9pm..I usually do my share of chores as well during holidays/non-exam period. My father used to help too, but since he passed away I took over his share as well, since I don’t work, and therefore don’t contribute to the house/family in any other way..and mum works relatively unstable hours.
Here in Malta; The older generations; still many men think it is the wife’s sole duty (with child bearing) and that the wife should stick to the house..the wives..I think many think its their duty since the men work and therefore they need to rest after work.
‘younger’ generations tend to share housework between partners/family..more so if/when the wife/partner works (I myself think that after 4 years in university I have an equal right to work) but it depends on values and upbringing…nowadays many young children (even males) help with chores..that might influence on how they will behave in their new family.
>Natsume1990: Thank you for your comment. That’s good for you to do housework because you will know what to do when you become a wife someday. Some young people stay with their parents even after finishing college and don’t know how to do house things. So I think you are lucky.
What you said about how Malta’s people think about housework is like Japan. And I can see many young parents tend to have their children do some housework since when they’re young.