Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Yet another inconvenient truth: The lazy husband myth
This news isn't going to be popular in certain circles:
Everyone from economists and sociologists to Oprah knows that women work more than men. Their longer combined hours, at the home and at the office, stop men from taking afternoon naps on the couch and cause fights that end with men spending nights on the couch. And yet according to new study, those longer hours are a myth, because it's just not true that women carry a heavier load....
Throughout the world, men spend more time on market work, while women spend more time on homework. In the United States and other rich countries, men average 5.2 hours of market work a day and 2.7 hours of homework each day, while women average 3.4 hours of market work and 4.5 hours of homework per day. Adding these up, men work an average of 7.9 hours per day, while women work an average of—drum roll, please—7.9 hours per day. This is the first major finding of the new study. Whatever you may have heard on The View, when these economists accounted for market work and homework, men and women spent about the same amount of time each day working. The averages sound low because they include weekends and are based on a sample of adults that included stay-at-home parents as well as working ones, and other adults.
So why do women think men sit around and watch television? Because they do, but only after they have put in their time:
Although men in many rich countries do not work less than women, they do enjoy about 20 to 30 minutes more leisure per day (over an hour more in Italy) because they spend less time on sleep and other biological necessities. Men spend almost all of this additional leisure time watching television.
If this is true (and it may not be), why is it received wisdom that women work much harder than men? My theory, which is bound to get me into deep doo-doo, is that men, on average, enjoy their work more and complain about it less. I admit to no idea whether this is because of male joi de vive or simply that men have arrogated to themselves work that is inherently more fun -- driving the lawn tractor is more fun than buying groceries, to pick a couple of gender roles that do not apply stereotypically in our household -- but I believe it to be true.
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds, who at least seems to have great fun at "work." Indeed, Glenn might have told us whether blogging "market work," "homework", or "leisure". Jeez, but he didn't. Well, I think blogging is fairly obviously "market work" if you're the Instapundit, and "leisure" if you're TigerHawk.
9 Comments:
By 
Escort81, at
Wed Apr 18, 01:35:00 AM:
Men who reached adulthood in the first half of the 20th century did so in a culture that encouraged a degree of stoicism (if not outright emotional distance) for husbands as the "head of household." Some of that uncomplaining stoic tradition, right or wrong, inevitably spilled over into the next generation of men, recognizing at the same time there were meaningful, worthwhile and long overdue gains that women made in the society and culture in the second half of the 20th century, such that husbands and wives became "co-equal partners." Women simply added to their long list of responsibilities and felt compelled to live up to the impossible "supermom" ideal, thereby adding to their stress level, ultimately necessitating both more sleep and more verbalization of their difficulties.
Short answer: Husbands man up, Wives vent.
/Sarcasm !
By 
, at
Wed Apr 18, 08:18:00 AM:
Brave lad. I believe a missing part of this analysis is whether both kinds of work are valued equally, both respectively by either spouse and collectively by society. You touch on the subject when you raise the issue of "fun". Time put in is not the salient issue, at least in my humble experience. Market work has many rewards and measures and takes place - by and large - among others who understand and accept those rewards and values. Homework is measured and valued by...the one who does it and one hopes by the rest of the family that relies on it, but that's it. It is not social, nor particularly stimulating, and society does not accord it an equivalent value to market work, Mom and apple pie notwithstanding. Those who do marketwork and also put in time on homework have more opportunity for recognition of their contributions and accomplishments outside the home, and are unlikely to get a similar amount of recognition for bathing the kids and emptying the dishwasher now and then from the one who does that as a greater percentage of his/her work hours.
Leastwise that's what happens in my house.
By DWPittelli, at
Wed Apr 18, 08:50:00 AM:
What "lazy husband" myth? Among many upper-middle class people, anyway, there is still the expectation that the husband will work long hours, possibly including business travel, while the wife will raise the children, perhaps with part-time work (and perhaps with the help of a nanny), even after they are in school or college, with lots of tennis and social events among other women. Further, the wife and kids will go to their preferred summering spot (a house, rented or owned, on Cape Cod or an island, or on the sea or a lake in ME, NH or VT) for a month or more, where the husband will join them on weekends and perhaps a week in August.
Of course, among the lumpen proletariat there is the expectation that mothers will raise children AND work, while their shiftless men will drink a lot and go in and out of prison.
Full disclosure: I am a stay-at-home dad. But sadly, I have little time for drinking or prison, and I do not expect to avoid paid employment once my children are in 5-day/week school (from Kindergarten on).
By RandomThoughts, at
Wed Apr 18, 09:56:00 AM:
When I do laundry (and I manage to not ruin the clothes) the 10 min. spent on folding the laundry seem like 2 hours.
Perceptions beat reality.
By , at
Wed Apr 18, 05:22:00 PM:
It's not that Mr. Bookworm is lazy -- far from it. He's one of the hardest working people I know. What gets my goat is that, while I don't make work for him (nobody sees me in his office sneaking projects into his inbox), he does make work for me -- clothes left on the floor, dishes in random rooms of the house, etc. Also, I don't know that the study takes into consideration women who, as I do, both work and manage the household. That gives me snooty superiority boasting rights.
By , at
Wed Apr 18, 07:07:00 PM:
There is a corrollary to the situation Ms. Bookworm describes. Not only does she not sneak additional work into Mr. Bookworm's inbox, there are not many spouses who are in a position to directly help one or another who primarily does marketwork with that work - but both spouses are available and capable of helping with homework.
By , at
Wed Apr 18, 08:30:00 PM:
My husband is a hard worker. When we got married, our apartment was spotless and meals were on time. That was my job. His job was to work on the car. Or me.
Heh.
When I had to enter the workforce a couple of years later, I had some labor intensive jobs, but
even with that my husband could still out work me.
It has only been within the last couple of years he has learned that it is OKAY to relax.
I want to grow OLD with him...that was the whole point of getting married in the first place.
I am such a harpy.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Wed Apr 18, 10:29:00 PM:
I'm bringing the husband average down on this, I'm sure.
By , at
Thu Apr 19, 12:33:00 AM:
And while TIPPER dose all the work AL lays around all day on his backside sipping winecoolers and thinking of a new way he can blame modern society for this global warming poppycock
