Men fail to do fair share of housework as women pick up the slack: new census figures

A THIRD of men aren’t pulling their weight at home and do nothing to help with the housework, new census figures show. See how the battle of the sexes is playing out when it comes to domestic chores.

A THIRD of Melbourne men are doing nothing to help around the home, new census figures show.

But while the men are putting up their feet, 15 per cent of women are spending at least 15 hours a week scrubbing floors, cleaning toilets and cooking.

And 13 per cent of women are spending 30 hours-plus on chores — almost the equivalent of a full-time job.

Domestic work includes all housework like cleaning and cooking, gardening, home maintenance and shopping.

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Luly Gazeas enjoys a beer while wife Lorna mows the lawn. Picture: Tony Gough

Macleod dads Luly Gazeas and Ned Di Genova both say they get away with doing hardly anything at home, while their wives Lorna Gazeas and Kelly Di Genova pick up the slack.

Ms Di Genova, 35, said she just put up with it.

“I run my own business, I am a full-time mum, full-time cook, full-time cleaner and a full-time mower,” she said.

“I think I’ve just learnt to suck it up and do it because he doesn’t lift a finger.”

The pregnant Ms Di Genova said she knew what she signed up for when she got married.

“I knew I was marrying a mummy’s boy, maybe not to what extent, but I knew it. Making everyone laugh is his main job.”

Ned Di Genova’s pregnant wife Kelli does majority of the family’s housework. Picture: Tony Gough

Mr Gazeas said he takes it easy and doesn’t even do the gardening.

“Doing the lawn falls to me but I just call the gardener and get them to do it,” he said.

“The boss (his wife) cooks, cleans, looks after the kids, tells me what to do and then I might do it two weeks later.”

The data from last year’s census reveal that across Melbourne, six out of 10 males either did no unpaid domestic work or less than five hours a week.

Professor Roger Wilkins, from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, said the gender gap was a problem because inequality in the home led to inequality at work.

Belair dad Luca Bianco-Prevot is happy to share the housework with wife Maria and kids Enea, 6, Sveva, 8, and Pietro, 10. Picture: Tom Huntley

“Women are less able to pursue careers and work the long hours required to get promoted if they carry the bulk of the burden of unpaid domestic work,” he said.

“However, it is not clear the extent to which women are unhappy with the division of labour that sees men spending more time in paid work and women spending more time on unpaid domestic work.”

But Prof Wilkins said the evidence showed that even when a couple worked similar hours in paid jobs, women still reported doing more unpaid domestic work.

“For women, it is often regarded as a positive attribute to spend a lot of time on household chores, whereas for men, it is often perceived as not very masculine to do household chores.”

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In the City of Greater Dandenong, which includes Dandenong and Noble Park, 41 per cent of men reported they did no housework.

Similar rates were recorded in western suburbs like Sunshine and St Albans, and in northern areas such as Broadmeadows and Coolaroo.

Suburbs where men were most likely to do chores included St Kilda, Eltham, Camberwell and Brighton.

In the City of Nillumbik, which includes Eltham and Hurstbridge, 36 per cent of women did at least 15 hours of chores a week, while a third of females in Cardinia Shire and Mornington Peninsula Shire did the same.

In regional areas, a quarter of men in Greater Geelong, Greater Bendigo and Ballarat City did no domestic work, while about a third of women did at least 15 hours in those areas.

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