Women Still Bear Full Burden of Household Chores

Korean women spend an hour and 36 minutes on household chores every day but their husbands only 18 minutes, even in double-income families.

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Men also usually sleep more than their wife.

The findings come from a study by Cho Mi-ra at Seoul National University of 3,131 couples in their 20s to 50s.

Cho divided couples into nine categories based on the working hours of husbands and wives and analyzed how much time each spent a day on work, household chores, sleep and leisure.

In double-income couples where both husband and wife work more than 10 hours at work, the women spent an hour and 18 minutes more a day on household chores than the men.

Among couples where both work between 7.2 and 10 hours a day, the women spent a whopping two hours and 12 minutes more a day on household chores than the men.

In both cases, the husbands had 12 to 42 more minutes of leisure time a day than their wives and slept six more minutes.

If only the wife worked for a living, both husband and wife spent an hour and 36 minutes on household chores. The husbands slept eight hours and 24 minutes a day, about an hour more than their wives, and had six hours and 18 minutes more leisure time.

Cho said, "The amount of time Korean men spend on household chores was low regardless of how big a role the wife played taking care of finances".