One in eight Aussies do zero housework and it holds the whole country back

ONE in eight Australians are so slack they’re holding the rest of the country back. If we keep picking up the slack, nothing will change.

One in four Australian men do zero housework, and it has major implications on our entire society. Picture: istock

LOOK up and around you. Count the men.

There’s the 20-something bloke in his skinny jeans, completing the look with a hipster beard and designer flannel shirt. One. A corporate-type with his latest model iPhone permanently attached to one ear, dressed in a suit that was tailored just for him. Two.

There’s the stay at home dad, who is gently shushing the baby strapped to his chest, eyelids drooping with exhaustion. Three. An older gentleman who appears to have walked directly off the set of a Woody Allen film: black skivvy, houndstooth cap and wireframe glasses. Four.

Which one — do you think — failed to do a single hour of housework last week?

The 2016 census results are in and they reveal a whopping one in four adult Australian men doesn’t do housework. Not that they do a little housework, or not enough housework, or less housework than the women they live with. One in four Aussie blokes do no housework whatsoever.

I want to pretend to be shocked. To feign surprise, drop my jaw dramatically and gasp that this could possibly be the case in twenty seventeen.

But I’m not shocked. I’m just pissed off.

When it comes to unpaid caring and domestic work, Australian women still carry a hugely disproportionate load. While women are entering the paid workforce in higher numbers than ever before, this has not been matched by a similar boost in men participating in unpaid work at home.

We don’t stack up particularly well compared to the rest of the world either. Figures released by the OECD a couple of years ago show that Australian women lead the developed world in the amount of unpaid work we do. Our women’s workforce participation rate is also lower than what you might expect for a country like Australia.

We’re a country that likes to think of itself as gender equal but the data tells a very different story. On average, Australian women spend between five and 14 hours a week cleaning, cooking, shopping (not the fun kind) and generally making their home habitable. The average bloke spends less than five hours doing the same.

Now you might say that this is a personal choice for families — it’s up to them to divide their time and skills as they see fit. And fair enough. If a heterosexual couple makes a genuine, informed and considered choice that one person should do all of the paid work and the other all of the unpaid work, then that is up to them.

However for many families this division of labour isn’t about choice at all. Studies show that even when women are the primary breadwinners, they still do the majority of the domestic and caring duties. Women tend to do at least equal amounts of cleaning and cooking, even in families where mum works full time and dad isn’t in the paid workforce.

Let’s stop kidding ourselves.

Let’s start calling out this division of labour for what it really is: Unfair.

Mrs Audrey Marland won a Bride of the Year contest in 1955, and this was illustrated at the time showing her being a good wife by doing the washing. We should have moved on but we haven’t. Picture: Dennis Oulds/Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Australian families aren’t distributing labour according to ability. We are still slaves to outdated and entrenched stereotypes that say cleaning is something women simply care ‘more’ about or are ‘better at’. Stereotypes that say there is ‘women’s work’ and there is ‘men’s work’. What’s the difference between the two? Well, women’s work is the stuff that nobody pays for but nonetheless is utterly essential to keeping our country going.

This stuff may seem trivial when you’re standing in the kitchen arguing about why the dishwasher hasn’t been unstacked. It may seem like the small stuff, the stuff we should just be getting on with and instead devoting our energy to the bigger issues. But it’s not trivial or small because the ramifications of this gendered division of labour haunt women for the rest of their lives.

Australian women do more unpaid domestic work than men. Women do more unpaid caring work than men. Women are more likely to work part time. Women are more likely to take long breaks from the paid workforce around children. Women are employed in industries that pay less. Women are less likely to reach the upper echelons of workplaces. Women’s career earnings peak earlier than men’s.

All of this adds up over the course of a lifetime so that Australian women are retiring with half the superannuation of men. One third of Australian women retires with no superannuation at all. And because women live longer, they have to support themselves with less over a longer period of time. It’s why one of the fastest growing groups of Australians living in poverty, are older women.

So while the new census data showing that a quarter of men do no housework at all isn’t surprising, it should be distressing. This unfair division of labour has a real and lasting impact on the lives of women. It is high time this country admitted the highly confronting reality that we aren’t as gender equal as we like to think.

And fellas? I hate to break it to you but a vagina is not a requirement to operating a vacuum cleaner. If you enjoy the benefits of living in a tidy home, of sleeping on washed sheets and of having ironed clothes to wear, of having a pantry stocked with food you like to eat — then you should be making a contribution to that.

Now how about we get on with it already?

Jamila Rizvi is a news.com.au columnist and presenter for Fox FM. Her first book ‘Not Just Lucky: Why women do the work but don’t take the credit’ is on sale now, available from your local independent bookseller or online at Booktopia.